Scripture Study for

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

The reading from Ezekiel occurs in a vision of the divine glory, in  which he is told to speak to Israel, now undergoing hardship at the hand  of Babylon. The prophet is sent to the people to proclaim to them what  God is doing and why. Yet God knows that the people will not listen to  Ezekiel, because they, like their ancestors, are rebellious. Nevertheless,  the prophet is sent to speak God’s word, which must be proclaimed  regardless of the people’s willingness to hear it. The proclamation of  God’s word is not dependent on whether it will be heard or not; it is  God’s word to the people, and therefore must be spoken. 

Toward the end of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul “boasts of  the things that show my weakness” (11:30). Although he has himself  had “an abundance of revelations,” he also knows himself to be  profoundly weak, as evidenced by whatever it is he calls the “thorn  in the flesh.” Christ allows this thorn to remain, despite the fact that  it is “an angel of Satan,” to prevent Paul from falling into the trap  of relying on himself rather than on Christ. It is a great paradox  that acknowledging weakness, and the hardships and struggles this  entails, allows believers to let the power of Christ work in them,  making them strong (because they realize that it is not in fact their  strength, but Christ’s). 

In last week’s Gospel, when Jesus brought to life the daughter of  Jairus, the people had ridiculed him, an expression of their lack of  faith. Here again Jesus encounters a want of faith in his hometown.  Although they acknowledge the wisdom of his teaching and the  reality of his “mighty deeds,” the people can only see Jesus as just a  local boy. The “offense” they take at him may indicate a sense that  he is trying to “rise above his station.” Their disbelief, grounded in  their own idea of what is proper or possible, is self-fulfilling, in that  it prevents Jesus from bringing to bear in their lives the full power  of God.

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