This One Got Me

When it's my turn to give the homily, I usually cannot help but take the scripture passage to heart. Sometimes, though, the experience is even stronger than that -- I KNOW that Jesus is speaking directly to me. Praying with this gospel was one of those times.

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Today’s parable begins a section of Matthew’s gospel in which Jesus has a series of confrontations with the religious authorities in Jerusalem. Now I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs of that section today, but I would just urge you to read chapters 21, 22, and 23 of Matthew. We’ll be reading from that section through the end of October, and these five weeks will really fit for you if you read them as a whole. Today’s first passage is unique to Matthew, and through it Jesus teaches a message similar to the one we hear in our first reading from Ezekiel: if you turn from sin and convert to the Lord and the Lord’s ways, you will have life.

The two sons in the parable represent two different groups within Israel. The first symbolizes the religious outcasts, the prostitutes, and tax collectors. Obviously, they had made some bad choices, and their actions had placed themselves outside of the law; but through John the Baptist they sought repentance and then followed Jesus. The second corresponds to the religious leaders who built their life and reputation on knowing and professing the law. But they questioned John’s teaching and did not follow him, just as they now question Jesus’ authority. And so it was the outcasts and sinners who actually did the Father’s will and so found Life, while the religious leaders who professed their righteousness were the ones who remained mired in sin and Death.

I find readings like this very difficult. Do you remember the story of the man born blind? Jesus healed that man, remember, but then religious authorities questioned the poor man and eventually threw him out. Finally, at the end, Jesus finds him – and then makes the declaration, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” And he finally tells the Pharisees, “If you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.”

These gospels are hard for me. They are written about Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees, the chief priests and the elders, but they are not only about the Pharisees; they are not only about the sins of the chief priests or elders. I think they should be hard for all of us here today, but you alone can know what it says to you. But I know they are hard for me.

If we are God’s children, and God asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and we live in comfort when we see his other children hungry or homeless or sick or desperate or on the run, does God think we are doing what he has asked us to do? Or when our brother Jesus time and time again reaches out to lepers and foreigners and public sinners, and then asks us to follow him, and we do our best to improve our own standing in the world, and deliberately seek places to live and work where we won’t ever have to encounter the very ones he spent so much time with, does Jesus say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant”? Or will Jesus say to us, “Amen, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you”?

What this gospel tells me is that I had better be on the side of the prostitutes, the lowly ones, the shady people who know their life is broken but who want to be healed, who long for wholeness though they can hardly allow themselves to hope for it. I had better be close to the alcoholic who knows his life has spilled down the drain, but who wants to be free of his chains. I had better be the friend of the young runaway who was abused by her stepfather, who needs shelter & a hot meal, who deserves to know real love and compassion. I had better understand the desperation of the jobless man who can’t find a lasting job to feed his children and feels he’s no good to anyone anymore. This gospel tells me that when I go down to Children’s Hospital to stand with suffering children or grieving parents whose broken hearts reach for God, that I had better know that their sorrow places them closer to God than I am, so that I know what a gift they give me when they allow me to be part of their lives.

My life is easy, but I want to follow Jesus. I want my hands to be his hands in caring for the lost and forgotten, because that’s what his hands did. I want my eyes to be his eyes in searching for those who live in darkness, because his eyes were able to find them. I want my voice to be his voice to all I meet, because his words could be so tender and kind and yet so searingly direct and honest. I want my heart to love as he loved, because his heart reached out to everyone, even in forgiving those who drove nails through his hands and a sword in his side.

My life is easy, but I want to follow Jesus; and I tell you, this gospel makes me restless. And so I long for our Eucharist today – to remember once again how he gave himself for us and how he gives himself to us even now. I know I need his courage and consolation and strength in order to follow the path he calls me to follow. I think we all do.

Denny Duffell
September 25, 2011