The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – August 2, 2025
When Christ calls us to new life, it is not simply a shift in behavior. It is a resurrection.
Paul writes to the Colossians: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
But what does that mean in a world where the demands of life weigh heavy, where we’re measured by productivity, possessions, performance?
In Luke’s gospel, a man interrupts Jesus to demand justice over inheritance.
Jesus responds, not with a legal ruling—but with a parable. A rich man, overwhelmed with abundance, plans bigger barns. A safer future. A comfortable life.
But his life is demanded that very night.
“So it is,” Jesus says, “with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
We are invited to look deeper.
What are the barns we build?
What are the habits, the identities, the narratives we cling to, that Paul says must be stripped away—anger, greed, divisions, falsehood?
And what does it mean to be “hidden with Christ in God”?
It means letting go of the life curated for comfort, and stepping into a mystery:
A life rooted in Christ, where we are known beyond labels—neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, but beloved.
We are not what we own.
We are not what we fear.
We are not what we accumulate.
We are who Christ raises up.
- So we ask today:
- What am I clutching too tightly?
- What do I build that draws me away from what matters?
- What must die, so that compassion, humility, and mercy might rise?
The gospel invites us to loosen our grip.
To imagine a different kind of inheritance—one that is generous, communal, eternal.
To be rich toward God is to be rich toward neighbor.
To be hidden in Christ is to be revealed in love.
Amen.