Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, September 26, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
September 26, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The text that guided the homily was:

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.
• Jesus will give us another parable this week, popularly called the parable of the two sons. As he did last week, he employs the image of working in a vineyard. Last week he spoke to us about his calling all hands on deck, going out at 6 and 9 am, noon, 3 and 5 pm, to call laborers into his vineyard, because he wants us all working. This time he focuses on two brothers called by their Father to work in his vineyard. The first son initially refuses when his father tells him, “Son, go out and work in the vineyard today,” but afterward he changes his mind and goes to work. After the parable, Jesus implies that this is the proper way to understand those prostitutes and tax collectors and other types of sinners, who even though for lengthy periods of time they said “no!” to the sixth, seventh and other commandments, eventually converted and were now living and working in the Lord’s vineyard, building up and entering into his kingdom. The second son responds to his father’s command saying respectfully, “I will go sir,” but never acts on that promise. Jesus says that this applies precisely to those he was addressing, the scribes and the Pharisees, who so many times very publicly prayed in the temple chanting their loud “amens!” to God, but who were not following through on their covenantal commitments. The Pharisees, scribes and elders, who with their lips were saying yes to the Father’s will but with their actions were not, ended up showing where this hypocrisy can lead: they ended up framing Jesus and having him tortured, crucified and killed.
• It’s obvious that the Lord wants all of us today to reflect not only on what we say to God, but especially on how we follow through on our commitments. We’re listening to this program dedicated to growing in faith because we are people who have said “yes” to God many times over the course of our lives. On the day of our baptism, our parents and godparents spoke up for us and made our baptismal promises. At our Confirmation, we stood up and renewed those promises to reject Satan, his evil works and empty promises, and to believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body and life everlasting; we also made the commitment at our Confirmation to go to work in the Lord’s vineyard, with tongues of fire, to proclaim the Lord’s Gospel with ardent passion. The Lord wants us to ask ourselves today whether we’ve been following through on those commitments and been getting down to work in his vineyard. If we have not been following through, if we’ve been saying “no” to the Lord with our bodies despite the “yes-es” of our lips, then he wants to help us to learn from the example of the first son. It’s not fundamentally words that matter, but deeds of conversion and faith. For many of us sons and daughters of God, our “yes” in faith has become routine. We say it so naturally and readily that we have ceased to understand the meaning of what we’re saying and to act on that commitment. Every week we say “Amen!” to the words, “The Body of Christ,” but do we really structure our lives in a way consistent with this affirmation? We say, “Thanks be to God!” when the Word of God is proclaimed at Mass, but do we show that gratitude for this incredible gift by making time each day meditate on what God is saying to us and apply it to our lives? We affirm, “I believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit” but do we still believe when God asks us to do something challenging, like hard work in his vineyard, or does our faith weaken when God asks of us something we don’t want to do? We confess our faith in the “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church,” but do we look at the Church as just one other organization to which we belong or rather as the Bride and Body of Christ that he set up for our salvation and for the salvation of our family members, friends, enemies and the whole world?
• It’s clear that God is seeking to move us today to let our hearts be touched by faith, to get beyond words, and make our life an “Amen!,” a “let it be done to me according to your word!,” a “thy will be done!” To learn how to do this we need to grasp that there’s a third son whose example is set before us today in this Gospel scene, someone who both says “yes” and then does what he is asked. It’s the Son who told us the parable: Jesus himself. As we read in the letter to the Hebrews, upon entering into the world, Jesus said to his Father, “Here I am, Lord, I have come to do your will” (Heb 10:7-9). Jesus never had to change his mind, as the first son did in the parable, because in his mind he was always seeking what the Father wanted. The more we think with the mind of Christ, and live according to that mentality with the help of God’s grace, the more we will please the Father. In response to Jesus’ question in the Gospel, “Which … did the will of his father?,” we’re called to respond that Jesus did the will of the Father! And today Jesus calls us to follow him in doing the Father’s will with him. He calls us to say “yes” to the Father and to act on that “yes.”
• The Eucharist, which we are so mind-blowingly privileged to receive, helps us to conform our whole life to God’s will. Jesus had prayed in Gethsemane that the Father would take the chalice from him, but then added three times, “But not my will, but thine be done!” (Lk 22:42). That chalice was the cup of his suffering, filled with his own blood. When Jesus told us during the Last Supper to “do this in memory of me,” he was not merely telling us to convene as we do today to celebrate this greatest event of all. Jesus was telling us to make our lives truly Eucharistic and, following Jesus’ example, become obedient even to our own death, saying to God and to others, “This is my body, this is my blood, this is everything I am and have, this is my will, given for you.” May this third Son, this faithful Son whom we will receive at Mass, help us not merely to say, “Amen!,” but to follow through on the mission he out of love has entrusted to each of us and all of us, so that, not merely by our lips but by our lives, we might help each other to become living commentaries of the words “Thy will be done!,” as we respond to God’s words, “Son, Daughter, go and work in the vineyard today.” God bless you.

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was: 

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