Scripture Study for
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:9a, 11–13a / Psalm 85:8 / Romans 9:1–5 / Matthew 14:22–33
<< Back to LECTIONARY RESOURCES
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).