The Gospel for Tuesday of the 25th week in Ordinary Time is taken from Luke 8, 1921. The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him, but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you. He said to them, reply, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it. The core of the message of Jesus is relational. It’s about having a relationship with God that is so close, so intimate, that it overpowers any other relationship.

And in this passage, it’s so simple to say that the people that interrupted Jesus teaching were just saying, these people are more important than those people that you’re talking to. And Jesus made it clear, no, what I’ve come to do is to open hearts, open minds. That’s my family. That’s who I’m close to. That’s who I live for. Foreign Father, you have revealed through Jesus the intimacy you long to have with us.

Bless us with openness to it. Keep us from imagining that we have to earn this. It’s gift. It’s gift. That’s what it always is, a gift. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.