Colossians  2:6-15
Luke 6:12-19

Today's readings focus on the Christian's interdependent relationship with Christ.  They remind me why I'm impelled to follow Him, to come closer to Him, to find meaning in the "Via Dolorosa" (the way of suffering) that is often the pathway of this life.

Lest I forget it, the text from Colossians reminds me that I've got everything backwards.  My inner principle of "balance in the universe" tells me that if I do good things, good will come to me.  If I keep the commandments, do the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, I might not go to hell.  I might even get to heaven, getting my just rewards for my just life here on earth.  In other words:  "Be good; get God."  Yet this is not how it works in the world-view of Colossians, in which God comes to us first.  "Continue to live in Christ Jesus the Lord, in the spirit in which you received Him.  Be rooted in Him and built up in Him, growing ever stronger in faith as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude." (2:6-7)  God's own self is given to us first, completely and gratuitously.  It is only BECAUSE of this gift that we can "be good" at all.  Only an "empty, seductive philosophy" would have us believe that we could do anything good apart from God and God's goodness.

When in Luke's Gospel, Jesus spends the night on the mountain communing with God in prayer, and then descends from the mountain to gather His disciples and to heal the suffering of others, Jesus fulfills in His very being what it means to "be good."  Jesus calls others into communion with Him.  Jesus, in whom the "fullness of deity" resides (Col. 2:9), embraces the cross out of His experience of total trust in the Father and a passionate love for us.  All His goodness comes from unity with God, and this leads Him to unity with others.

The great multitudes who were invited into communion with God at that "level place" where Jesus had descended (Luke 6:17) were people with unclean spirits, diseased people who desired to touch Jesus and to experience His transforming power in their lives.  Perhaps they didn't know that when He exorcised their demons and cured them of their illnesses that they, too, would be compelled to follow Him.  The encounter with Jesus is a pure gift that changes us.  That is why, abounding in thankfulness, we do what we do.  We travel the way of suffering that Christ walked because we ourselves are acting out of the same experience of love which empowered Jesus to come down from the mountain, to heal the suffering, and to go to the cross.  Love's own nature is self-giving.

First things first.  God loves us in the person of Jesus.  That is the first call we hear, the first invitation to communion.  We can't do anything to merit it.  Out of this experience of being loved, even in the context of our unclean spirits of anger and jealousy and false judgment, even in our disordered attachments and helplessness, the power of God's love transforms us.  Our hearts are circumcised with this transforming love, and in our gratitude, and in the abundance that flows from the wounds of God's own Son, we are healed and sent on mission.  Only then can we be good.  There is no sharing and no communion without the initial invitation, the pure gift from God, Who is "good to all, and compassionate toward all His works." (Ps. 145:9)