Dcn Susan Erickson

… we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.  

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today’s Daily Office reading from Colossians (1:9-14) reminds me how much we need each other’s prayers in order to “lead lives worthy of the Lord.”  The Colossians have been growing in their faith; but now they’ve begun to lose their way a little bit.  The writer of the letter to the Colossians — Paul, according to tradition, though scholars now dispute his authorship — writes to encourage and admonish them to “stay the course” and not allow themselves to be distracted by false teachers.

It seems the Colossians have been listening to people who claim that in order to live their faith they must engage in ascetic practices, observe certain festivals and pray to angels.  As Paul says, all these things “are simply human commands and teachings” that the “false teachers” promote — when what they’re actually doing is promoting themselves.

It’s so difficult these days to sort out what are merely “human teachings” that threaten to turn our attention away from the Gospel.  We’re bombarded by theories, diets, punditry, party platforms, memes and litmus tests.  

In today’s Daily Office Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the sower.  Some seeds fall on thorny soil; they sprout up but wither in the sun because they have no root system.  Others fall on fertile soil and bring forth grain, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”  

To use a gardening term, we need mutual encouragement and God’s grace to amend the soil of our faith.  Without that fertile humus, cultivated day by day, it’s easy to be like the seeds sown here and there on thorny soil.  But enriched by prayer (Paul says elsewhere that we should “pray without ceasing”) we’ll be ready to be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will.”  In the midst of merely human distractions, we’ll remain able to “bear fruit in every good work” and to “grow in the knowledge of God” throughout our lives.

— Dcn Susan Erickson