October 1, 2023

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ezekiel 18:25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32

An atheist in the forest stumbles upon a bear. The bear rears up to attack and the atheist yells, "O my God, no!" Time stops and he hears the voice of God say, "You called for me, my son?" The atheist thinks for a moment, and then responds, "I would ask you to save me, but that would be hypocritical, so instead, can you make the bear a Christian?" He hears "I shall do this for you, my son." Time resumes and the bear stops, puts his paws together, and says, "Bless us, O Lord, and these, thy gifts …"

Unfortunately, hypocrisy is not limited to atheists, by any stretch of the imagination. We try to limit the harsh label of “hypocrite” to those who tend to be more flagrant in its practice or do it frequently, but if I asked anyone here if they’ve always lived up to their professed ideals, I would probably not get many, if any, positive responses. We’re not perfect, and we know it.

In today’s Gospel, which was the perfect son? Of course, neither. Neither’s actions matched their answer to their father – both in fact did the opposite. Which son was better and which worse? Now this is a trick question. It is subjective – better and worse are value judgments – and therefore it has no objective right answer, but differ by how an individual weights the various issues involved. I will note that Christ does not ask this question. He doesn’t ask which is the better son, but instead asks which of the two sons did the will of the father. That is not subjective: one worked in the fields, the request of the father, and the other didn’t. The reason that it is tricky to get at better and worse is that it is culturally based. I am told that if you ask which son behaved the worse in a Palestinian country – at the time of Jesus or even today – the majority opinion would be that the son which said “no” behaved worse, despite the fact that he actually ended up working the fields. This is because there is, in the culture of that part of the world, more emphasis on an honor code that is centered around one’s family and community, and the fact that the son said “no” to his father publicly brought dishonor and shame to the father and the family. If I took a poll here today among those of us that are brought up in the American culture, I think the majority opinion would be that the son that said “yes” was the worst son, since he didn’t uphold his commitment. There is still an assessment of honor in this judgment, but instead of the honor of obedience to the father and family in what is said, American culture judges honor based on what is accomplished in deed – what, at the end of the day, did you do to benefit your family, bringing honor to the family based on what they possess and have achieved. But in both cases, honor has a lot to do with the way we view this parable.

I bring this up because the concept of honor is at the root of what Christ has been teaching us throughout his ministry, and especially the last several weeks. Last week we heard about the laborers in the vineyard, the point being that the landowner, God, will give the same daily wage, which represents the kingdom of heaven, to all who come to work in his vineyard, that is to say repenting and living by his word, even at the eleventh hour of one’s life. If God stood on his honor, he would deny one that waited until the last minute to repent. But God puts love and mercy ahead of honor. Today, the son that swallowed his pride and repented being disobedient to his father, of bringing shame to his father, is the one that Jesus is pointing to for us to imitate. Love and mercy before honor.

How often do we get this wrong in our lives? Like the atheist confronted by the bear, we too don’t want to lose face, lose some of our honor, by changing our ways. To act differently would be admitting that I didn’t do as well as I could have in the past, and who wants to admit that? How often do we excuse our actions because that’s just the way I am. Personal growth only occurs when we accept that we need to change. We see the need for others around us to change, and for the most part welcome changes in others when it means that they changed for the better. But why is it so hard to do it ourselves?

The parable in the Gospel teaches us one way to look at our actions. If we say that we want to obedient to the Father, to God, we become like a servant. But in reality, if we disobey the commitments we’ve made as baptized Christians, or even non-Christians who act with disregard to natural law of civility and social good, we are still a servant, but now we are a slave to our passions. We become puppets to our every emotion, whether it is anger, lust, sloth, whatever. Becoming better, as most twelve-step programs will teach, involves switching your desire away from a powerful addictive or emotional force to a desire to serve a powerful source of good: God. And a misguided sense of honor just gets in the way.

Christ shows us the way in the second reading. He is both God and man, but it was by emptying himself of the honor due to him as God and taking on the frailty of humanity that he was able to give of himself to fully fulfill the will of the Father, our redemption on the cross. Saint Paul spells it out for us: by humbling himself, he demonstrated the honor due to him. It was not the easy thing to do, since as a man he was subject to the same desires to avoid pain and suffering that we all are, but by doing so, he showed what true honor means.

This Wednesday, we will celebrate the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. Here is an example of someone who changed his life in a radical way that has inspired people ever since. He was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant, and he started life in an aimless manner, getting caught up in the romance of village social life as well as a brief stint at a soldier. As a prisoner of war, he had the time to seriously reconsider his life. No longer a slave to the whims of a lavish but empty life of pleasure, he became a slave to the will of God as he understood it. His father disowned him because Francis had brought worldly dishonor to him, but the paradox is that Saint Francis is now one of the most honored saints in the history of our Church. He too emptied himself in imitation of Christ, and was similarly exalted. We all can’t, nor should we, become impoverished and turn from all worldly senses of honor in the way Saint Francis did, but his example shows that we can change our lives in profound ways if we choose to do so.

As we continue with the Mass, let us ask for God’s graces, present in the Eucharist, to help us both to understand how we can change our lives to better obey the will of the Father and to give us the strength to do so. We ask for the intercession of Saint Francis to keep our hearts open to the sufferings of others, imitating the mercy and love of God. May Saint Francis be our inspiration to become better people, to turn from hypocritical gaps between our Christian ideals and our actions, and to sincerely echo the prayer that we heard sung in the psalm today: “The sins of my youth and my frailties remember not; / in your kindness remember me, / because of your goodness, O LORD” [Psalm 25:7 NAB].