The Eleventh Sunday Pentecost, August 08, 2021.
YEAR B
First Reading: 1 Kings 19:4-8
Comment: “Elijah given bread for his journey”
In our Hebrew scripture reading, Elijah seeks to escape the wrath of Jezebel after his successful contest with the priests of Baal. God miraculously intervenes on Elijah’s behalf and gave him strength to journey forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, where Moses received the ten commandments. The number forty reminds us of other biblical journeys and experiences, such as the forty years in the wilderness, the forty days of Noah’s flood, and later of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
Psalm 34:1-8
A hymn of blessing and praise to the Lord for divine deliverance.
Second Reading (The Epistle): Ephesians 4:25—5:2
Comment: “Put away evil, live in love”
In this lesson, Christians are urged to conform to a new way of life which is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. They are to have a love like the love of Christ. All manner of evil is to be shunned. Especially are the new converts to put away spitefulness and other sins which harm the one body and grieve the Spirit with which they have been sealed in baptism. The model is none other than a God who is revealed in the Christ who sacrificed himself for us.
The Holy Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51
Comment: “Christ, the bread of life”
In our gospel, Jesus continues to teach that he is the true bread who will bring all who have faith in him eternal life. The discussion is meant to recall the story of the Israelites protesting and murmuring against God in the wilderness because they had no bread. But even the manna that God gave them was only a temporary food. While Jesus seems very ordinary to the Jews (who represent a worldly lack of faith), he offers the world both his teaching and himself, a life-giving bread from heaven.