TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME “A”
2008
It is not uncommon for a son to go to work in his father’s business and then eventually one day take over that business. Once there was a young man who went through college dreaming of the day he would be offered an executive position in his father’s huge industrial plant. On graduation day, his father took him aside and said: “Son, now you’re ready to come into the family business.” Immediately, the young man had visions of a big, plush office, a large staff of assistants, and a hefty executive salary. “I’ll start work tomorrow, dad,” he said enthusiastically. Whereupon his father said: “Of course, in order to learn the business, you’ll have to start at the bottom. To begin with, your job will be to water the hundreds of plants located in our various buildings.” The son protested: “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not coming to work tomorrow.” Later, he thought better of his negative reply and decided to please his father. So he went to work at the job he had been offered. His father hoped for the best, but was quite concerned that, despite his son’s good intentions, he wouldn’t stay on the job for long. He stopped worrying, however, when the young man showed him his new business car. It gave his title as: “Plant Manager.”
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus tells a simply story for the benefit of the chief priests and elders of the people who had come to hear Him, but who also challenged His authority to teach. Many of the religious leaders in Jesus time held the mistaken idea that mere external keeping of the law was sufficient. Jesus wanted to show them that true holiness demands more than that. It requires the internal keeping of the law as well. To be truly holy means that we put our hearts in conformity with the Will of God at all times. God wants our hearts, our sincere love.
Jesus was pointing out that a right relationship with God grows and develops, not merely by what we say or promise to God, but by what we actually do. In this case the axiom that “actions speak louder than words” applies very well. Actions coming from the heart are what matters most. In His story in today’s Gospel passage Jesus said: “A man had two sons; he went to the first and said: “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” The son answers: “I will not”, but then later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same thing and he answered: “I am going sir”, but he did not go. Jesus then asked the religious leaders: “Which of the two did the will of his father?”and they answer correctly: “The first.” Now Jesus was not conducting this little quiz just to see how clever His listeners were. Rather, He was making a very important point about their personal relationship with God. He was saying that in the matter of obedience to God’s Will it is far better to move from bad intentions to positive action, than to remain locked into good intentions with no action. It is a lesson in repentance, for how often do we fail to do God’s Will, even when we have every intention of carrying It out.
In today’s first reading, God spoke to us through the prophet Ezechiel when He said: “when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life.” We often have the best of intentions. We say to ourselves, “yes, I am going to quit such and such a bad habit” or “yes I will try to be more kind to so-and-so” or “yes, I am going to make a real effort to help others out this week”, but then we stumble, or we waffle, we procrastinate, and we fail to do what we intend. Even so, God Who is our loving Father is always ready to forgive us and pick us up, the moment we repent and want to try again to do His Will. When we really desire to change our way of living, and do the Will of God, then we are responding positively to God’s invitation to work in His vineyard and to open ourselves up to the redemptive power of Jesus’ love. In other words, to say “yes” to God, even when we have previously said “no”, is to be transformed by the love of Jesus, and Jesus will help us follow His example of doing the Will of God to the best of our abilities.
The Good News of the Gospel is that God loves us and He wants us to be happy and at peace in this life. However, we know that God has also given us the freedom to say “yes” or to say “no” to what He asks of us. We are free to choose life or to choose death. We can obey God’s Will or we can disobey It. We can follow the teachings of Jesus, or we can go our own way. The result of saying “yes” to God, however, as evidenced in the life of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is that we receive God’s love in the flesh, and we live in union with Jesus Who helps us to rightly love and obey God. Jesus tells us that the only way to achieve genuine happiness and inner peace in this life is to submit our wills to the Will of God, and actually do what God wants us to do.
There is a little book entitled: “When All Else Fails— Read the Instructions” in which the author describes what happened when he ordered an elaborate backyard play-set for his young children. It had everything in it: swings and rings, monkey bars, a slide, a ladder, a parallel bar, and a see-saw. The set arrived at this house in a huge box, but he had to assemble it. He writes: “I began the unenviable task of putting together the backyard play-set. I worked at it for hours, pulling out the various parts and attempting to assemble them, but to no avail. Try as I might, I could not make the gym-set look like the beautiful picture on the side of the box. At one point, I ended up with not enough parts to finish the job; at another point, I had parts left over. Finally, I finished, thrilled that I used every single part - only to discover that the slide wouldn’t slide, the swings wouldn’t swing, and the see wouldn’t saw. Then I noticed a bright yellow card stapled to the front page of a small booklet. The card said: When all else fails read the instructions.”
Jesus has given us the instructions we need to live good, and happy lives on this earth. The problem is that too often we try to achieve that goal on our own, and we ignore what Jesus says. Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra, among others, may sing: “I did it my way”, and that may be fine for a popular song, but in living our lives well we need to do things God’s Way, we need to follow correctly the instructions Jesus has given us, and we need to trust Jesus completely. Jesus says to each of us: “Trust Me with your life. When following My instructions baffles you, don’t panic, and don’t be afraid, just trust Me”.
I have visited Niagara Falls several times over the years, but I have yet to go on the boat called the “Maid of the Mist.”. As you know, it takes sightseers very close to the base of the mighty falls. There was once a cartoon which showed a little boy, wearing the required rain coat and hat, standing on the deck of the “Maid of the Mist” and squirting Niagara Falls with a tiny water pistol. For us to try to replace God’s Will with our own, for us to think that we know best, in any given situation, is like trying to push back Niagara Falls with a squirt gun.
We live in a very materialistic society that defines happiness in terms of money, possessions, power and control over others. We are told we should look after number one, that we should take care of ourselves, and so we often ask ourselves the question:”what’s in it for me?” Jesus turns that question around when He says to us in the Gospel: “This is My commandment, love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus’ teachings are the key to living good and happy lives - and no power on earth can change that. To love one another is to say: “what can I do for you? How can I help you?” Genuine love, whether in marriage or elsewhere is love that is always other-directed, for that is how Jesus loves us, sacrificially. Let us listen again to the beautiful words Paul quoted in today’s second reading when He talks about Jesus. He wrote: “And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend in heaven and on earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” When we follow Jesus, when we listen to His instructions, we say “yes” to God.