Prayer Sunday: Turning your Murmurs into Prayers!
1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51
Murmurs and complaints find their way into our first and gospel readings on this 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, 2024. Interestingly, Elijah and the disciples of Jesus are not the only ones who murmur and complain. We do as well. What God expects us to do with our murmuring and complaining is the central message of today: “Turning our Murmurings into Prayers!”
Have you ever paid attention to the saying, “You do not live to eat, but eat to live?” This Sunday is an opportunity to meditate on the purpose of our lives to help us to change our murmurings and complaints into prayers!
Murmuring and complaining arise when we are stressed or faced with unpalatable situations. We murmur and complain when our plans fall through when we nurse expectations that become unrealized. We rap up our murmuring and complaining by either blaming God or someone else for our troubles and woes.
Elijah is clearly unhappy with God in our first reading. After carrying out God’s purposes, Jezebl places a price on Elijah’s head. Elijah flees for his dear life. He finds it difficult to understand why his life should be in danger while carrying out God’s commands. He probably expects everything about his life and security as a “holy prophet” to be hunky-dory. Elijah murmurs and complains to God. He doesn’t blame anyone but God for his woes. Elijah turns his complaints into prayer, and he says : “This is enough, O Lord. Take my life.”
Isn’t it the case that frustrations and unrealized dreams sometimes push us to the edge like Elijah? Unfortunately, some commit suicide out of frustration and stress! Do we not murmur and complain when the odds stack against us? Unlike Elijah, who turns his murmuring and complaining into prayers, do we not sometimes hurt other people intentionally or plan their downfall because we imagine them to be the architects of our failures?
Elijah’s strategy is different. He turns his murmurs and complaints into prayers and lies down to sleep. He knows that God hears complaints and murmurs and needs time to act. Elijah sleeps because he knows that God listens to prayers and answers them the way he chooses. God wakes Elijah up, feeds him, and sends him off to another mission. Despite his murmuring and complaining, Elijah does not chicken out of God’s plan for his life; Elijah accepts a new mission from God; he forgets his complaints because God’s food provides him with the strength that physical food does not provide. God’s food gives the strength we need to remain in God and do God’s will despite the difficulties we may face!
You and I do face difficulties in life: a marriage on a free-fall, an oppressive boss at work, victims of racism and sexism, facing foreclosure and economic collapse, health challenges and lack of empathy from those we call friends and families, etc. Situations like these invite us to lie down and sleep, like Elijah, because God will wake us up with good news! Remember, we do not know how long Elijah slept for before his food was ready and he was woken up! Turning our murmurs and complaints into prayers means we need to be patient enough to allow God to act on our behalf! We neither rebel against God nor take out our frustrations on others.
Elijah weathers the cloud of his frustrations and murmurs because of his faith. His belief in a God who hears and answers prayers remains intact in his difficult moment. He continues to hold unto his calling and mission as a prophet of God. He goes to God, and not others, to complain. His fidelity to God even in murmuring situations is unyielding. The purpose of his life is fidelity to God through thick and thin. He is adamant in his fidelity to God!
Elijah teaches us to turn our murmurs and complaints into prayers. God wants us to be adamant in our mission of fidelity as his children who prefer to do his will and wait for his intervention rather than rebel against God because of difficult situations!
Our gospel reading helps us to understand the only mission of our lives on earth: to make heaven and live eternally with God! Instead of the food that strengthens Elijah for 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus offers his murmuring followers the food that lasts for and leads to eternity.
Jesus’s offer of his body and blood as our food, to take care of our murmurs and complaints, changes our quests for physical food to our need for God, the bread of life. In fact, there is no more, and there shouldn’t be any separation between us and God.
In his personal experience of the resurrected and ascended Jesus-the-Lord, St. Paul says that every Christian lives and dines in God through the Holy Spirit. For all who have turned their murmurs and complaints into prayers, they are God’s children because God’s Holy Spirit dwells in them.
Our second reading says this: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”
Let us cherish the Holy Spirit, God, in our lives. Let our murmurs and complaints become prayers and conversations with God who dwells in us. Let us receive God in the Holy Communion to strengthen our resolves to be faithful to God and never take out our frustrations on our neighbors. Let us work for the food of eternity – the very purpose of our earthly journey to God!
Yes, “we do not live to eat” as if life is just about working and looking for physical food; rather, “we eat to live” by eating body and drinking the blood of Christ for eternal life!
Assignment for the Week :
Could you turn every grumbling opportunity into prayer mode?