This past summer I had the joy of traveling with my nephew. He’s 18 years old and when you graduate from high school in my family you get to go on a trip with uncle Jason whether you want to or not.

[laughter]

And so we- why are you laughing?

[laughter]

So we went on a trip together and we had a wonderful time and probably about ten times somebody during the trip -we went to Puerto Rico- somebody during the trip came up to me and said, “Would you and your son like to.. X-y-z?” About ten times. And each time, each time I was surprised that somebody said to me, “You and your son…”

Now he could be my son. I’m certainly old enough for him to be my son- why are you laughing?

[laughing]

But he’s my nephew. We’re connected. I’m not his godfather, I’m just his uncle and we’re connected, but I’m not his father.

In today’s gospel we hear this intimate story about connections between the Father and the Son. We see the beautiful and intimate dialogue between Jesus directly to his father.

We hear that and we have a very beautiful image that Jesus gives us in this dialogue between the Father and the Son. Not uncle and nephew but father and son.

In this dialogue Jesus says, “The people to whom I’ll gather to you Father are yoked to me.” They’re yoked, connected to me forever. They’re with me forever.

The image of a yoke is really important, fact every time I get ready for mass- I’ll show you. Every time I get ready for mass I put on a yoke.

This stole is the yoke that reminds me that I’m connected to Jesus in the most beautiful way for the celebration of the Eucharist.

In fact, when you were baptized you too were yoked to Jesus. Remember? It was a long time ago. But you were yoked to Jesus. And it’s this beautiful connection, just as the Father and Son are connected, so too are we connected to Jesus our brother and God our Father. And Jesus tells us that in no uncertain terms, that we’re connected and yoked to him in a beautiful way.

Today, as we remember our connections are being yoked to Jesus through baptism I’m going to invite us to call ourselves- not even, ah, brother to Jesus or child of God.

I mean if I was to call ourselves disciples, how do we remind ourselves that we are disciples of Jesus forever yoked to him and forever connected to him? Disciples. Let us recommit ourselves to walking as Jesus’ disciples cause it’s this beautiful relationship that we live every day by virtue of our baptism.

Amen?

Amen.