Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 435

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn of all creation.

For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;

all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.

Saint Paul wrote to the Colossians to honor them for accepting faith in Jesus with such enthusiasm, and to encourage them to keep the faith. The Colossian church faced some problems. We pick up some hints about them from the Apostle's letter but it's not clear. Apparently they had to do with "matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or new moon or sabbath."

If Epaphras and his companions had introduced the church to a simple, straight-forward worship of Jesus, some later enthusiasts were introducing confusion about religious practices. The story sounds familiar to readers of the Acts of the Apostles and Saint Paul's epistles. Certain "super apostles," as he derisively called them, insisted that gentile Christians must be Jews first, practicing all the Jewish ceremonies and dietary restrictions, and then believe in Jesus.

There may have been some odd teachings about thrones, dominions, principalities and powers; those strange, mystical creatures who appear only in the imagination, who might possibly have some divine authority and perhaps could interfere in the process of our salvation. Those who introduced these doubts about the new faith to eager, newly-baptized Christians probably had something to gain by their interference. "Yes, believe in Jesus!" they might have said, "but you need to buy this product, perform this ritual, and observe this ceremony that I will teach you -- also!"

With friends like them, who needs enemies?

Whatever their teaching might have been, Saint Paul took the opportunity to give us this great song of Jesus, who is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation...." The Apostle directed Colossian attention, and ours, back to the Son of Mary, born in Bethlehem, who died on a cross for our salvation.

Saint Paul's opponents, who represented a continual thorn in his side, attempted to pour new wine into old wine skins. They would teach gentiles who had no connection to Jewish ceremonials and no familiarity with Hebrew, a language that was archaic even in first century Palestine, how to be Jewish Christians. It would be the old religion with a window dressing of anodyne Christian slogans and proverbs.

The New Testament gospels, epistles and other writings were written in the earliest days of the Church. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we still had to define our basic teachings about Jesus, and agree upon what writings belonged in the "Old" and "New" Testaments. The Mass and sacraments were only beginning to take shape. The annual calendar was rudimentary, and structures of church authority were unclear.

Saint Paul led the way in resisting a premature return to the old and familiar. "For freedom, Christ set us free!" he insisted. "so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."

When the patterns of a new Christian lifestyle would appear they should be marked by freedom, by everyone's availability to the promptings of Grace, that free Spirit which guided Jesus throughout his life. This life would be known by its readiness to act on behalf of the least among us, wisely and prudently, courageously, cheerfully, and spontaneously. It would be like nothing the world had ever seen, and nothing the world would ever recognize.