In nearly every culture, blood is the factor that establishes family unity. This is not true, however, in regard to the family Jesus wishes to establish. Throughout the world citizenship it is that unites individuals of varying backgrounds into a single nation. Again, this is not true of the people of God, the people Jesus wishes to bring to his Father.

The force that will bring Jesus’ followers together will be a specific desire: the desire to know the will of God and to keep it. “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And gazing around at those seated in the circle he continued, “These are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”

“Knowing the will of God and doing it” conjures up images of heroic martyrs and saintly, mortified ascetics, doesn’t it? Yes, this is true, if you’re thinking only in terms of the daily martyrdom required by daily Christian living.

Knowing and following God’s will in our daily lives demands that we die to anti-Christian values. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to die to these anti-Christian values are. They’re the values, which govern and direct the lives of almost all of humanity, namely, materialism, consumerism, greed, pride, pleasure and corruption.

Are these values, which constitute the motives that mold both thought and behavior in modern society, are they really anti-Christian? Go back to the Gospels. Read the beatitudes. Reflect on the lifestyle of Jesus.

Dying to these anti-Christian values is living like Christ. It is living for Christ. It is creating the family of Christ, it is forming the people of God.