Archbishop of Sydney

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Eccl 1:2, 2:21-23; Col 3:1-5, 9-11; Lk 12:13-21

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
1 August 2004

For the past few weeks the second readings have been taken from Paul’s letter to the Colossians and I feel it appropriate to say a few words about Paul, the Church at Colossae and today’s second reading, which fits in nicely with the other two readings from Ecclesiastes and Luke warning against worldliness, the vanity of vanities, and especially the danger of greed.

Paul wrote this letter to the Christian community at Colossae, on the Lycus in the area we know as South West Turkey, when he was in prison, probably in Rome or perhaps in Ephesus.

He himself had not founded that community as this honour belonged to Epaphras.  Paul wrote because there was trouble and division in Colossae.  When things go wrong in our own families, or work communities or church communities, it is a consolation, to me at least, to be reminded that the great saints too had their share of difficulties, often much more than we experience.

Paul had to remind the Colossians that Christ is their all sufficient Redeemer and Lord, that they should have died to worldliness, such as fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, because baptism has renewed them in the image of the Creator.

We then have one of those passages from St. Paul which are often quoted, sometimes for good political purposes, but whose meaning is not entirely clear once we come to examine it.

Because we have been reborn in baptism and stripped off our old behaviour (most Christians then were adult converts), Paul claims there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free.  In his letter to the Galatians, Paul also explains that after baptism into Christ, there is neither male nor female (3:27-8).

In fact, one human reason for the spread of Christianity was that in the Christian communities the terrible distinctions between owners and slaves were set aside and people would move outside their racial ghetto to pray together and support one another.  But the early Christians did not understand these texts as requiring immediately a social justice programme to liberate the slaves.  At that stage they no more had power to achieve that, than they had the power to abolish the human differences between Greek and Jew.  These human differences remained, but in God’s eyes all these people were equal in dignity while they remained different.

The famous text about baptism abolishing the differences between male and female has to be set together with the many Old and New Testament texts which explain that the complementary differences between men and women are part of God’s plan.  What this famous passage does mean is that men and women are equal in the sight of God and that following Christ should mean that the rivalry, enmity and violence which disfigure relationships, including the man-woman relationship, are abolished.

All this is easier if we give priority to spiritual values; remain aware of the hidden life of the spirit.  These hidden treasures will only be revealed at the end of time, when Christ is revealed and we believers will share in his glory.  It is the work of a lifetime, where the efforts have to be repeated time and again so that our hearts do not become consumed by the vanity of vanities.

These teachings do not conflict with the recent insights of St. Josemaría Escrivá and last century of St. Theresa of Lisieux that we come to God by doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.  Christ’s hidden life for thirty years is important not just as a preparation for his public life, but in itself.  The Son of God living among us, for most of his life doing ordinary things, has filled out and transformed the pessimism of the Old Testament author.  We labour in the light of eternity; not for worldly purposes.

Let us pray that we shall be able to view our daily living through the eyes of Christ and not be distracted into worldliness of a lesser or grosser kind.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.