19th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A - Hearts Burning Within

The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time

1 Kings 19:9A, 11-13A

Chapters 17-19 are all the collected stories about Elijah’s life and ministry. Elijah lived under King Ahab and even though he fights against Ahab and wins, he still gets discouraged. Leading up to today’s reading, Elijah has a showdown with the prophets of Baal and he wins. But Jezebel threatens him and that sends him scurrying off with his tail between his legs. He runs and hides. God provides physical care and nourishment and then sends him off to Mt. Horeb.

The location of Mt. Horeb is uncertain but it is probably far south of Jerusalem towards Egypt. It is an important location to the Jewish people; it is where they traveled after leaving Egypt and is also where the law was given. In Exodus 33 Moses sees God on Mt. Horeb.

The lectionary leaves out the opening dialog. Remember that Elijah has just won a spectacular victory against his mortal enemies. But here on the mountain he tells God that he’s all alone, everyone else has abandoned God and Elijah, and they’re threatening his life. He’s a bit whiny!

I think it’s common in the spiritual journey to have a period of great spiritual high followed by just the opposite. It is easy to believe when God seems close and we see God working. But when things seem to take a break, it is equally easy to believe we are all alone.

Today’s reading is a familiar story to most of us. God promises to appear and Elijah knows that God is not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. Elijah does, however, recognize God in the “light silent sound.”

You might be familiar with the King James translation of this: “a still, small voice.” Other renderings include “a sound of fine silence” and ” a voice of thin silence.” The latter are more the Hebrew equivalent. It is an oxymoron: it isn’t really meant to make sense. Most English translations want to force some sense into it and that’s why we end up imagining a whisper. But it really is more a sound of silence.

Verse 13 says the Elijah hears this sound of silence and knows God is present. This is a theophany – a manifestation of God’s presence.

Have you experienced the pattern of spiritual high followed by spiritual low? What helped you through that?

What does silence sound like to you?

Matthew 14:22-33

During Ordinary Time, I’ll cover the Old Testament and then the Gospel readings as a pair so that we can better see the connections.

This is the second of five weeks in this section of chapters 14-17 which talk about the slow recognition and acknowledgment of Jesus for who he is. It parallels chapters 11-12 which talked about the rejection of Jesus.

Only Matthew’s gospel includes the part about Peter walking on the water. There is scholarly conjecture that Peter may be the primary source of Mark’s gospel which does not have this part of the story. I often wonder if maybe Peter was embarrassed by the incident and didn’t want this particular detail known!

Verse 22 says Jesus “made” them get into the boat. The Greek word is usually translated as compelled or forced. As soon as they gather the leftovers from feeding the 5,000, he makes them leave the scene. Almost like he was setting up what follows.

In verse 23 Jesus goes off to pray on a mountain, which connects us to the Elijah story.

Verse 24 says the boat was tossed about. This word could also be translated as “tormented.” This was a serious storm!

Verse 25 calls it the fourth watch: a few hours before dawn, between 3 and 6am. This indicates how long Jesus had prayed and the disciples had struggled.

In verse 26 the disciples see a figure and assume it is a ghost. There was a real appreciation in that culture for using the realm of the spirit world to help explain the unexplainable. They very much believed in “ghosts.” It was a Greek idea that had permeated into Jewish culture.

In verse 27 Jesus uses the the Greek phrase “ego eimi” which is used to translate the Old Testament name of God YHWH: I AM.

Peter then asks to come to Jesus and Jesus invites him. There is a long history of fisherman and sea faring people actually being afraid of the water. Most did not know how to swim. Peter is fine as long as he is focused on Jesus. But when his focus is elsewhere, he begins to sink.

In verse 31 Jesus uses the phrase “little faith.” Matthew’s gospel uses this five times, always in relation to the disciples. Next week we’ll read about the Canaanite woman whom Jesus commends for her “great faith.”

In verse 33 the disciples do him “homage.” This connects back to the beginning of Matthew’s gospel where the wise men do Jesus homage. This is a recognition of who Jesus is.

Why did this episode cause the disciples to say “truly” you’re the son of God? Why are they acknowledging his divinity at this point?

We could read many Old Testament references that indicate it is God alone who has control over the elements such as the sea. You might want to look up Psalm 77:19, Job 9:8, Job 38:16, Isaiah 43:16, and Sirach 24:5. These all talk about the power of God to control the wind the waves; it’s something only God can do. There are also lots of Old Testament references (especially in the Psalms) to drowning and being rescued by God. Again, Jesus is doing something only God can do.

In addition to all this, Jesus makes the implicit claim about his identity – ego eimi I AM. YHWH – the name of God.

Jesus has been with them the whole time but now he is manifesting his true identity. It’s a theophany, just like Elijah’s story. And in response to that, the disciples acknowledge him as the Son of God.

Try using imaginative prayer with this story and put yourself in Peter’s place. How do you feel being sent away? What feelings arise as the storm comes up? As you catch sight of Jesus? What desires stir making you want to be closer to Jesus? Allow yourself to feel the fear of walking on the water and the joy of being saved by Jesus.

Have there been storms in your life that Jesus has come to you in the midst of? What did those experiences teach you about who Jesus is?

Old Testament / Gospel Connection

How are the Old Testament and Gospel readings connected? Each week I will offer my views on this but I encourage you to first read the passages and look for your own connections!

In the Elijah story, God’s presence is indicated by the sound of silence. In the Gospel, Jesus walks on water. Why are these two paired? Why not feature an Old Testament story about crossing water?

Because that pairing would put the focus on water and baptism. This pairing puts the focus on manifestations of God. It reminds us that we are a people convinced of God’s presence.

The other theme I think runs through these stories is about chaos. Christ is to be found in the midst of the very things that disrupt our lives. In both stories, there is great chaos (wind, earthquake, fire, storm), and there is a revelation amidst the chaos. The chaos is a harbinger of God’s revelation.

Romans 9:1-5

See detailed background on Romans here.

In chapters 9-11 Paul is going to draw heavily on the Old Testament to explain how God’s resolve to include Gentiles in the chosen community seems to have ironically excluded the very people who were initially chosen to form this community – the Jewish people. This passage is Paul’s anguish that the majority of the Jews have failed to believe in Christ.

The situation is this: the Gentiles are flooding into the Christian community and embracing the faith. The Jews, by and large, are rejecting it. To Gentile Christian eyes, it begins to appear that the Jews are effectively being excluded from the promises of salvation. And they were the ones to whom the promises were initially made! The whole situation leaves the Gentile Christians with the question: what do we make of God’s original covenants with Israel? Are God’s promises to them still valid? What if God decides to change his mind again in the future and exclude the Gentiles? The root question is can God be trusted? From here on, Paul will try to show that the privileges (verses 4-5) are not removed but that the way to them is more roundabout than originally conceived.

Paul begins this passage by declaring that he’s not lying. In our culture, if I say I’m being truthful and not lying, that’s an implicit signal that at least some of what I’ve said is not true! In Paul’s culture, however, secrecy, deception and lying were all acceptable strategies for preserving one’s honor and reputation. It was expected and assumed that much of what you said was probably not quite true. This is still true in many Middle Eastern cultures today and it’s a hard one for us to grasp!

In verse 3 Paul is saying he wishes his fellow Jews would come to know Christ and if he could make that happen by being separated from Christ, he would do it in a heartbeat. Being separated from or expelled from one’s social group was tantamount to death. Paul is willing to do that if it would help his brothers see the truth.

This coming from a man so identified with Christ and connected that he sees himself “in” Christ. This is the worst fate that Paul can conceive. Remember, too, Paul just told us last week that NOTHING could separate us from God! But Paul wishes it could be true if it would accomplish his aims of bringing others to know Christ.

In verse 4 Paul calls his brothers “Israelites.” This was the preferred internal designation. “Jew” was something used by outsiders. So Paul is using an honorific title for them – he’s giving them honor.

Verses 4-5 list out things a good Jew of that time would take immense pride in. These are, in fact, the seven prerogatives that make Jews Jews:

the Adoption: they are God’s people
the Glory: in the Old Testament God’s presence was manifested in some physical way to reassure the people. Now the people themselves are God’s manifestation to the world.
the covenants: with Abraham and Moses, what made them God’s people
the giving of the law: the Torah that told them how to live as God’s people
the worship: the Temple-based worship that was unique among the cultures of the day and the central feature of how they worshiped God
the promises: to Abraham, Moses and David that God would always be with them
the patriarchs: the ancestral heritage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Seven is a number of perfection but Paul adds an eighth which he believes is now essential for being Jewish: the Messiah descended from the Israelites.

So chapters 9-11 are going to talk about how Paul sees the incorporation of the Gentiles and the relationship of those Gentiles to the Jews. But he starts off here basically expressing his anguish that the majority of the Jews have failed to believe in Christ.

The seven prerogatives Paul lists are specific to Jews. How might you rewrite the list to make it applicable to Christians? How do you take pride in these things?

Questions to ponder

What do these readings say about how to live day in and day out as Christians?