Proper 13 Yr C
In God's Arms

Scripture: August 3, 2025 (Proper 13, Year C)—Hosea 11:1-11 (image); Psalm 107:1-9, 43 (image); Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 (image); Psalm 49:1-11 (image); Colossians 3:1-11 (image); and Luke 12:13-21 (image).Collect: Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Reflection:
Track 1:  Sometimes divine love includes judgment. But the judgment of God is love. What do you think might be the only way that we can be rejected or separated from that divine love? Would God be rejecting us, or would we be rejecting God’s love?
Track 2: The Christian life is one of constant renewal, turning and returning to God. In this season of your life, what would it mean to strip off the old self with its practices and clothe yourself with the new self (Col. 3:9–10)?

For families: Study guide and activities (former guide), group activity, snacks—best in a group; each one creates an ice cream sundae. When finished, pass the sundae created to the person on the right, kid video

For children: See family guide/activities (another activity); bulletin

For middlers: See family guide/activities (another activity); bulletin; game

Coloring pages: the rich fool, take care, Luke 12, Psalm 107

For youth: Could you fit your life in a backpack? Could you live with just 100 things? How does the trend toward minimalism and our desire for real relationship speak to this week’s gospel lesson? Could you (would you) pare your possessions down to 100 things? What would you have trouble leaving behind? Articulate whether this was a difficult or simple challenge and why? What does this say about discipleship? What challenges do we face in our culture? Comments welcome.

In today’s liturgy, we are confronted with the radical shift in our values brought about by our union with Christ in baptism. In the gospel reading, Jesus is asked to settle a property dispute between two brothers. Instead, he warns against placing our highest value in material acquisition, for that value is a fleeting and uncertain one. Our highest value should be our relationship with God, which alone is permanent and certain.

Track 1. In the first reading, Hosea presents God as grieving over Israel’s faithlessness and announcing the end of the kingdom and the scattering of its people. However, God cannot give up Israel forever and promises to gather them back from their dispersion and to restore the land.

Track 2. In the first reading, we have the wise reflections of a person who found that spending one’s life on the accumulation of material goods is an empty project. It is “vanity and striving after wind.”

In the passage from Colossians, Paul describes the new way of living which belongs to those unified with Christ in baptism. As people who have put on the new nature, our behavior toward others is transformed; our relationships with others are no longer based on human values or differences; and our lives consist of joy, peace, forgiveness, and thanksgiving.

When we present to God the work of human hands in bread and wine and gifts of our material possessions, we are placing our lives into a new and transforming relationship with God. Our relationship toward the material world is likewise transformed. We are put right in our relationship with God, with others, with ourselves, and with the material world. Then we are sent out to live in that new relationship each day.