Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A man had two sons. The first said, “Yes, sir,” but didn’t go to work in the vineyard. It was a good beginning but a bad ending. In a sermon titled “Promising without Doing,” Cardinal Newman writes, “We know that it is our duty to serve God, and we resolve to do so. We are sincere in desiring to be obedient; yet we go away, and without any struggle of mind or apparent change of purpose, we do the very contrary to the resolution we have expressed.“¹ It’s like this riddle: Six frogs were perched on a log. Four of them decided to jump into the pond. How many were left? Two? No, six were left, because there’s a difference between deciding to jump and actually jumping, between good intentions and actual deeds.

A father tried to engage his daughter in conversation. He asked, “How’s your sophomore year in college going?” She replied, “Good.” He continued, “And your roommates in the new dormitory, do you like them?” She answered, “Yeah.” “How are your classes this year?” She said with a groan, “Fine.” Patiently, her father tried again, “Have you decided on a major yet?” She nodded a silent, “Yes.” “Well,” he asked, “what is it?” She answered, “Communication.” The distance between her good intentions and her way of acting was wickedly large.

The Scribes and Pharisees were like that. So, Jesus told them the parable about a respectful son who said “Yes, sir” but then disobeyed, and a disrespectful son who said “I will not” but repented and went to work in the vineyard. Jesus asked, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” Why doesn’t Jesus offer a third, more desirable option: that of a son who respectfully says “Yes, sir,” and then cheerfully obeys? That’s the kind of son or daughter our Father in heaven wants. Is Jesus being unfair by the way he phrases his question, giving only two bad choices?

Is he like the prosecutor who asked, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Is Jesus’ question like some of the choices on the MMPI psychological tests? For example, question 487: “I have enjoyed using marijuana.” If I say “True,” then I enjoyed it. Or, if I say, “False,” then I didn’t enjoy it. What about a third option, “I never used it“? Or, question 430: “I am often sorry because I am so irritable and grouchy.” If true, then I’m sorry to be so irritable; if false, then I’m not sorry. But what if I’m not irritable and grouchy? Has Jesus unfairly left out a third choice, a respectful son who obeys? No, because Jesus is the only one who has always shown the Father respectful love and perfect obedience, fulfilling his promise, “Behold, I have come to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). Whether Scribes and Pharisees, or tax collectors and prostitutes, or monks and nuns, or lay men and women, we have all been disrespectful and disobedient in our lives. We all need repentance.

On one level we may appear to be respectful and obedient. We are law abiding, we follow the rules. Once an old television program called Candid Camera, put signs on two telephone booths at a busy location: one phone booth was labeled “Men” and the other phone booth “Women.” No one violated the signs. Even when there was a line at the men’s phone booth and the other one was empty, no man used the booth marked for women, and no woman tried to use the one marked for men. We obey the laws or we change them.

Another example: There was a story in the New York Post, on Nov. 30, 1971, about five armed men who robbed a bank, injuring several people in the process. But a female bank-teller escaped into the women’s rest room and closed the door. A gunman chased her but stopped at the door and told her to come out. She refused. Finally, he gave up and helped his colleagues finish robbing the bank and its customers. He might be a thief and a murderer but he would not enter a women’s restroom! We obey the rules, lots of them, but the obedience Jesus is talking about is far more demanding.

St. Paul writes that we have all sinned, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one” (Rom 3:10). Who is entirely free of all complicity in the great social sins of our times: the inequitable distribution of this world’s goods; or the violation of human life at both its earliest and latest stages; or contributing to the root causes of terrorism and war? Who has never injured someone’s reputation, or never acted selfishly, or never given in to pride? The Scribes and Pharisees began well by their reverence for the law of Moses and their zeal for worship in the Temple of God. But they ended badly, by not believing God’s own Son, even putting him to death. Cardinal Newman writes, “Obedience is so difficult at every step in our Christian course, that we often fail in the great interval between promising and doing. St. Peter himself said, ‘Though I die with Thee, I will not deny Thee, yet straightway he went and denied Christ three times,’ “² We know what is right, we promise what is right, and yet we fail. How many people profess to be Catholics but do not share in the Sunday Eucharist? How many wealthy religious communities profess to love the poor and pray for them, but then help themselves to funds provided by the government for those who are truly poor and needy? This is a grave moral evil. May we not condone it by silence or a lack of courage to speak out against it.

One day Charlie Brown stopped at Lucy’s booth for psychiatric help. He said, “My trouble is I never know if I’m doing the right thing. I need to have someone around who can tell me what is the right thing to do.” Lucy replies, “Okay. You’re doing the right thing. That’ll be five cents, please!” Charlie Brown walks away with a smile on his face. Later he returns with a frown. Lucy asks, “Back already? What happened?” He says, “I was wrong. It didn’t help. You need more in life than just having someone around to tell you the right thing.” Lucy says, “Now you’ve really learned something! That’ll be another five cents please.” Even when we know the right thing to do, we often fail. So, Jesus presents us with the example of the son who repented of his disrespect and went to work in the vineyard. We always need this prayer: “Lord Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner.” Then, by the grace of God, our bad beginnings can turn into good endings, like the son who had a change of heart and did his father’s will. But there’s a fourth possibility: a son or daughter who is both disrespectful and disobedient, who says “No” and disobeys. That is the broad road to eternal destruction. May we be far from such wickedness. Instead, may we grow more pleasing to God by love and obedience, and may we fall less often and rise more quickly.

John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1. Sermon XIII, Promising without Doing, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1997, p. 108.
ibid p. 112.