Scripture Reflections for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Year C, Lectionary 114
Maturing spiritually is to realize that all things around us are not permanent, except God. That we must hold on to God and live our lives to remain in communion with God. To hold on to the perishable is to perish with it. But to hold on to the source of life is to have life. And there is no vanity in that.
Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the Bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: Anxiety • Balance • Community • Creation • Death • Discern • Disciple • Economy • Ego • Eternity • Existence • Focus • Fool • Generosity • Greed • Grief • Harvest • Heaven • Hope • Joy • Legacy • Life • Love • Lydia • Neighbor • Paul • Possessions • Poverty • Priority • Qoheleth • Reconciliation • Relationship • Repent • Share • Sight • Sin • Suffering • Value • Vanity • Vice • Wealth • Wisdom • Worry • Worship • Worth •
“The reason we seek the things that are of Heaven is not because the Earth isn't good, it is good. God made it. But we seek the things of Heaven and things that are above because Christ is there.”
“As followers of Christ, we're called to risk our comfort and security on behalf of any member of our community, any member of the body of Christ who is besieged by civil or religious authorities”
“Miserliness and wild spending are related aspects of the same sin. People, either way, are possessed by their possessions.”
“We simply take the harvest that we've been given and we acknowledge that the harvest comes from the Lord and we put it back in God's hands”
“Know that it is not about that vanity, that quality of being worthless or futile. Nothing we do in the name of the Most High God is futile, if it is of God's will.”
“Today's scriptures present us with a summons to ongoing conversion, to render an account of our hearts”
“There is nothing in this world that God has given to us that is of greater importance, that is of greater worth than the people we have in our lives, roaming this earth today”
“Love, joy, gladness, even or especially amid the sorrow and the grief, the Lord reminds us of what our life is all about. But do we start the day by asking the Lord to remind us of this?”
“But the Word of God reminds us if you don't order yourself with God, your greed will send you to hell...your lust for things, your lust for people, your lust for power will lead you to a space of no return”
“Our creation in the image of God gives us a beautiful vocation in destiny. We are made for relationship with God and one another, and not just any kind of relationship but the relationship of mutual love that our tradition calls communion.”
“It is not how much possession I have that will count against me. It is how much my possession has possessed me. There'll be multi-billionaires in heaven just as there will be many poor people who will miss heaven.”
“So, if you read the fuller context of Ecclesiastes, too, you'll see that in particular what the book is highlighting is the anxiety that comes with wealth”
“Luke’s parables about money are ultimately parables about discipleship. And as the Gospels make quite clear, discipleship in the kingdom of God requires us to radically rethink our relationship to wealth and material things.”
“We get very preoccupied with all of the things that tie us down on Earth but...Jesus wants us to know that our life can be over just like that. That we're not even promised the rest of today.”
