26th Sunday
Ordinary Time (A)
Matthew 21:28-32
- First reading – Ezekiel 18:25-28
When the sinner renounces sin, he shall certainly live - Second reading – Philippians 2:1-11
There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus. - Gospel
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people, ‘What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, “My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not go,” but afterwards thought better of it and went. The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, “Certainly, sir,” but did not go. Which of the two did the father’s will?’ ‘The first’ they said. Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, a pattern of true righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.’
Background on the Gospel Reading
The context for today’s Gospel is the mounting tension between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus has entered Jerusalem and overturned the money changers’ tables in the Temple. Jesus has caught the attention of the religious authorities; the chief priests and elders question Jesus about the source of his authority. Jesus refuses to name for these religious leaders the source of his authority. Instead, he questions the priests and elders through the parable we hear in today’s Gospel. The answer given by the religious leaders is correct, but it convicts them for their failure to heed the call of John the Baptist and for their inability to recognize the Kingdom of God.
The situation Jesus poses is rather straightforward. Given the same task by their father, one son asserts his disobedience in words, but then obeys in his actions; the second son obeys with his words, but disobeys in his actions. The question that Jesus poses is pointed and direct: Which son did what the father wanted? All would agree that “actions speak louder than words” and that even if his words were disobedient, the son who did the work as ordered did the father’s will.
Jesus’ conclusion is also direct. The chief priests and elders, the ones who speak most often about God, did not act accordingly. They did not respond to the message of repentance announced by John the Baptist with a change of heart. Instead, John’s message was heeded by those one would not expect to repent—tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners. Because of their actions, these sinners will enter the Kingdom of God ahead of the religious leaders.
Jesus could ask us the same question. Do our words indicate our obedience to God? If not our words, do our actions? God desires a full conversion of heart, that our actions (and our words as well) will give evidence of our love for God.
For Jesus, the last are the first
José Antonio Pagola
Jesus knew a society divided by barriers of separation and pierced with complex discriminations. In it we find Jews who can enter the temple, and pagans excluded from the ritual; «pure» people with whom you could deal, and «impure» ones you had to avoid; «neighbors» you ought to love, and «un-neighbors» you could abandon; «pious» men who observe the law, and «cursed people» who don’t know or fulfill what’s written; «healthy» people blessed by God, and «sick ones» cursed and without access to the temple; «just» people, and men and women who are «sinners».
Jesus’ action in this society ends up so surprising that still today we resist accepting it. He doesn’t adopt the posture of the groups of Pharisees, who avoid all contact with the impure and sinners. He doesn’t follow the elitist attitude of Qumran, where precise lists are drawn up of those who remain excluded from the community.
Jesus precisely comes close to those who are most discriminated against. He sits down to eat with publicans. He lets his feet be kissed by a woman sinner. He touches the lepers with his hand. He seeks to save «what is lost». The people call him «friend of sinners». With provocative insistence he goes about repeating that «the last will be the first», and that the publicans and prostitutes are going ahead of the Scribes and the priests on the way to God’s reign.
Who today really suspects the alcoholics, homeless, beggars, and all those who make up the dregs of society can be the first before God? Who dares to think that the prostitutes, drug addicts or those affected by SIDA are able to go in front of quite a few church people of stainless life?
Yet, though almost no one would say it, you dear ones, the undesirables and anathematized, must know that the God revealed in Jesus Christ really remains your friend. You are able to «understand» and welcome God’s forgiveness better than many Christians who don’t feel the need to repent of anything.
When we avoid you, God comes close to you. When we humiliate you, God defends you. When we despise you, God welcomes you. In your darkest night you aren’t alone. In your deepest humiliation, you aren’t abandoned. There’s no place for you in our society or in our heart. That’s precisely why you have a privileged place in God’s heart.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
https://www.gruposdejesus.com
Privileged by Grace
Pope Francis
With his preaching on the Kingdom of God, Jesus opposes a religiosity that does not involve human life, that does not question the conscience and its responsibility in the face of good and evil. He also demonstrates this with the parable of the two sons, which is offered to us in the Gospel of Matthew (cf. 21:28-32). To the father’s invitation to go and work in the vineyard, the first son impulsively responds “no, I’m not going”, but then he repents and goes; instead the second son, who immediately replies “yes, yes dad”, does not actually do so; he doesn’t go. Obedience does not consist in saying “yes” or “no”, but always in taking action, in cultivating the vineyard, in bringing about the Kingdom of God, in doing good. With this simple example, Jesus wants to go beyond a religion understood only as an external and habitual practice, which does not affect people’s lives and attitudes, a superficial religiosity, merely “ritual”, in the ugly sense of the word.
The exponents of this “façade” of religiosity, of which Jesus disapproves, in that time were “the chief priests and the elders of the people” (Mt 21:23), who, according to the Lord’s admonition, will be preceded in the Kingdom of God by “tax collectors and prostitutes” (cf. v. 31). Jesus tells them: “the tax collectors, meaning the sinners, and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you”. This affirmation must not lead us to think that those who do not follow God’s commandments, those who do not follow morality, saying, “In any case, those who go to Church are worse than us”, do well. No, this is not Jesus’ teaching. Jesus does not indicate publicans and prostitutes as models of life, but as “privileged by Grace”. And I would like to underscore this word, “grace”. Grace. Because conversion is always a grace. A grace that God offers to anyone who opens up and converts to him. Indeed, these people, listening to his preaching, repented and changed their lives. Let us think of Matthew, for example. Saint Matthew, who was a publican, a traitor to his homeland.
In today’s Gospel, the one who makes the best impression is the first brother, not because he said “no” to his father, but because after his “no” he converted to “yes”, he repented. God is patient with each of us: he does not tire, he does not desist after our “no”; he leaves us free even to distance ourselves from him and to make mistakes. Thinking about God’s patience is wonderful! How the Lord always waits for us; he is always beside us to help us; but he respects our freedom. And he anxiously awaits our “yes”, so as to welcome us anew in his fatherly arms and to fill us with his boundless mercy. Faith in God asks us to renew every day the choice of good over evil, the choice of the truth rather than lies, the choice of love for our neighbour over selfishness. Those who convert to this choice, after having experienced sin, will find the first places in the Kingdom of heaven, where there is greater joy for a single sinner who repents than for ninety-nine righteous people (cf. Lk 15:7).
But conversion, changing the heart, is a process, a process that purifies us from moral encrustations. And at times it is a painful process, because there is no path of holiness without some sacrifice and without a spiritual battle. Battling for good; battling so as not to fall into temptation; doing for our part what we can, to arrive at living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes. Today’s Gospel passage calls into question the way of living a Christian life, which is not made up of dreams and beautiful aspirations, but of concrete commitments, in order to always open ourselves to God’s will and to love for our brothers and sisters. But this, even the smallest concrete commitment, cannot be made without grace. Conversion is a grace we must always ask for: “Lord, give me the grace to improve. Give me the grace to be a good Christian”.
May Mary Most Holy help us to be docile to the action of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who melts the hardness of hearts and disposes them to repentance, so we may obtain the life and salvation promised by Jesus.
Angelus 27/9/2020
“Go today…!” Mission is today
Romeo Ballan, MCCJ
The main characters are a father and two sons, with an important task to carry out together, in collaboration, without backing away. The episode is told by Jesus in the parable (Gospel), with the invitation-command to go and work in the vineyard, that is, for the extension of God’s Kingdom in the world. It is a reiteration of the message of last Sunday concerning the work in God’s field, conversion of heart, gratuity of love and service, acceptance of the plan of God the Father… The Lord is not satisfied with words, he expects results: “It is not those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21). The word of Jesus and the message of the parable are a strong call to conversion and coherence between faith and works. A warning that is evident in the repeated debates-controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees. When Matthew, some decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, wrote these texts, the Christian communities were mainly composed of people coming from paganism, while the majority of the children of Israel had not recognized Jesus as the promised Messiah and had, therefore, refused to enter into the vineyard. The prophecy of Jesus had already come true: “Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom God before you” (v. 31). This word does not give rise to a gradation of merit or to best places; it indicates only a willingness and openness to the new of God. The parable assures us that our good Father does not refuse the work done late, that accepts changes of mind and even welcomes those who seem the most unworthy, if they repent and believe (v. 32). Because he is a very special God, who reveals his “greatness of heart above all by his unbounded kindness” (Prayer).
The two sons in the parable are two peoples (Israel and the Gentiles), two hearts with ups and downs and two sides of same coin. In reality, the two children are each one of us, with our ups and downs, our inconsistencies, in a mix of Yes and No, between times of fidelity and of weakness, depending on the phases and periods of our life… Already by the end of the first Christian century (more than 1900 years ago!), St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote: “Better to be Christians without saying so than to say so without being one!”
In contrast to the first two sons, with their Yes and No, there is a third son, which is not us: Jesus, the Son of the Father, who knows and carries out just one word: the Yes of God for the salvation of humankind (cf. 2Cor1:19; Mt 11:26). The majestic Christological hymn of Paul to the Philippians (II Reading) is a prayerful contemplation, faced with the mystery of Christ Jesus: He is God, like the Father and the Spirit, but he empties himself to become as men are, makes himself an obedient servant, humbles himself to accepting death on the Cross. But God raises him above all others, to the point that every tongue proclaims that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (v. 11). Christ did not seek “his own interests, but rather those of others” (v. 4). He, the Missionary of the Father, has given his life for all. Therefore, every Christian, every missionary, is called to follow his example, taking on “the same feelings of Jesus Christ” (v.5): love, humility, compassion, total self-sacrifice. He is the way of Mission.
The command of the father to his sons is clear: “Son, today go and work in the vineyard” (v. 28). An episode of country life that links us to another call by Jesus to note that the harvest is ready: “Look around you, look at the fields: already they are white, ready for the harvest” (Jn 4:35). It is an abundant harvest, for which the labourers are, sadly, too few (cf Mt.9:37). The command is clear and very relevant: “Son, today go…” is a command for our time. It’s for today! With the Missionary month of October and World Mission Sunday on top of us, it is easy to identify the vineyard of the parable with the missionary world, where the work for the Kingdom is proverbially immense, while the work-force (personnel and means) is lamentably small. The command of Jesus is linked to the command given by the priest at the end of the Latin Mass: ‘Ite, missa est!’,which means: Go, it is time for mission!
The apostle Paul received one day the command of Jesus: “Go … among the Gentiles.” From that moment his only answer was Yes, for life, to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. Before the missionary task, which belongs to everyone, everyone is called to respond responsibly. It appealed to the prophet Ezekiel (I reading) with an invitation to act with righteousness and justice, to live and not die (v. 27-28). The call of Jesus to work in his vineyard is urgent, for the good of humanity that is suffering and awaiting redemption. Christ expects from each one a personal, free and reliable response.
The more convincing ‘yes’ comes through a ‘no’
Fernando Armellini
Introduction
There are people who answer ‘yes’ without understanding what they are agreeing to. There are also sincere people who say ‘no,’ because they are not convinced and want to understand better. Their ‘no’ is just a polite way of asking for an explanation and saying they want to see things more clearly. Those who answer ‘yes’ to God immediately maynot realize who they are or understand what God thinks and proposes.
Whoever produces something is appreciated in our society. The old, the sick and thedisabled are respected, loved and helped, but are often thought of as a burden. The perception of their value and the preciousness of their contribution to making our worldmore humane is not immediate. We reward the efficient and the capable. We esteemthose who can succeed by themselves, and we remunerate those who work. God, rather,starts from the last, is interested in the last, privileges and rewards the last. Freely!
The parable of last Sunday has shocked us and perhaps, during the week, we reflected on the inconsistency of the master’s behavior. He pays the workers who came at the last hour the same as those at the first hour. It is difficult to give up the religion of merit and believe in the gratuitous love of God. Today’s reading seems to respond to our objection: “You say Yahweh’s way is not just! Why Israel, is my position wrong? Is it not rather that yours is wrong?” (v. 25).
Saying ‘yes’ to God means giving up our own way of thinking and accepting his. Hedoes not look for the satiated but those who are hungry so he can fill them with his possessions (Lk 1:53). He does not appreciate the powerful who sit on thrones but lowers himself to raise the lowly (Lk 1:52). He does not reward the righteous for their own meritbut makes himself the companion of the weak and introduces the tax collectors and prostitutes into the kingdom first. Only those who recognize themselves as last, as sinners, and as needing his help will experience the joy of being saved.
First Reading: Ezekiel 18:25-28
What did the exiles in Babylon talk about i,f not the destruction of their city and those responsible for the catastrophe? They racked their brains, but they always came to the same conclusion: we are victims of the mistakes made by others. Our fathers have sinned, and we carry the consequences and, like a refrain, they kept repeating the proverb: “The parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge”(Ezk 18:2).
The predictions for the future were bleak. They were far from Jerusalem, deprived of their holy place, the temple in which they could beg for the Lord’s forgiveness and offersacrifices of atonement for sins. They felt ruined and had lost all hope. Ezekiel was also among these exiles. He took a stand against this widespread belief among the people. It is true, he said, that there is solidarity in evil. The consequences of sin can indeed reach not only those who commit it but also involve the innocent. They are sometimes extendedover generations, but it is not an inescapable fate. It is possible to break this chain, and everyone is asked to contribute to affecting a change in the course of history. Those whoshrug and resign themselves to their fate cannot blame their parents. The responsibility falls on those who act cowardly, “he dies because of his sins” (v. 26).
Deliverance from sin is not obtained through any ritual. It is useless to repeat: “At this time, we no longer have a king, prophet or leader. We cannot offer holocausts, sacrifices, offerings or incense. We have no place to present to you the first fruits of our crops, and so obtain your favor” (Dn 3:38). The sad legacy of sin is wiped away only throughconversion: “The one who does what is good and right after turning from the sins he committed, he will save his life” (v. 27).
Ezekiel’s message is comforting: a ‘no’ to God is always fraught with consequence, but it is not definitive. It is never the last word. At any time, it can become a ‘yes’: “He will live and not die because he has opened his eyes and turned from the sins he had committed”(v. 28).
Second Reading: Philippians 2:1-11
The community of Philippi was a good one, and Paul was proud of it. However, as often happens, there was a bit of envy among Christians even there. Someone was trying to attract attention to themselves and impose their will on others. This situation caused Paul to make a heartfelt recommendation in the first part of the letter: “Make me very happy; have one love, one spirit, one feeling; do nothing through rivalry or vain conceit. Do not seek your own interest but rather that of others” (Phil 2:2-4).
To better implant this teaching in the minds and hearts of the Philippians, Paul presents the example of Christ. He does this by quoting a beautiful hymn known in many Christian communities of the first century.
The hymn tells the story of Jesus in two stanzas. He already existed before becoming a man. Becoming incarnate, “he emptied himself” of his divine greatness. He accepted the nature of a slave of death. He was not clothed in our humanity as an outer garment that he could cast off. He assumed our human likeness: weakness, ignorance, fragility, passions, feelings, and the human condition. He appeared to our eyes in the humility of the most despised of human beings, a slave, one to whom the Romans reserved the ignominious punishment of the cross (vv. 6-8). But the path he has traveled has not ended with humiliation and death on the cross.
The second part of the hymn (vv. 9-11) sings the glory to which he is raised: the Father raised and held him up as a model for every person. He gave him the power and dominion over all creation. The entirety of humanity will end up being united with him,and at that time, the plan of God will be accomplished.
Gospel: Matthew 21:28-32
The land promised by God to his people is not just “flowing with milk and honey,” but also one in which wheat, oil, and wine abound … (Deut 8:6,10). “On that day, you will invite one another under your vines and fig trees” was the dream cultivated by every Israelite (Ezk 3:10).
In a time like ours where everything is mechanized, attention is paid only to the quantity of a product and its commercial value. To talk about a loving relationship with your own vineyard would sound a bit naive and pathetic. It was not so in Israel. While he pruned, the peasant caressed his own vineyard with the moving gaze of a lover and addressed it with sweet and tender words. The poets have sung often of this love, and God used it to describe the passion that binds him to his people (Is 5:1-7). Israel is “my fruitful vineyard. Praise her! I, Yahweh, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will harm it, day and night I guard it” (Is 27:2-3).
Jesus has taken this several times; he spoke of day laborers, working diverse hours, towork in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-15), of the murderous tenants who do not want to deliverthe fruit (Mt 21:33-40) and especially he presented himself as the “true vine” (Jn 15:1-8).
The parable of today’s Gospel depicts three characters: a father and two sons. Jesus’ hearers sensed immediately that the father represents God, but they are surprised that he has two sons. The Son of God is only one, Israel; through the prophet Hosea, the Lordsaid: “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11:1), and to the Pharaoh, he said: “Israel is my firstborn son” (Ex 4:22). The Scripture says that only “the Jews are children of the Most High God” (Est 8,12q; 16:16) “children that will not disappoint” (Is 63:8). To hear aboutthe two sons of God is disconcerting for an Israelite, but it is only the beginning; thecontinuation of the parable is even more provocative.
At his father’s invitation to go to work in the vineyard, the firstborn zealously and readily answered: Yes, Sir! (Literally: I, Sir! like saying, do not think of others, I’m there!), but then he did not go (v. 29). He does not say that, out of listlessness or being seduced by an attractive proposition of friends; he simply changed his mind to ‘no,’ even when he had said ‘yes’; he was not at all in accord with the program of his father. He had onlyspoken empty words. It recalls another saying of Jesus: “Not everyone who says to me,Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my heavenly Father” (Mt 7:21).
This firstborn represents the Israelites whom Moses had already called “degenerate children, a deceitful and crooked generation,” “unfaithful children” (Deut 32:5,20). Not allthe Israelites, of course, but only those who, in words, had committed themselves to the covenant and then reduced them to external rites, worthless ceremonies, convinced that they were right with the Lord because they offered burnt sacrifices, offerings and prayer. This, at the time of Jesus, was the religion practiced by the priests of the temple and the notables of the people. They did not produce the fruit willed by God: “He looked for justice but found bloodshed; he looked for righteousness but heard cries of distress” (Is 5:7). The solemn liturgies were leaves, not fruit (Mt 21:18-22).
The provocations of the parable are not over. The father turned to the second sonand requested he work in the vineyard, and the answer was: ‘I don’t want to.’ But then, overcome with remorse, he went (v. 30). The reference to the hated Gentiles—who are now elevated to the status of children—is explicit. They have not given any formal adherence to the will of the Lord, but they entered first in the Kingdom of God.
When Matthew wrote this passage, 50 years had passed since the death and resurrection of Christ, and the prophecy had already been realized: the Christian communities were composed mainly of former pagans, while most of the children ofAbraham, who did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah of God, did not enter into the vineyard.
This finding may lead to the dangerous illusion that these two children are prehistoric characters and have nothing to do with us. Christians would be the ‘third son,’ the one who says ‘yes’ and does the will of the Father. They profess a clear faith and are free fromtheological error. They commit themselves to observe the commandments and precepts and praising the Lord in song and prayer.
But let’s ask ourselves what impact our formulas, statements, formal stand, and rituals have in everyday life (Go to work today in the vineyard!)? Do they put an end to hatred, war and abuse? While continuing to profess ourselves as Christians, do we noteasily resign ourselves to a life of compromise? Don’t we perhaps adapt to the criteria of this world and the good sense of people? Don’t we live perhaps with injustice, inequalityand discrimination?
The third child exists, but we are not that child. Only “the Son of God, Jesus Christ—Paul writes—was not ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ but with him, it was simply ‘yes.’ In him, all the promises of God have come to be a ‘yes’” (2 Cor 1:19). He is the one who always said: “Yes, Father, this was your gracious will” (Mt 11:26).
The conclusion of the parable (vv. 31b-32) contains what is perhaps the most provocative statement of Jesus: “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are ahead of you in the Kingdom of God.” The verb is in the present; it is a fact: the public sinners who have no religious screen to hide behind, those who cannot pretend because their condition isevident to everyone, even to themselves, are at an advantage compared with those who consider themselves righteous. They felt safe and protected by the religious practices that they fulfill faithfully without even realizing their distance from the vineyard of the Lord.
‘The tax collectors and the prostitutes’ who know they are far from God do notdelude themselves that they are doing his will. They are conscious of having said ‘no’; they do not try to fool themselves by fulfilling the precepts they themselves invented. They do not soothe the conscience with practices that have nothing in common with the true religion. Their awareness of being poor, weak, sinners in need of help predisposes them to be first in receiving God’s gift.
The other brother will enter the vineyard when he stops to acknowledge himself as just when he renounces the pride of those who believe in their good works when herecognizes his own hypocrisy and experiences disgust when he abandons the certaintiesthat arise from the fact that he had always said ‘yes’ to words and will rejoice at beingsaved by the gratuitous love of the Father.
READ: God desires and honors the conversion of a sinner. His love for sinful humanity impels God to the act of kenosis: emptying oneself and privileges as God to become like one of us. Jesus gives the parable of the two sons who had a conversion of heart—one towards obedience and the other, disobedience.
REFLECT: Getting rid of one’s self—ego—is a hard act. But it is easier when one is full of love for the other. It happens in genuine love relationships: e.g., between mother and child, husband and wife. When one loves the other, the will of the other becomes a sweet command, and one delights in realizing it. When we love God with all our being, we joyfully let God increase and our self-decrease in us.
PRAY: Let us pray for the grace to really “let go and let God” when things do not go our way.
ACT: What areas or aspects of our lives do we always want to be in control? What will happen if we entrust them to God for once?
