Sunday – 26th Week in Ordinary Time – A

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace be with you on this 26th Sunday in ordinary time. And yes, the time just keeps flying by because we are not destined for this world, my friends, but for the world to come. Paradise and joy and peace and holiness and the presence of God for all eternity.But before we get there, we need to make our journey. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to work on us, and most especially to address those things in our attitudes towards God that are preventing us from getting closer to him, and getting closer to one another.

And so my brothers and sisters, in the first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, whose writing during a time when the Jewish people were exiled in Babylon, their furious, they're frustrated, they're suffering, because they're being cleansed before being brought back to the Holy Land from where they were exiled.

And so, of course, we can imagine the complaints, the doubts, the blame that they were placing on God instead of on their own actions which brought them there.

And so God addresses this attitude, this stubbornness and hardness of heart.

When he said, and this is Ezekiel speaking in his name:

“Thus says the Lord, 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?” (Ezekiel 18:25)

My brothers and sisters, how many times do we complain?

How many times do we complain against others?

That things aren't going exactly how we wished.

That we might have to undergo some kind of illness or some kind of suffering.

And we blame God when most of the times, the illness or the suffering is brought upon ourselves by ourselves.

But we put the blame on God, and we think and we perhaps even might have the audacity to speak to him as if we could have done a better job.

We had better ideas.

It's almost like St. Peter when Jesus told them that he would be going to Jerusalem, to suffer, and there he would die, but after three days rise again. (Matthew 16:21)

Peter was like, “Did you say you're going to go to Jerusalem and die? No, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you what we're going to do. Okay, because you've made a mistake somehow.”

In other words, Peter at that moment thought he was more illumined, more wise, more knowing, than Jesus, who is God himself.

And what did Jesus say to him?

“Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking as men think, not as God thinks.” (Matthew 16:23)

In other words, “Behind me, follow me. Don't try to lead me. Let me guide you. Let me show you the way.”

And so many times, my brothers and sisters, we get into these divisions in our communities, in our fraternities, and even in religious life, us brothers, you know, we complain against one another.

You know, but all the while our Lord is asking us to examine our attitudes when we approach him and when we approach others.

And he is calling for in both instances humility, humility.

Notice how the priest begins at mass when the congregation has assembled, when the parishioners have drawn in to the pews, and when we're ready to start the mass, right at the beginning of mass, the priest will ask us, “Brothers and sisters, let us examine ourselves so that we may worthily celebrate these sacred mysteries.”

In other words, “Let us examine our attitudes, our sins, and repent and humble ourselves because we're about to enter into the presence of Almighty God, infinite, in omnipotence, omniscience, omni benevolence, he's all good.”

And so Saint Paul in his second letter again is addressing attitudes.

Listen to what he says to the Philippians after he had visited them:

“Brothers and sisters, 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. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory, rather humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.” (Philippians 2:1–4)

Look at Saint Paul's concerns in every one of his letters here to the Philippians, but also to the Galatians, to the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Romans. He's always addressing some kind of strife, some kind of division that was brewing even in their midst, those who were called to be like Christ, humble, loving, generous, and merciful.

My brothers and sisters, let us examine ourselves:

Am I allowing the Lord to work in my heart his wonders, his miracles of conversion of change, or am I being complacent?

In other words, “Am I living in a way where “everything goes? There's no problem? Nothing to address? There's no sin?”

My brothers and sisters, if we dig deep, if we look within our hearts, we will find that there is always something to address, and it could be for example, when we hear the word of God, preach to us, for example, about forgiveness, and we say, “Yeah, yeah, for sure, I'll go and I'll forgive,” and then we don't do it.

Or when we say, “No, I'll never forgive that person.”

But then we think better of it.

We pray over it.

And God gives us the grace.

And we do it.

And this is what Jesus is addressing in the parable that he gives in today's gospel from Matthew.

“Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people, What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, Son, go out and work in the vineyard today. He said in reply, I will not, but afterwards changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, Yes, sir. But he did not go. Which of the two did his father's will.” (Matthew 21:28–31)