What do you think people will say if you speak about the gospel to everyone you meet and tell them to repent of their sins? What will people around you, your families think if you proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand? What will your friends think of you if you remind them of the wide and easy road to hell and its danger?

Today’s gospel is very short. Let me read it.

Jesus and the disciples went home; and the crowd came together again so that they could not even eat.

When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

Quite a short passage, isn’t it? But we heard what the hometown’s people said about Jesus. They thought Jesus had gone mad. They probably thought little of Jesus, for he didn’t have much social status or money. And now they heard that he was going around to proclaim the kingdom of heaven and repentance of sins. They probably believed he should take care of himself and his mother. Repentance and salvation are too much for a mere carpenter to handle. Or they are too much for anybody to handle.

Brothers and sisters, our family and friends will think the same and say the same if we proclaim the gospel and the need for repentance. They will say, “Leave it to your parish priest. Let the pope and bishops take care of it.”

Throughout history, when a clergy proclaimed the gospel and the repentance of sins with urgency to respond, he was scorned most times among his clergy. In our times, people love bishops and priests of sophisticated, innovative and progressive ideas. But those preaching the same message Jesus preached are often despised and disregarded as rigid, fanatic, fundamentalist.

What do you think people will say if you speak about the gospel to everyone you meet and tell them to repent of their sins? What will people around you, your families think if you proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand? What will your friends think of you if you remind them of the wide and easy road to hell and its danger?