Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time-A
Socrates once taught that a life devoid of self-reflection is no life at all. In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges his listeners to examine their lives through the story of a father and his two sons. He asks the chief priests and elders for their opinion about two different ways a son responds to his father’s wishes.
The father asked one of his sons to go out into his vineyard to work. The first son refused at first, but later relented and did as his father asked. The father made the same request of the second son, who gave lip service and said he would go but had no intention of following through. Jesus then asked those present, “Which of the two did the father’s will?”
The chief priests and elders responded that it was the first son, because although he was reluctant at first to do his father’s will, he eventually came around and changed his mind. The chief priests and elders seemed to have no problem answering Jesus’ question, but they didn’t realize they were indicting themselves in the process.
Jesus told them that tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom of God before these religious figures because they saw John the Baptist and began to believe. The Jewish religious leaders likewise saw and heard St. John proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, but unlike the sinners, they did not change their minds and believe.
The Gospel message today is not meant to be an unrelated reprimand of old religious leaders and their inability to believe in the Son of Man. The lesson extends to us too. Are we honest enough to examine ourselves and see whether we are more like the religious elders or the tax collectors and prostitutes?
It begins with how we view our relationship with God and other people. Christians tend to think that once they reach a comfortable place in their spiritual life, they don’t need to upset the proverbial apple cart. It is in this place that self-reflection diminishes or doesn’t exist at all. From this perspective, we are more like the chief priests and elders, stuck in our ways. Staying in that place is not accepting the Father’s will, and soon we will be headed down a path more likely away from God than to Him because we refuse to change.
In comparison, if we are convinced that continual change through conversion is the way of living a Christian life, then we are open to change for the better. When Jesus says that tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom before the self-righteous, he means they truthfully understood who they were.
They were sinners, and they knew it. Acknowledging that fact opens the door to conversion or a change of mind. It really doesn’t matter if we are big sinners or little sinners; each one needs God’s mercy and forgiveness. Only then can we be open to God’s grace and change our way of life to follow the Father’s will better.
This can only happen if, each day, we examine our conscience to see whether we are on a path of holiness or drifting away from it.
Remember, a life without self-reflection is no life at all.