Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Our first reading offers an incredible, miraculous story of God’s direct intervention in the lives of God’s people with a mighty display of God’s sovereign power. It’s also a story highlighting the bold, audacious, unwavering faith of Elijah the prophet and his commitment to pursue and follow the true and living God. This story reveals the truth of all our hearts, as well. We are, at times, fickle and faithless. Elijah’s witness calls us “back to our senses,” and invites us to turn from any idolatry and to rededicate our hearts and lives to the eternal God. Our Gospel reveals the eternal nature of God’s Word and invites us to recognize that we are called to obey it as children of the Kingdom.
Elijah says to the people of his day, and to us, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” Elijah’s statement reads like a rhetorical question. Is the Lord God? Ok, then follow him. The people in Elijah’s community were supposedly committed to God, but they had turned so far away from true worship that 450 men from among them had risen up as prophets to the false god Baal. Elijah was the only true prophet left. Like Elijah’s contemporaries, we too, follow gods of our own devising. We may not carve them from wood or name them specifically, but if we’re honest with ourselves we do fashion God into our image and elevate things in our lives above God. Any disobedience means we’ve made something more important than God. Let us consider today what those things might be for each of us. Anything that distracts us from prayer and worship, anything that we seek or consult in place of God, anything that we elevate to an unhealthy level or pursue blindly or obsessively can become an idol. Our own gifts, skills, virtues, or intellect can become idols; nurturing our vices or sins can equally become idolatrous. In short, anything that we seek, love, pursue, or reverence more than God is an idol. The Baal prophets go about their theatrical attempt to appeal to their god with no result. The author tells us, “But there was not a sound; no one answered, and no one was listening.” Isn’t it the same in our own lives when we seek and pursue anything other than God? We’re left only with haunting emptiness.
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say to us, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Jesus goes on to attest that no part, not even the tiniest part of his Word will pass away. Jesus is the eternal Logos, the eternal Word of God. As such, he was with God the Father speaking the creation into being as the Spirit moved and breathed. From before the foundation of the world, Jesus has known us, loved us, and called us (Ephesians 1:4). Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, who, in the fullness of time broke into our mess to redeem and save us. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God placed eternity in the hearts of every human. It is here that deep cries out to deep (Psalm 42:7) as we respond to the eternal love of God, the eternal Word of God, the eternal Spirit of God.
When Jesus tells us that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, we realize that he could never abolish something that is eternal. The law did not come into being in the moment that God gave it to Moses. The living Word does not exist out in eternal time and space somewhere, it is not restricted to printed text, it is imbedded within us! We are made in the image of the eternal living God and our hearts are restless until they find rest in God (St Augustine). Whenever we turn aside to any false god, we’ve simply forgotten who we are and that our existence is not temporal but eternal. Our identity is in Christ; we are not defined by anything earthly or temporal. We exist for the praise of God’s glory (Eph. 1:6) and to operate in the Kingdom of God. Jesus says to us, “But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” We mustn’t read this statement legalistically. The people of Elijah’s day had a legalistic understanding of God’s law and commandments, yet they so easily turned away to worship Baal. Rather, might we understand Jesus’ statement as a reminder of who and whose we are. We are participants in the Kingdom of God. We are children of God and co-heirs with Christ, the Eternal Logos, who calls us to abide and remain in him, in the Word. As we do so, obedience to the Word is a natural expression of our identity and existence – of our eternal souls responding in love and gratitude to the eternal God.
As Elijah prepares his sacrifice to the Lord, he calls out, “Answer me, LORD! Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to their senses.” As we pray and meditate upon God’s Word today, let us confess our sin and our idolatry, and may today be a day that we come back to our senses and recommit ourselves to the God who loves us eternally and unconditionally and calls us to respond in love. If the Lord is God, follow Him! Amen!
Elizabeth Wells