Can you believe it—it’s late September already.
And this weekend’s gospel, Matthew 21: 28-32, calls us to consider our choices in life, especially the faith choices we make, and to see how all choices we made may either lead us closer to Christ or divert us from His grace and blessings, His way of life.
The first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel tells us that we need to make a sincere commitment about turning from sin and evil and walking toward Good and the Lord. And if we do that, we shall preserve our life; we shall surely live and not die. St. Paul in his Letter to the Philippians reminds us that we cannot seek “empty glory,” given to us in the Greek kenodoxia, which denotes a life lived in the vanity exhibited by those who “vaunt” their own achievements, such as boasting, rather than in pointing all things to Christ. Thus, the two readings direct us to step away from evil and “the self” so as not to look to “me, myself, and I” as the source of goodness and charity, but rather we are called to conform to Christ and to live our lives in Christ, modeling His Goodness in all that we say and do—with a key emphasis on “doing” what we say we shall do.
Having said that, let’s turn to the Gospel of Matthew. In this gospel we have a father and two
brothers—along with the crowd to whom Jesus is speaking comprised of the religious leaders of the day. Here Christ provides a parable and asks the religious leaders—and us today—a question: “who did the will of the Father, the first son or the second son—one who said “sure, dad and didn’t follow through on his promise, or the second son who said “no dad but later changed his mind acted on his request?
As a young boy, say 12 years old, my father nicknamed me “I Will.” You see, my dad would ask me to do things like cut the grass or weed the walk (we had brick walks—hated them) and I would always say, “I will” but never, ever followed through. At 9 o’clock at night and 52 requests later, my father would hand me a flash light and tell me to go to work. Neighbors loved me. I told this story once at a daily Mass within the homily and one wonderful parishioner with a great sense of humor, Karen Keane, had a stone engraved with a lighthouse and the words, “I Will!” on it. You can find that memorable stone in the front garden at the rectory!
As the “second son” -in more ways then one - in my family, I understand from personal experience, what Jesus was asking the religious leaders of the day in the first part of the Gospel when He said, “Which of the two did his father’s will?” Jesus is telling us that words can be meaningless unless we follow them up with action—and this is of equal import as we consider our words or promises made to God and to one another in faith. Are our promises empty? Are we just spouting words with no follow-up? The first son was arrogant for sure but he followed up with goodness. The second son simply said what the father had hoped to hear, but then was
a “do nothing” illustrating an empty promise, empty glory.
Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders of the day in the second part of the gospel states them that the sinners and tax collectors are entering into the Kingdom before the ones who say the right things or make the correct promises but do little for help…yet the sinners come to
believe and act, thus they enter the Kingdom. As I like to say here in our parish: Believe it. Live it. Share it. Fulfill our promises with faith-filled action. When I tell someone I shall pray for them, then I must pray for them. When I say the hungry should be given food, I must give them food. When I proclaim justice for all, then I must work for justice. Mean what I say and say what I mean. Timing is everything and there’s no time like now to be filled with Catholic Action.