As you who have been paying attention to the readings the last couple of weeks will have noticed, this is the third of four Sundays the main theme of which is bread. Now when the church speaks of bread, of course, Christians understand this to be a reference to Holy Communion, to the risen Lord whose very body and blood are given to us in the Eucharistic feast, the living Christ, the bread of life. Jesus in fact declares to us today: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty….Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Just as the church has always believed and always taught about the Eucharist: the bread that we eat is the very body of the risen Christ himself.

Already the particular importance of this life-giving bread was prefigured in the OT—as Christians read and understand the OT. The prophet Elijah, who had just won a great victory over the prophets of Baal and then had ordered their deaths, a triumph and an order that angered Queen Jezebel causing Elijah to flee for his life, is able to gain strength and sustenance in his flight through the divine gift of bread. Elijah had become weak, exhuausted and discouraged during his escape into the wilderness, and so stopping to rest under a broom tree, Elijah asked the Lord to take his life. Instead the Lord gives him sustenance so that he can continue his journey, just as earlier the Lord had provided bread (manna) for the Israelites in their flight into the wilderness when they had become weak and discouraged following their escape from Pharoah. An angel comes to him, touches Elijah and encourages him to eat the freshly baked bread and to drink the jar of water that the Lord had provided, food and drink not only for the body but also for the soul and the spirit, so that Elijah may have the fortitude, the faith, and the determination to carry on with his prophetic mission. “[Elijah] got up,” the text tells us, “and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.” If Elijah had not received that gift of bread, the victory he had won over the prophets of Baal would have been a hollow victory and thus no victory at all—no victory for him, no victory for Israel, and no victory for the Lord.

Interestingly enough, and it is a noteworthy detail in our story, Horeb is the alternate name for Mt. Sinai. Why is this fact so important? Because Mt. Sinai, you recall, is the mountain on which God gave Israel the law, whence Moses was called and where he obtained water from the rock, where God made a covenant with his people, and the place from which the Israelites set out on their journey to the land of Canaan. Mt. Sinai was a vitally important location in Israel’s history, a central symbol of God’s presence among his people, of his gifts to them, and of the mission he set them to accomplish. As the story of Elijah continues, it will be there at Mt. Horeb/Sinai that Elijah will meet God, not in the earthquake, not in the wind, not in the fire, but rather in a voice that will order Elijah to annoint kings and prophets so that the covenant and the law God gave to Israel might be fulfilled. Thus one might say that the very covenent with Israel itself, and therefore the God of Israel’s promises to Israel, his very identity and integrity as Israel’s God, hinge on God’s giving to his prophet Elijah in the wilderness that life-giving, life-sustaining bread. The Eucharist is just that important, that central, and that essential for us too, not only for the church’s ongoing existence and mission, but also for the life of the world; for the Eucharist is the bread of life, without which the church could not carry out its mission to bring the life-giving message of the gospel to the ends of the earth; without which the church has no identity, with Israel, as God’s chosen people; without which spiritually we would perish; without which God would not and could not be known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Lord and Redeemer of the world.

The particular stress of the readings today, therefore, is on this special relationship between bread and life. The Eucharistic bread, the very body and blood of Christ, sustains and promises life--real, authentic life--in the Spirit. This bread, moreover, promises the gift and triumph of this life for the whole world.

But we should note: the life it sustains and promises is not mere existence. It is not just purdurance through time, permission to breathe; this life, rather, is love in its truest and purest and original form, namely, the special love of the God of Israel for his peope, a love that in Christ is eternal and certain, not subject to death and decay. It is a love that ultimately triumphs over sin and death, a love that survives slavery and exile and the constant threat of annhiliation by a host of enemies, a love, therefore, that unlocks the door to a kind of peace and love and freedom, and the kind of life, that nothing else we usually call “love” can give. What God demonstrates in his gift of bread to Elijah, in the gift to us of himself in the Eucharist, is his love exemplified in his faithfulness to his word and promise, to Israel first and foremost, and then to all those who are in Christ--God’s special love for his special people that overcomes the constant threat of hopelessness and the inevitability of their death at the hands of those who seek their destruction.

Therefore, God’s special love for his special people has consequences for the kind of life they live. One of the most important consequences of God’s gift of life is hope—hope especially against death, against the possibility that God’s word and promise might fail. Elijah was in danger of losing this hope and this faith, and therefore thought he might just as well die. He lost hope until he was sustained by God’s gift of bread, and thus given the possibility and the opportunity of new life not only for him but for his people. We see this expressed in today’s psalm: “I will bless the Lord at all times…I sought the Lord, who answered me and delivered me from all my terrors…I called in my affliction, and the Lord heard me and saved me from all my troubles…happy are those who take refuge in God!”

Another consequence of the bread of life relates to the internal dynamics of the community of faith. It is always in danger of permitting sin to take over, i.e., of succumbing to jealousy and anger, thus blocking and preventing God’s special love for his people that animates their love for each other. We see this reflected today in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (he could be talking to us). Paul first reminds the Ephesians that they are members of one another, one body in Christ. On that basis he gives them the following advice: “Be angry,” he says, “but do not sin…do not make room for the devil….Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear….Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you…and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

We must remember, therefore, that when we talk about sacrifice we are talking about the essence of love, because love is self-giving. The only self-giving love that is successful, and thus true love, is the love of God the Father and the Son for each other in the Spirit that binds them together, with us, in a love that is never-ending, creative, life-giving, and complete. Love is what is given to us today in the bread that is broken and the wine that is poured out in remembrance of him who gave up his life for us all. It is our hope and the ground of our faith that God’s promises to Israel and to us will not fail, no matter what. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who take refuge in God.”

-Amen-