Sunday, July 28, 2019

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time/Proper 12/7^th Sunday after Pentecost

First Reading: Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Second Reading: Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Gospel Reading: Luke 11:1-13

The liturgical color for the day is: Green

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Oh, those Colossians!  They needed to come back to their relationship with the living Christ and ask themselves about the vitality of that relationship.  They needed to do that over and over again.

We are the Colossians in our church and our lives.  We can get distracted by many things.  We can get involved in many day-to-day activities that call our attention away from what really matters.  We can get absorbed into success and survival.  In both our lives and our church we will fluctuate between striving for success and then in our moments of desperation striving to survive.

God calls us neither to success nor survival.  God calls us to keep coming back our relationship with God and those whom God loves.  The challenge is to emerge from the success and survival race to the resurrected living of a vibrant relationship in Christ.

Paul’s invitation to “continue” matters much.  The distractions are abundant, yet the task is clear—keep coming back to that which matters.  Remember your baptism and wonderful reality that you are in Christ.

Rev. Dr. Daris Bultena
General Presbyter