This Sunday, Jesus Sums Up Today’s Catholics In a Very Short Parable

Jesus tells the Parable of the Two Sons in the Gospel reading for Mass this Sunday. Without even touching on what it says about salvation history, it has a powerful personal message for American Catholics in the 21st century.

Here are six takeaways for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A, drawn from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.

First: The clearest takeaway of the Parable of the Two Sons is that Christianity is something you do, not words you say.

In the parable, a father gives the same order to two sons: “Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.” “I will not,” says one, but then goes to work anyway. The other says, “Yes, sir,” but then doesn’t help.

“Which of the two did his father’s will?” Jesus asks.  “The first,” comes the answer.

Correct. Jesus doesn’t want us to say the right things, feel the right things, or appear pious in the right way. He wants us to do his will.

In other words, he doesn’t give us credit because we care deeply about the plight of the poor; we have to serve the poor. He doesn’t give us credit because we are eloquent about the need for prayer; he wants us to actually have a prayer life. He doesn’t look at the posts we shared on social media; he looks at the goods we shared in real life.

Second: But there’s more. Look more carefully at the first son’s refusal.

The two sons answer their father in very different ways. One says, “I will not” and the other says “Yes sir.”

Let’s start with “I will not.” That is a remarkably honest way to answer the Father’s direct order.

Typically, when we refuse to do a task we are a lot more cagey about it. We say “If I have time, I’ll try to do it,” while planning to have no time for it. Or we say, “I’ll see what I can do,” before seeing to it that we can’t help.

Honesty is a better strategy. Imagine that, instead of turning down an opportunity to do good by saying “I can’t find the time for that,” or “I have a lot going on with the kids right now,” or even, “I’ll pray about it,” we simply said, “I will not. I choose to spend my time in other ways. I place a low priority on what you are asking.” Answering honestly would expose my true motives, bringing them into the light where I could forthrightly examine them.

If we were as honest with our refusals as the son in the parable, we would change our mind more often, just like he did.

Third: Now, consider the second son’s “Yes, sir.”

Jesus says: “The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.”

That “sir” is key. That is where many of us are. If God wants something, we don’t just say Yes, we say Yes, sir! We know God deserves our respect and our unreserved assent. So we show up at church when we are supposed to, and we say Amen when we’re supposed to say Amen.

But the real test comes after the Amen. How do we spend our week? Do we help others? Do we share our faith when it comes up at work? Do we choose God over other pastimes?

Or, instead, do we double down on the “sir” by adding more honorific language? Often, we Catholics spend a great deal of time learning to say all the right things. We know the right answer to every theological, ecclesial, and political question. But when it comes to actually doing the things we’re supposed to, we are less reliable.

Or, worse, for some of us, instead of working in the vineyard, we want to police the vineyard workers. We criticize liberals or conservatives (or both!) and congratulate ourselves for giving proper awe and respect to God, and for being willing to say “Yes, sir” in exactly the right way.

Our Yes, sir! might mean we have “fear of God,” giving him his due — but as one early Christian commentator put it, “At the beginning of the commandments of the law, he did not say, ‘You shall fear the Lord with all your heart’ but ‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart.’”

Fourth: So God has a message for us, no matter which son we are, this Sunday.

He says, “Please just do what I ask! My people need you. Give me honesty instead of excuses and honor me with your hearts, not your lips.”

Or, in Jesus’ words:

“Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.”

To us, he might say: Drug addicts and alcoholics, convicts and post-abortive women are entering the kingdom of God before you. My saints and prophets warned you — Mother Teresa and my Vicars came and you did not believe. You met my struggling brothers and sisters and you didn’t talk to them. My son was desperate for help and he found no welcome in your parish. My beloved daughter was depressed in the hospital waiting room and you chose the seat farthest away from her.

What St. John Chrysostom said of people in Jesus’ day can apply to religious people like us: “You should have repented long before they did. But you did not do it. So you are deprived of all excuses. … He came to you and you did not receive him. He did not come to them and they received him! And you did not even learn from their example.”

Fifth: What will happen to us if we say Yes, sir! and do nothing?

Nothing good. “When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die,” says Ezekiel in the first reading. “But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life.”

What does he mean when he says we will “die”? He means what St. John Henry Newman meant when he said: “Go before God’s judgment-seat, and there plead that you know the Truth and have not done it. … How will it there be taken? ‘Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee,’ says our Judge Himself, and who shall reverse His judgment?”

Ezekiel adds: “You say, ‘The Lord’s way is not fair!’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or, rather, are not your ways unfair?”

It is unfair for us to take God’s gifts and refuse to use them as he asks; but God is eminently fair, giving us the freedom to return to him at any moment. In fact, he goes far beyond fairness in Christ.

Sixth: In Jesus, God gives us the ultimate example of both sons’ responses.

On the night before he died, Jesus managed to combine the best characteristics of both brothers in the parable, when he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”

Instead of the formal “sir,” he uses the loving phrase “Abba,” and instead of saying “I will not,” he is honest about his wishes, but commits to the Father’s will anyway.

What Jesus is asking us to do, then, is exactly what he did. St. Paul puts it nicely in the Second Reading:

“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. … Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.”

We gain that encouragement, solace, compassion, and joy in one way: from Jesus Christ, who is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

“Every Holy Communion fills us with Jesus,” St. Teresa of Calcutta once said. “To be able to live this life … we need our life to be interwoven with the Eucharist. That’s why we begin our day with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. With him, we go forward.”

Today after Communion look at the crucifix, the sign of the obedient son, and pray, “Yes, Abba Father, I will. I admit that I am weak, and I admit that I am reluctant — but confident in your grace, I will do as you ask.”

Image: Parable of Two Sons by Andrey Mironov wiki

By Tom Hoopes