SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard someone say, It sounds like Jesus was disrespecting his mother?
SPEAKER_00: At first glance, today's gospel can almost sound that way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is told, Your mother and your brothers are outside asking to speak with you.
SPEAKER_00: And he responds, Who is my mother?
SPEAKER_00: Who are my brothers?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we stop reading there, we completely misunderstand what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's not diminishing the blessed mother.
SPEAKER_00: He's revealing the secret of her greatness.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Jesus says next.
SPEAKER_00: Stretching out his hand towards his disciple, he says, Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a rejection of Mary.
SPEAKER_00: It is the greatest compliment he could possibly give her.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because no human being ever did the will of the Father more perfectly than his mother, Mary.
SPEAKER_00: From the very first moment the angel Gabriel appeared, her entire life became one great yes.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be done to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: Mary never stopped saying yes.
SPEAKER_00: She said yes at Nazareth, she said yes when they had to flee into Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: She said yes during the hidden years of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: She said yes at Cana when she directed the sermons.
SPEAKER_00: Do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_00: She said yes at the foot of the cross when every human reason for hope had disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: Her entire life was one continuous act of trust.
SPEAKER_00: Mary is not blessed primarily because she gave birth to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She's blessed because she believed, because she listened, she obeyed, she surrendered her entire life to God's will.
SPEAKER_00: In another gospel, a woman in the crowd cries out to Jesus, Blessed is the womb that carried you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus responds, rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he's not correcting the woman.
SPEAKER_00: He's explaining what Mary, who Mary is and why she's blessed.
SPEAKER_00: The early church fathers love to reflect on this.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Augustine said that Mary conceived Christ in her heart through faith before she conceived him in her womb.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, before she carried Jesus physically, she first welcomed him spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: That's why she's the model of every disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Before Christ can be brought into the world through our words and actions, he must first dwell within our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Mary is the first and greatest disciple, there's no doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly what Jesus is teaching us today.
SPEAKER_00: The deepest relationship we can have with Christ is not biological, it is spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: You and I will never be his biological relatives, but every one of us has become part of his family.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: Well, by doing the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what an extraordinary invitation that is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not merely inviting us to admire him from a distance, he's inviting us into his own family.
SPEAKER_00: When we were baptized, we did not simply join an organization, we became sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The church is not simply a place we attend.
SPEAKER_00: She is the family into which we have all been reborn.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to the first reading.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Micah asks one of the most beautiful questions.
SPEAKER_00: Who is there like you?
SPEAKER_00: The God who removes guilt and pardons sins.
SPEAKER_00: Then he gives us one of the most beautiful images.
SPEAKER_00: You will cast into the depths of the sea all of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: When something disappears into the deepest part of the ocean, no one can retrieve it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how God wants us to think about his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: When we sincerely repent, he does not keep dragging our paths before us.
SPEAKER_00: He forgives us, he restores us, and he begins again.
SPEAKER_00: And then Micah says something that should fill us with every sinner with hope.
SPEAKER_00: God delights in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: He does not merely show mercy because he has to, he delights in it.
SPEAKER_00: He rejoices when his children return home.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the heart of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps many of us need to hear that today.
SPEAKER_00: Some people have confessed the same sin a hundred times, yet they still believe God is tired of forgiving them.
SPEAKER_00: He is not.
SPEAKER_00: If your repentance is sincere, his mercy is always greater.
SPEAKER_00: The cross has always proven that.
SPEAKER_00: Mary understood that mercy better than anyone because she knew the heart of her son.
SPEAKER_00: And she teaches us that holiness is not about living a perfect life.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness begins with saying yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes to God's will, yes to his mercy, yes to following Christ, even when the road leads to Calvary before it leads to the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Today Jesus asks every single one of us the same question.
SPEAKER_00: Who belongs to my family?
SPEAKER_00: And the question is not determined by our last name.
SPEAKER_00: It's determined by our nationality.
SPEAKER_00: It's not determined by our nationality, it's not even determined by how many years we have attended church.
SPEAKER_00: No, it is determined by one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do we hear the Father's voice?
SPEAKER_00: Do we trust his mercy?
SPEAKER_00: Are we willing, like Mary, to say yes to his will every single day?
SPEAKER_00: If we do, then we're not merely followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We become members of his own family.
SPEAKER_00: And there, well, there's no greater privilege, no greater identity, no greater joy than to be able to say, Well, I, I belong to the family of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.