Psalm 55; Wisdom 7:1-14; Col. 3:12-17; Luke 7:18--35
The writer speaks of being born in the usual way, there was nothing unique or special about him (is the writer Solomon as he refers to all kings being born as others are). What set him apart is that he chose to seek after wisdom from God. Remember that the Lord told Solomon that He would give him whatever he wanted and Solomon chose to ask for the wisdom to rule wisely and that because that was his request the Lord would give him everything else his heart could desire. Solomon’s great wealth was a secondary issue at the beginning but later in life his head was turned by women as he married women who did not seek wisdom from the Lord but followed after other gods. Jesus tells us that if we will seek the kingdom we will have all else that we could want but the reality is that we have to seek it first, last and only in order to not be possessed by our possessions.
The Church Fathers, in commenting on this episode, wrote that John’s faith wasn’t wavering but the faith of his disciples was and so John sent them to hear and see for themselves. The Fathers couldn’t imagine the idea that this pillar of strength could have had doubts himself. Jesus’ response is to go back to the beginning, to His own statement of His ministry, taken from Isaiah 61 yet he leaves out the one thing that would truly have mattered to John, the release of captives and prisoners. The one thing John could have hoped for wasn’t in the list of things Jesus told John’s disciples to tell John they had seen. Jesus passes on high praise for John, the faithful man who knew his role and kept to it his entire life, no matter what the cost. We, however, have a greater message than John, we have the Gospel message of Jesus and Him crucified and risen from the dead for the forgiveness of sins. We have the certainty of the resurrection to proclaim, we know a greater truth than John could have imagined.
Paul shares with the Colossians his vision of what the Christian life together should look like and what a vision it is! Paul envisions Christians who are compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient, forebearing with one another (not focusing on the peccadilloes of others), forgiving when necessary, loving one another, peaceful and peaceable and thankful. Who wouldn’t want to be part of such a community? What Paul sees is indeed what Christian community should look like, we should be such a remarkably different community with different ethics, morals and values that the world beats down our doors trying to get in. We should be required to do catechesis all the time to train others what this community looks like and demanding that it remain this way. Community requires work to maintain, work by the individual members of the community to cultivate the work of the Spirit in their lives and work by the community to maintain those distinctive in our fellowship. If we all pursued the kingdom with all that we are we might see such community. Mostly, we live from unredeemed desires and we never or rarely experience any fleeting semblance of such community as God intends.
Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things,
give heart and soul and mind and strength
to serve the King of kings.
Rise up, O men of God!
The Church for you doth wait;
her strength unequal to her task;
rise up, and make her great!
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