Ordinary Time

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The role of leadership among the people of God is very important. In ancient Israel, those in office had religious as well as political responsibilities. Today’s first reading narrates the transfer of authority from one man to another. This investiture symbolizes the man’s being clothed with authority. Even if this passage does not reflect an actual historical occasion, the picture it sketches is significant. The oracle promises a person who will provide the order and stabil ity that the kingdom of Judah must have needed. If the man being clothed with authority is not himself a messianic figure, he ensures that the kingdom—one that will produce such a figure—will survive.

Paul speaks of the mysterious ways of God in the plan of salvation. Even though human beings cannot grasp God’s plan, it has meaning and purpose, and God’s plan for all creation will unfold in God’s way. Paul extols God the creator, the source of all that is; he acclaims God the sustainer, through whom all creation continues to be; he celebrates God the goal for whom all things were made and to whom all things proceed. Paul is certainly grounded in a very Jewish understanding of God. What is unique, however, is the way he has interpreted this theology. It is here that Christ holds a constitutive place.

Jesus asks the disciples what people are saying about him. Some believe that he is John the Baptist; others, that he is Elijah; still others, that he is one of the other prophets. Simon Peter speaks in the name of the others when he proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God, the Son of the living God. With a play on Greek words, Jesus declares that Peter (Petros) is the rock (petra) upon which Jesus will establish his church. Although the image of a rock suggests stability and endurance, we will soon see that these characteristics are not natural to Peter.

Jan 15 2025

God’s Ever-Expanding Table

A woman has a daughter tormented by a demon. She hears about Jesus, seeks him out, and pleads with him to pity her child. Who could turn away? Yet Jesus dismisses her, saying dogs do not get the children’s food. Is Jesus really comparing her to a dog begging at table? Is he turning away because his mission to the house of Israel limits who benefits from his healing power? What was Jesus thinking?

Three things can be said here.

First of all, it is probable he was not literally calling her a dog any more than we are when we say about someone, “Every dog has its day.” Second, it is possible that at this time Jesus understood his mission as taking care of his own people first. We are told he grew in wisdom. Would this not include a growth in fully understanding his Father’s will and how far it went? Third, is it not even possible that this was a moment of growth, that the woman’s faith pushed him further along in widening his mission, and in recognizing that everyone was welcome at the table of the kingdom, and that his work was to respond wherever he found faith?

Isaiah reminds his Jewish listeners that God will bring the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to his holy mountain, where they will worship. Paul reminds his Gentile listeners that God’s gifts and call to the Jews are irreversible. In a word, everyone has a place at the table.

Consider/Discuss

Do I believe that Jesus grew in wisdom and strength and favor?
Are there any groups that I tend to see as not belonging at the table of the Lord?
Do I take seriously the power of faith, my faith?

Responding to the Word

We pray to look beyond categories of nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, or any other arbitrary dividing line we put up to exclude others from the mercy of God and from being treated with justice, compassion, and forgiveness. We ask for the grace to respond to others as we would have God respond to us.

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

Israel’s primary ethical obligation was social responsibility. Righteousness, which describes the quality of the relationship with God, is really a divine characteristic. Human beings only appropriate it when they are in right relationship with God. In response to the people’s fidelity, they are encouraged to proceed to God’s holy mountain. Even faithful foreigners will be allowed to rejoice here as members of the praying community. The temple is now designated as a house of prayer for all people, not merely a national shrine reserved for the elect. Now God is accessible to all, not merely to those of the bloodline of Israel.

Lest Gentile Christians think that their acceptance of Christ has made them superior to Jews, Paul emphasizes Israelite privilege. They were God’s special people, and it was to them that God granted extraordinary gifts. Paul argues that if he turned to the Gentiles because some Jews would not listen to him, now Jews will be jealous because Gentiles have accepted his message and will be converted. If the Jews’ rejection of the gospel brought reconciliation with God to the rest of the world, how much more will their acceptance of the gospel affect them? Gentiles have no reason to feel superior, for they too were sinners, and God granted them divine mercy.

The story of the Canaanite woman addresses several important and interrelated issues: crossing territorial and cultural boundaries, public social exchange of women and men, the Christian mission to the Gentiles, and the issue of faith. First, despite the belief that to cross into pagan territory was to leave God’s holy land, Jesus deliberately crosses into Gentile territory. In addition, the woman was unattended, a fact that threatened Jesus’ respectability. However, Jesus disregards the factors of gender, ethnic/religious background, and questionable lifestyle in order to reconcile to God a person who was marginalized by society.

Jan 15 2025

When Sinking, Call on the Lord

We all have moments of feeling “down,” times of discouragement, depression, loss, fear, anxiety, (fill in the blank). Such “moods” can descend unexpectedly or result from a particular event. They can pass quickly or stay longer. The three main characters in today’s scriptures are having such a moment.

After Elijah had his showdown with the prophets of Baal in Israel and led the Israelites in slaughtering them, word came that Jezebel wanted him killed, so he set out into the desert. There, he sat down and said to God, “Enough! Life is unbearable. Let me die.” But God wasn’t finished with Elijah, and sent an angel with some food and drink and told him to walk “forty days” to Mount Horeb (Sinai). There, God appeared.

Paul would go first into the synagogues to preach about Jesus as Israel’s long awaited Messiah. But the response was not overwhelming. Often he was run out of town, beaten, or tossed into jail. We hear his grief today. Still, he trusts God will work it out, and later proclaims, “God has not rejected his people . . . For the gifts and call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:2, 29).

Perhaps Peter is the most instructive for our “sinking” occasions. He was doing fine until he lost focus. As long as he looked to Jesus, he walked on water. When he focused on the wind and the waves, he sank. When he re-focused on Jesus and cried out for help, Jesus’ hand caught him. There seems to be a lesson here.

Consider/Discuss

What gets you “down”?
Do you cry out to the Lord and ask for help?

Responding to the Word

Today’s responsorial psalm assures us that “Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him” and “The Lord himself will give his benefits.” In those times when the waves of chaos threaten to overwhelm us, we can pray: “Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.”

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

Elijah has retreated into a cave, but God calls him from this place of shelter and darkness to stand before the Lord out in the open. There he witnesses the wind, the earthquake, and the fire associated with God’s appearance, but he does not experience God within these natural marvels. It is only when he hears a “tiny whispering sound” that he is gripped with the realization that God is present. He covers his face in an act of reverence. Most commentators maintain that this tiny whisper points to the importance of the small and seemingly insignificant in life as the stage upon which the revelation of God is enacted.

Paul speaks about his ardent attachment to his Jewish compatriots, his kindred according to the flesh. Although he has turned from proclaiming the gospel to the Jewish people and devoted himself to the conversion of the Gentiles, he never ceases loving the people from whom he came. It is this very love that causes him such anguish, because his own people have not accepted Jesus as the Messiah whom God first promised and then sent to them. Paul lists several prerogatives that they enjoy as the chosen people of God. However, their great est boast is that the anointed one of God came from them.

In the pre-dawn dimness, the apostles saw Jesus walking toward them on the water. To portray Jesus walking on the chaotic water was to cast him in the guise of this creator-god who alone governs chaotic waters. Peter accepted Jesus’ invitation to walk on the water to him. Peter is a model of both faith and lack of faith. He believed that he would be able to walk on the water, and he did; he doubted that he would be able to long endure the chaotic waters, and he did not. Ultimately, it was faith that won out, for Peter cried out to Jesus, knowing that Jesus had the power to save him, and he did.