Weekly HOMILY for September 25,2011: Two Sons and Doing the Father's Will

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
St. Clement, Lansdowne, St. Mark, Fallston
September 25, 2011

Two Sons and Doing the Father’s Will
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


THE POWER OF "NO" AS CHILDREN

It begins very early in our lives: “Eat all your vegetables.” “No!” “Clean up your room” “No!” “Do your chores.” “No!” Sound familiar? The use of the word “No!” is in full swing by the time we’re toddlers.

Thank God we eventually mend our ways and begin making the right choices and saying “Yes” to what needs to be done … or do we?

The ability to say “No” to lots of things that are actually good for us does have value. Saying no is:
(1) A way of taking a stand, of distancing myself from someone.
(2) It’s using the freedom we have to oppose something we don’t want to consider.
(3) Very often it opens up some psychological space to look things over and ask, “Is this really the stand I wanted to take? Is this really who I am?”
(4) Most of all “No!” opens up a space in which God can touch my heart and change my mind.

That attitude of saying no, and the space that opens up because of it, doesn’t stop with childhood, but continues each day and even into the present.


JESUS' USE OF THE STORY OF THE SONS

Jesus takes up this very human journey of saying-no-and-then-saying-yes, on the one hand, and saying yes-and-then-acting-no on the other in his story of the two sons.

Let’s situate his telling of the story. When Jesus first shares this parable, he does so within the context of a controversy he’s having with the chief priests and elders.

These priests and elders had assumed that their being right with God had earned them entrance into God’s kingdom. These had also assumed that the sinfulness of the tax collectors and prostitutes of their day had sealed their fate as being outside the kingdom.

Jesus makes it very clear: the tax-gatherers and the prostitutes are those who said that they would go their own way and then took God’s way (no→yes). The Jewish religious he’s actually talking to are the people who said they would obey God and then did not (yes→no).

The priests and elders had, in all of their assuming, overlooked the possibility of grace to turn lives and situations that seemed hopeless, around. Remember the “space” I spoke about that saying “No!” gives you?

Nevertheless, Jesus brings the chief priests and elders to the point where they have to admit that the son who first said no and then had a change of heart was the one who did what his father wanted.

This admission is a double whammy:
(1) It leaves them to deal with the fact that the tax-gatherers and harlots, whom they despised as beyond salvation, would actually be granted a share in God’s kingdom, and
(2) They who said yes, and didn’t obey the prophets or Jesus, are really the ones on the outside.


WHICH SON? WHAT DAY!

What does this story of the two sons then, have to teach us?

If you’re a bit of the first son, you may have said “No” to God in any number of ways:
➢ “No” to taking quiet time to pray
➢ “No” to regular worship
➢ “No” to caring for those in need
➢ “No” to the common good
➢ “No” to fidelity to my marriage or
➢ Taking the time to show my love for my children.

The space that our “no” produces allows us to be attentive to God’s grace always calling us to greater union with him.

If, on the other hand, you’re a bit of the second son on another day, that is, you’ve said “yes” with your mouth or in your thoughts, then where are the works that manifest your talk or express your thoughts?

From your seat, “just a little higher” than the seats of others, are you inclined to look down on anyone be they divorced and remarried Catholics, those who only attend Mass at Easter and Christmas, immigrants, or racial minorities?

What you don’t get is that before Jesus we’re all equal, all chosen, all redeemed.


CONCLUSION

With the positions of the two sons, we perhaps find ourselves experiencing any day either
➢ An angry defiant stance before God of “no” and reconsider to a “yes”, or
➢ We start out with good intentions and a hearty “yes” and then go astray living out a “no”

Whether we make a negative first response or we fail in our intentions, there is always a way back. Today’s reading gives us hope.