Scripture Study for

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

After besting Jezebel’s prophets, Elijah runs away to Horeb, where  God appears, accusingly asking him why he is there. He responds  that his life has been threatened. The command to “stand before the  Lord” means to serve God; Elijah is in effect being told to get back  to work. Yet before he returns to the task, God has a lesson for him.  Visible phenomena that regularly accompany God are not God, who  is found in silence, barely perceptible, but nonetheless present. God  again asks, so why are you here? Although Elijah’s role as God’s  prophet endangers him, God’s protecting presence is with him, even  when he cannot see it. He must learn to trust in it. 

Paul has proclaimed that God has predestined and foreknown  those who would be conformed to Christ and become heirs with  him to glory. Thus a difficult question: what to make of the fact  that so many Jews have not accepted that Jesus is the Messiah? To  speak of the divine plan is to speak of God’s history with Israel,  beginning with God’s “adoption” of Israel and culminating in  the promised Messiah. Accordingly, they should be receiving the  adoption, the inheritance, and the glory now coming to those who  have been conformed to Christ through baptism. It would appear  that something has gone horribly wrong with God’s plan. Paul will  go on to develop his argument that this does not mean that “the  word of God has failed” (9:6). 

The multiplication of the fish and loaves showed that in Jesus  God was providing, something God regularly does in the scriptures.  Today’s reading, which immediately follows, features another action  associated with God: salvation from chaos, often portrayed as  dangerous waters. Just as in the Old Testament God proclaims that  in the divine presence there is nothing to fear from chaos, so does  Jesus. But it requires faith to believe that Jesus can save from chaos. Thus it is not so much that Jesus has  walked on water that causes those in the boat to exclaim that he is  the Son of God, as their witness that he has saved Peter from the  chaotic waters (despite his lack of faith).

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