SPEAKER_00: In today's first reading, God says to his people, I remember the devotion of your youth and how you loved me as a bride.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that image.
SPEAKER_00: God remembers.
SPEAKER_00: He remembers the days when Israel first fell in love with him.
SPEAKER_00: He remembers leading them out of Egypt through the desert, providing manna from heaven, water from the rock, and his presence in the pillar of a cloud and fire.
SPEAKER_00: He remembers a relationship that had marked was marked by trust.
SPEAKER_00: But then something changed.
SPEAKER_00: The relationship grew cold.
SPEAKER_00: The love that was once alive suddenly faded.
SPEAKER_00: That is why the Lord speaks with such tenderness.
SPEAKER_00: He's not speaking like an angry judge, he's speaking like a wounded husband whose bride has drifted away.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture often describes our relationship with God as a marriage, not because God needs us, but because he desires our love.
SPEAKER_00: Love cannot be forced.
SPEAKER_00: You can't force someone to love you.
SPEAKER_00: Love must be freely given.
SPEAKER_00: Then God identifies a tragedy with one of the most powerful images.
SPEAKER_00: My people have committed two evils.
SPEAKER_00: They have forsaken me, the source of living waters, and they have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine standing beside a crystal clear spring where fresh water flows endlessly and choosing instead to drink from a cracked, muddy hole in the ground that can't even hold water.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds absurd, yet God says that's exactly what sin is.
SPEAKER_00: Every sin is the decision to leave the living God in search of something we think will satisfy us more.
SPEAKER_00: Money, power, pleasure, success, approval, comfort, things.
SPEAKER_00: But none of these things is evil in itself.
SPEAKER_00: But the moment we expect them to give us what only God can give, they become broken cisterns.
SPEAKER_00: We keep pouring ourselves into them only to discover that they will never satisfy us.
SPEAKER_00: How much of modern life is spent digging through broken cisterns?
SPEAKER_00: We convince ourselves, if I just have a little more money, if I can have a bigger, more comfortable house, if if I can just receive that promotion, then everything's going to fall into place.
SPEAKER_00: If I can just find the right relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Then we finally arrive only to discover that the thirst remains.
SPEAKER_00: There's still that hunger, that void in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the human heart was created for an infinite God.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing finite, nothing from this world can ever satisfy an infinite longing.
SPEAKER_00: That leads beautifully into today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples ask Jesus, Why do you speak in parables?
SPEAKER_00: His answer surprises us.
SPEAKER_00: He says that some people look but they do not see.
SPEAKER_00: They hear, but they do not understand.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus hiding the truth?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: He's revealing a profound spiritual principle.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is not with their eyes, the problem is not with their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: A closed heart can stand before the greatest miracle and remain unchanged.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: They watched Jesus heal the sick.
SPEAKER_00: They saw the blind, receive sight, they witnessed demons being cast out.
SPEAKER_00: Still, they refused to believe.
SPEAKER_00: The evidence was there.
SPEAKER_00: The openness was not.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not merely an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_00: It is a disposition of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The humble recognize God's voice because they are willing to listen.
SPEAKER_00: The proud often cannot hear because they have already decided they know better.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Jesus tells his disciples, Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he does not say they are smarter than everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: He says they're blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Faith itself is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: The ability to recognize Christ is a grace.
SPEAKER_00: That realization should make us humble.
SPEAKER_00: None of us came to faith simply by our own brilliance.
SPEAKER_00: God has patiently opened our eyes, little by little, often through parents, through grandparents, through priests, through teachers, friends, and countless hidden graces throughout our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps today these readings invite us to ask simple questions.
SPEAKER_00: First, where am I digging through broken cisterns?
SPEAKER_00: What have I been expecting to satisfy me that can never truly be satisfied?
SPEAKER_00: And second, has my heart remained open to the voice of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Or have I become so distracted by the noise that I can no longer recognize his voice?
SPEAKER_00: The beautiful thing about today's first reading is that God never stops calling back his people.
SPEAKER_00: Even after they abandoned him, he still speaks with tenderness.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I remember the devotions of your youth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: He never stops pursuing us.
SPEAKER_00: He never stops inviting us home.
SPEAKER_00: He never stops offering us the living water that alone can satisfy the deepest thirst of our human heart.
SPEAKER_00: So today, stop drinking from broken cisterns.
SPEAKER_00: Let us return to the only source that never runs dry that crystal clean font.
SPEAKER_00: Because for Jesus, it's not merely someone who gives living waters.
SPEAKER_00: He is that living water.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever drinks deeply of him will never thirst again.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.