Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Certain Sundays throughout the liturgical year offer different approaches to a recurring theme. Today’s readings present the theme of mercy for a repentant sinner. Those who are just and turn to wickedness will find a just recompense for their betrayal of justice. It’s not the Lord’s way that is unfair. It is the way of Israel (or God’s people) that is unfair and needs to change. The prophet Ezekiel offers redemption to the sinner who turns away from evil. If the wayward soul turns back to the Lord, “they shall live. They shall not die” (Ez 18:28). The Book of Ezekiel culminates in a promise that Israel will be restored. Jerusalem would stand again, and the people would be able to say, “The Lord is there” (Ez 48:35).

Jesus shows this in His dialogue with the Pharisees today. He asks them who of the two sons better accomplished their father’s will. The first son said no when asked to go out to the vineyard, and then changed his mind and went out to work. The second son promised to go out to the vineyard but did not go out in the end. The first son made the right decision in the end. He “repented” of his earlier resistance to his father’s will.

We are called to emulate the first son in Jesus’ parable. We will at times resist grace in life. This is because we are human and don’t always cooperate with the grace of God in our lives. God gives us the option to return to the right path. We see this in the model Jesus offered for us as described by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians. Jesus “humbled himself.” He did not lord His divinity over humans. He “emptied” Himself. He even accepted “death. Death on a cross.” It isn’t enough to profess high and mighty values.

While we hold to certain values as Christians, we must be willing to admit our sin humbly and do the right. If we don’t we are just like the second son who said yes to his father’s command and then chose not to follow through with it. Once we live in this way, always aiming to go out to the “vineyard” and work for the Lord’s kingdom, we can move past our sins although we fall. Then we can truly say with St. Paul “Jesus Christ is Lord!”

Reflection by Br. Matthew Marie, OSB