Cycle A 26th Ordinary
1. We are in the 1st of 3 Gospels known as the ‘PARABLES OF REJECTION. Some of Jesus’ last teaching moments dealing with His rejection as the Messiah are recorded in the parables of:
-The man who had two sons.
-The property owner who had a vineyard and the tenants wrecked havoc.
-The King who gave a wedding banquet and told us who will be invited to the wedding.
They are about the leaders of God’s Chosen People, the Chief Priests and Pharisees, who rejected the Good News or New Law, as they remained steadfast to the observance of the LAW OF MOSES.
2. These are tough Parables. There are no HOLDS BARRED. Jesus shoots straight from the shoulder as he levels his complaints and charges against the Chief Priests and Pharisees as He goes out after their long held view and foolish notion about who is righteous, who has sinned and who can be forgiven. Yet these parables hold out to us a lot to think about too. Do we hold the wrong attitude. Am I one of those Righteous who points my finger at one of the sinners. Maybe I am a sinner, but afraid to change my life.
3. What marks the beginning of this chapter is Jesus’ TRIUMPHANT ENTRY into Jerusalem. The people singing “Hosanna to the Son of David.” (We know this moment well from Palm Sunday Liturgy) And then Jesus goes to the Temple where he cleanses it from the Buyers, sellers and money changers, who debased the importance of the Temple.
All of this did not sit well with the Scribes or Pharisees. The next day Jesus comes back and delivers His powerful PARABLES OF REJECTION. Matthew, at the last of the chapter, tells us….THEY GOT THE MESSAGE.
4. Today’s Parable meaning is crystal clear. Number 1 Son who says ‘YES’ to the Father but does not actually go do the work, was a thinly veiled sign of the religious authorities to whom Jesus was speaking…people who were long on words but short on deeds. When the Son of God came among them, as a Teacher, these pious folks were anxious to be rid of Him.
Faithful Citizenship Cycle A 26th
1. We heard today in Psalm 25: “Good and upright is the Lord; thus he shows sinners the way. He GUIDES the HUMBLE to justice, and TEACHES the HUMBLE his way.” HUMILITY does not mean that we are a door matt, or mean putting ourselves down, or making ourselves weak for no purpose. Humility though, is the way of the Cross. Christ Himself teaches us how to be humble, by choosing to give up His own life, so that we may live. Humility is one character of the HOLINESS we are all called too.
2. If we are WEAK in humility, our PRIDE gets in the way. PRIDE can keep us from accepting the transforming love of God. God’s LOVE DEMANDS CHANGE in our heart; PRIDE demands that NOTHING CHANGE if you don’t want it to. We all FACE this dilemma of ‘CHOICE’ each day in many different ways; to TURN AWAY from God to isolation because of our pride, or to TURN TOWARDS God and his love in humility.
3. The prophet Ezekiel proclaims ‘INFORMED CHOICE’ today. He also attaches CONSEQUENCES. PRIDE makes us feel that God’s ways are bad for us. God is NOT FAIR, we protest; His DECREES are too HARD; the Church demands too much. Should we water down the faith? Should it be easier to be on the Cross than anywhere else? “You have to choose”, says Ezekiel. God is Just. God is Love. It is our sins that keep us from accepting Him. Ours Sins keep us from accepting the TEACHINGS of the church. Ezekiel says, “Will you turn away from God and die”. Or will you turn to God with humility? If we do, God promises to accept our repentance and to give us true life.
4. Jesus uses the PARABLE of the 2 SONS to teach us too about CHOICE. The 1stnd son SINS in REFUSING his fathers command to work in the vineyard, but then he REPENTS and works. The 2nd Son only PRETENDS to accept the command to work and in fact DOES NOT work and SINS. Jesus asks which son does his father’s will, or in other words, which son loves his father? The answer is obvious; the son who REPENTS loves his father. That choice came only in HUMILITY. He decided it was better to love, respect and obey the Father. To do God’s will, even in the face of our own desires, is RIGHT CHOICE and with it comes JUSTICE.
5. HUMILITY was our Lord’s choice Paul tells the Philippians and us. Jesus himself, had to choose to love His Father, not ONCE but MANY TIMES in His earthly life. He chose to empty Himself, to permit the Incarnation. He chose to resist the temptations of Satan in the desert.
But his biggest choice came in the setting of our Gospel. He made the choice to go to Jerusalem. It started with TRIUMPHANT ENTRY into Jerusalem, where people sang “Hosanna to the Son of David”. Our Lord could not rest long on this adulation. For he chose to go to Jerusalem to CONFRONT not those who loved Him, but those who afraid of Him. He knew well, that if he did not change their hearts, he would have to ENDURE the consequences of their pride.
It was when He CLEANSED the temple of the Buyers, Sellers and money changers, who debased the meaning of the temple, that the battle lines were drawn. For the Chief Priests and Pharisees did not like what they saw at all that day. They chose, not to believe Jesus was the Messiah…their pride prevented them from believing Jesus had religious authority.
The next day, Jesus went back into the Temple area and that’s when the Religious Leaders questioned his Authority. There he delivered the PARABLES OF REJECTION. The first of which we heard today. He chastised those who REJECTED Him as the way, the truth and the life. And promised those who humbled themselves to believe in him…eternal life.
Because the Religious Leaders would not change, Jesus had to choose to permit his arrest, his torture, his humiliation. He chose to walk the way of the cross and he chose to die for our sins.
Was it EASIER for Jesus to choose than it is for us? NO. Choices to CONFRONT or to ENDURE are never easy. But because He chose, so now can we choose. And that makes it easier for us to follow.
7. We are called, BUT we still have to CHOOSE to live in humble unity with Christ and His Church for the sake of Justice. This UNION of love DEMANDS much of us, as it did from our Lord, His mother and the saints. And these demands don’t always mix well in today’s worldly environment.
Therefore spiritual unity and political unity are sometimes hard to come by. For the sake of political unity, we may have to sacrifice some goods that we want, even then, we expect to get other goods in return. For the sake of spiritual unity with Christ’s Body, the church, we MUST SACRIFICE not only what we want, but EVEN who we are; our PRIDE, our ATTACHMENT to sin, our FEARFUL SILENCE in the face of evil.
Our reward for this sacrifice is in Heaven; we may not see any fruits of our spiritual sacrifices in this life. This is the cost of humble union with Christ in the way of the Cross.
8. Our Pride and Hardness of heart, justifies the importance of what WE DEEM worth loving or confronting. Humility and Conversion of heart means we choose to hold important what GOD DEEMS worth loving or confronting. If we are to be just citizens of the world, of the United States and of the State of Iowa, we must first be humble sons and daughters of the Church and of the Kingdom of God. Justice comes from the love we live out in the world. Struggling every day to resist and confront evil and temptation, just as Christ had to do and therefore taught us to do.
The bishops of our United states have declared this “FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP WEEKEND” The Inserts in our bulletin are materials they have created to help us form our conscious before we exercise our right to vote as citizens of this country.
The church CLEARLY TEACHES what is right. And Faithful Citizenship can demand that a PRIORITY OF CHOICES must be confronted and changed or we will endure the consequences of it in our day.
And like the 2nd Son, only in Humility will we change. Easy or hard, Catholics must be ‘UNITED IN HEART, THINKING ONE AS CHRIST’ We must put aside our own private vision of what is right and fair, and, with the church, accept God’s vision instead. We must use our power, not for our own ends, but to fight for true justice. We must act on the love we receive from Christ, the love He showed for every single human person, born and unborn alike.
If we seek what God Loves, we will also vote according to what God Loves.
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