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Everyone who listens
to my father and learns from him
comes to me. (John 6:47)
On the way out of
church following Mass one Sunday morning, a parishioner approached the
priest who had celebrated Mass and asked, “Can I speak with you for a
moment, Father?”
“Sure,” the
priest said. “Let’s go into the sacristy where we will have some
privacy and where it will be a little more quiet.”
Once inside the
sacristy, as the priest was taking off his vestments and placing them
into the closet, he asked the parishioner, “So, what is it you want to
discuss?”
The parishioner
began what ended up being a somewhat lengthy lesson about the importance
of prayer and of being persistent in prayer. A bit agitated, the priest
finally said in a somewhat impetuous tone, “Yes, yes, I know. That’s
all very important for our spiritual lives. So, what’s the bottom
line?”
“Well,” the
parishioner said, “I’ve been praying and praying for years about
something I think is important. After all of these prayers and all of
these years, when is God finally going to answer me?”
The priest
thought for a moment, looked the parishioner in straight in the eye, and
said, “So, what is it you don’t understand about ‘No’?”
Prayer and
persisting in prayer are very important to our spiritual lives. But, as
this joke reminds us, we oftentimes pester God in what we call “prayer”
about great everything would be if God would just make everything how we
want it to be. It’s almost as if we use prayer not to open our minds
and hearts to God by revealing our struggles, hopes, fears, and our need
for God’s grace—the truth about who we are as God’s creatures—but to
engage God in an arm wrestling match to get God to see and do everything
our way. After all, we reason, the world would be such a better place
if we were in charge! Or, at a minimum, we us prayer in an effort
to convince God to be on our side, to see things our way and on our
terms and, then, to give us what we want…on our schedule.
Spiritual
problems emerge, however, when we don’t get what we want and on our
schedule. In fact, it’s gets a little worse than that. When God is
silent to our all of our conniving and pleading when what we really want
are immediate answers to our prayers, we are tempted to blame God, to
give up on God or, as the joke suggests, to continue pestering God even
though God has already given us an answer. As the priest said to the
parishioner, “What is it you don’t understand about ‘No’?”
The spiritual
problem this joke points to is that even though we may believe we’re
praying, we really aren’t praying. How do we know this? It’s simple:
we’re talking at God not listening to God and we’re
certainly not learning from God. As Jesus said in today’s
gospel, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from
him comes to me.” We may believe that we’re praying, but because
we’re not listening and we’re certainly not learning from God’s silence,
we can’t possibly be praying because we keep returning to God with the
“same old, same old” rather than coming to Jesus to be nourished and
strengthened in holiness by the Bread of Life.
So, what does all
of this mean for us who know, as St. Paul reminds us, that we need to
root out from our hearts all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling
and malice so that we will become kinder, more compassionate, and
forgiving?
Let’s consider
Elijah the prophet, who was badgering God, as we heard in today’s first
reading.
A man who was
truly generous in spirit, Elijah accepted God’s call and agreed to
undertake the very dangerous task of confronting King Ahab, who had
turned from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to embrace the god of
his wife, Queen Jezebel. Leaving his family and work behind, Elijah
journeyed through the harsh desert to the royal court. Lo and behold,
Elijah convinced King Ahab to return to the God of his fathers. But,
Ahab’s wife, the cunning Queen Jezebel, resented Elijah’s success in
turning her husband away from her god. Filled with bitterness, fury,
anger, reviling, and malice, Jezebel swore out a death sentence upon
Elijah. Fearing for his life, the prophet fled to the desert.
That’s the
background for today’s first reading.
Despite his
success, Elijah now is sitting out in the middle of the harsh desert
beneath a broom tree, trying to keep cool while hiding from Jezebel’s
minions who are out for Elijah’s head and the bounty it will bring.
Sitting beneath that tree, Elijah certainly had to be wondering why God
was doing this to him because, after all, Elijah reasoned, he did
exactly what God had asked him to do. For doing this, why should Elijah
have a price put on his head? Growing despondent over this negative
turn of events, the prophet’s prayer has taken the form of a complaint:
“Why do I even bother? I do what God asks! And this is my reward?”
Then Elijah says, “Just let me die here and get it all over with.”
In the face of
God’s silence, Elijah continues to complain to God how Elijah had given
it his all. But now, sapped of strength with no water or nourishment in
sight, Elijah is quickly losing faith in God, his vocation, and in
himself. Whereas Elijah had believed that doing everything God had
asked would bring a life of happiness and bliss, events in Elijah’s life
since doing what God had asked seem to be teaching a different, more
cynical lesson. All of this leads Elijah to pray that God will leave
Elijah alone to die. The prophet’s hope is that death will provide an
escape route from the anguish and misery he is experiencing.
Looking upon
Elijah’s plight, this isn’t simply the stuff of some obscure Jewish
prophet who lived some 2800 years ago. No, it’s the real stuff of our
lives 2800 years later. Elijah’s story provides instructive guidance
concerning how—despite God’s silence—our prayers have already been
answered.
Think about these
examples.
What serious and
honest person has entered marriage without firmly believing that “this
is it,” only to discover through the rough and tumble of married life
that the dreams quickly fade and one’s hopes don’t glimmer and shimmer
quite as brightly as they once did? Then, hard as one tries, the
temptation to despair taps this spouse on one’s should as does the
temptation to lose faith in God and in one’s vocation. But, like
Elijah, have you found yourself complaining to God—ooppsss, I mean
“praying” to God and in the silence asking—“Why do I even bother?
I do what God
asks! And this is my reward?
Just let me die and
get it over with.”
Or, what
parents—peering into the eyes of one’s newborn child—don’t have visions
about how wonderful it will all be as the perfect parents, with the
perfect kid and, even, being the Holy Family itself, only to discover
that it doesn’t quite work that way. Suddenly, a parent becomes aware
or is made aware about a child’s imperfections or how you act just like
your Mom or Dad did when you were a know-it-all, recalcitrant kid, just
like your child is now? Like Elijah, have you ever found yourself
complaining to God—ooppsss, I mean “praying” to God and asking in the
silence—“Why do I even bother?
I do what God asks!
And this is my reward?
Just let me die and
get it over with.”
What young
person—watching television or observing friends and seeing everything
that everyone else has and that you desperately want—doesn’t have
visions about how wonderful it would be if only you had other parents
and grew up in a different house where you had all the trinkets and toys
and baubles you could ever want? Then, suddenly, you realize you never
will have all of these things, that your parents are your parents, and
that your home is your home with nowhere else to go. Some young people
get depressed by such thoughts. Like Elijah, have you ever found
yourself complaining to God—ooppsss, I mean “praying” to God and asking
in the silence—“Why do I even bother?
I do what God asks!
And this is my reward?
Just let me die and
get it over with.”
The spiritual
issue Elijah’s plight addresses focuses upon a delusion, namely, we
believe that when make God’s way our way, our lives will be filled with
ease, comfort, and bliss certainly not personal sacrifice. But, that’s
simply not the case, as Elijah’s experience attests, as Jesus’ rejection
attests, and as our own experience as spouses, parents, and as young
people attests. As we struggle and work at fulfilling our vocation and
as we live our lives trying to be good and holy people, that is when we
discover not the “Land of Oz” we believe God owes us—if only God would
answer our prayers—but we discover our limitations, our imperfections,
and our restive need for the Bread of Life.
But, if we just
listened to and learned from God’s silence rather than returning to God
with the same old complaints—remember what Sigmund Freud said psychosis
was, namely, “Knowing that something doesn’t work and keeping on doing
it again and again and again”—we’d come to Jesus. Rather than
complaining like Elijah, we’d discover Jesus—the Bread of Life—ready to
nourish us. And, unlike like Elijah who was sitting there in the desert
and despairing, we’d also discover when we come to Jesus—the Bread of
Life—ready to strengthen us. Thus, rather than demanding that God do
something for us, we’d come to Jesus—the Bread of Life—who will nourish
and strengthen us to do something for God!
This raises two
issues to consider. First, why do we persist in demanding God to give
us candies and sweets—that may offer a jolt of energy but provide no
substantive nourishment—when God has already given us the Bread of
Life? Second, why do we persist in demanding that God take away our
problems and difficulties when God has already given us the Bread of
Life to show us how to deal with our problems and difficulties? Is it
that we are trying to avoid the heavy lifting—the personal
sacrifice—that comes with embracing the Cross?
Jesus proclaims
in today’s gospel, “I am the bread of life.” When we listen to God and
learn from God’s silence, we come to Jesus who provides us the
nourishment and strength we need if we are to fulfill our vocations.
This Bread of Life—the word of God contained in Sacred Scripture and the
Body and Blood of Christ that is the Sacrament of the Eucharist—is the
true source of our nourishment and it the only source of strength along
the pathway of our vocations as we encounter problems and difficulties.
As St. Paul says
to the Ephesians, praying means being “imitators of God, as beloved
children, who live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” What grieves
God is when we talk to God, not listening to or learning from God and,
then, not coming to Jesus to be nourished and strengthened in holiness
by the Bread of Life. Yes, we talk to God—calling it “prayer”—but we
don’t imitate Jesus by removing all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting,
and reviling from our hearts, along with all malice. Yes, we talk to
God, but we aren’t kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one
another as God has forgiven us in Christ. It isn’t difficult at all to
understand why God is grieved by the aroma of this offering which
requires no personal sacrifice on our part.
It’s not by
demanding that God take our problems and difficulties away—whether they
are the problems and difficulties associated with marriage, raising
children, or growing up within a family—that we fulfill our vocations.
No, it is by listening to God, learning from God’s silence, and coming
to Jesus to be nourished and strengthened by the Bread of Life that we
fulfill our vocations.
“I am the bread
of life,” Jesus said. “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but
they died; this is the bread that comes down form heaven so that one may
eat it and not die.” Nourished and strengthened by the Bread of Life,
instead of demanding that God do something for us, we will do something
for God by making a sacrificial offering of ourselves to God, what St.
Paul calls “a fragrant aroma.” And what is that? We will
work and sacrifice to remove all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and
reviling from our hearts, along with all malice, and be kinder, more
compassionate, and forgiving people.
A brief
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