Scripture Study for

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

After their deliverance from Egypt, Israel finds itself in the  wilderness, where the people begin to murmur that they have no food  and water. The failure to trust that God will provide for them leads  them to fear they will perish, which in turn causes them to regret  leaving “the house of bondage” in the first place. It is imperative at  this early stage of the relationship that God show Israel the capability  to provide for their most basic needs. This will be important later  when God insists that Israel must not turn to any other gods for  assistance in such matters. Thus the provision of manna (from the  Hebrew man hu, “What is this?”). 

Paul has been urging the Ephesians to recognize that, having been  renewed and transformed through their incorporation into the one  church, they are not the same people they were before they were  baptized. They are fundamentally and radically different now, and  they must begin immediately to acknowledge this. Their baptism and  incorporation into Christ’s body must mean, among other things, a  complete reassessment of their lives, leading to a renewal in their  way of thinking and of evaluating the world and its ways. Now, as  members of God’s church, they must manifest the very character of  God, which is “righteousness and holiness of truth.”

Shortly after the feeding of the five thousand, the people find  Jesus in Capernaum, where their initial question, “When did you  get here?” begins a dialogue about Jesus himself. He accuses the  people of setting their sights too low by “working” for perishable  food instead of seeking eternal life. They take this to mean that they  themselves can “work” for this “food,” but the only work they can,  or need to, do is to believe in him, who was sent by the Father. Now  skeptical, the people demand proof of this. Moses was sent by God  and provided manna in the desert; what can Jesus do? He responds  that it was God who gave manna in the desert and it is now God  who gives the “true” (authentic, incomparable) bread from heaven,  the source of life, Jesus himself. 

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