"Seeking What Is of Christ" by Colleen O'Sullivan
(Adapted from a reflection originally published in 2013)
Brothers and sisters: If you
were raised with Christ, seek what is above where Christ is seated at the right
hand of God. Think of what is above, not
of what is on earth. For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in
glory. Put to death, then, the parts of
you that are earthly: immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry… anger, fury,
malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths. Stop lying to one another, since you have
taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which
is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator. (Colossians
3:1-5, 8b-10)
"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your
consolation. But woe to you who are
filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe
to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for
their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” (Luke 6:24-26)
Piety
Heavenly Father, in baptism, you name us and call us your beloved sons
and daughters. Help us to live as those
seeking what is of Christ, that one day we may appear with him in glory.
Study
The more things change, the more they stay the same. We may have been to the moon and back, we may
have the technology to know what's going on anywhere in the world at any given
moment, but all that aside, people haven't changed much since Paul's day. Look around you on the street where you live,
the place where you work, within your circle of family and friends. Look inside yourself, if you dare. Everything Paul, in the first century, said
needed to go, seems alive and well almost two thousand years later. Everywhere we turn, we hear and use bad
language. We gossip about others and
malign their characters. We see the
results of anger unleashed on others or turned inward on ourselves. We give in to our greed for bigger and better
possessions or our desire for power or our love of praise. There isn't a single earthly behavior the
apostle mentions that isn't still alive and well today!
In the waters of baptism, we die to our former selves and emerge as new
persons in Christ. Whether we're
baptized as infants or as adults, we spend the rest of our lives attempting to
live that new life in Christ. It's far
from easy to give up our attachments to the ways of this world. Jesus knew that, just as Paul did. As Jesus preaches his Sermon on the Plain in
today's reading from Luke's Gospel, he warns us against getting too comfortable
here and being too attached to life as we know it in Northern Virginia in
2019. This place and time isn't our
eternal home, and the "woe to" section of his Sermon addresses those
who are contented with life as it is.
The "blessed are" lines urge us instead to lives that are
rooted in Christ.
Action
In what ways are you attached to the things of this world? How can you re-orient your focus to the
things that are of God?
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