26th Sunday in OT, Sept 28, 2008:

Doing the Father’s Will Means Humbly Seeing and Acting

Scripture Readings
First Ez 18:25-28
Second Phil 2:1-11
Gospel Matthew 21:28-32

Prepared by: Fr. Jonathan Kalisch, OP

1. Subject Matter
• The power of turning away (metanoia) from sin and obediently following Christ – even when it
is initially rejected. The readings reveal that obedience entails the humble action of following.

2. Exegetical Notes
• “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”(Ex 18:26). Jesus gives the
Gospel parable, immediately after the Jewish leaders tried to trap him by questioning His
authority. In Mt 21:28-32, it is the leaders who end up accusing themselves.
• The vineyard signifies Israel (Is 5:1-7) or the Kingdom of God. The word for ‘repented’
signifies change of mind and heart vis-à-vis God. Ironically, the selfishness and vainglory of
the religious leaders does not allow them to become humble or obedient enough to initiate
this metanoia (in imitation of Christ – see Phil 2:1-11) that will prepare them for the Kingdom.
• Tax collectors and prostitutes are regarded as immoral not only because of their sins, but
because of their collaboration with the occupying forces of the pagan Romans. The parable
forces the chief priests and elders (who will condemn Jesus to preserve the status quo) to
condemn themselves, thereby admitting that they have been less responsive to the initiative
of God than these (tax collectors and prostitutes) collaborators. Still, they refuse to change
their minds.
• The irony of the parable is that while the Pharisees and Sadducees went to hear John preach
(Mt 3:5-7), they did not repent. However the tax collectors and prostitutes who had said no to
God by their sins, have accepted His message.
3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• CCC # 2470: “The disciple of Christ consents to ‘live in the truth,’ that is, in the simplicity of a
life in conformity with the Lord's example, abiding in his truth. ‘If we say we have fellowship
with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth.’”
• CCC #1733: “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true
freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is
an abuse of freedom and leads to ‘the slavery of sin.’”

4. Patristic Commentary
• Clement of Alexandria: “The doors are open for all who sincerely and wholeheartedly return
to God; indeed, the Father is most willing to welcome back a truly repentant son or daughter.
The result of true repentance, however, is that you do not fall into the same faults again, but
utterly uproot from your souls the sins for which you consider yourself worthy of death.”
• Clement of Alexandria: “Genuine conversion, however, means ceasing to sin without any
backward glances. God pardons what is past, then, but for the future we are each
responsible for ourselves. By repenting we condemn our past misdeeds and beg forgiveness
of the Father, the only one who can in his mercy undo what has been done, and wipe away
our past sins with the dew of his Spirit. And so, if you are a thief and desire to be forgiven,
steal no more. If you are a robber, return your gains with interest. If you have been a false
witness, practice speaking the truth. If you are a perjurer, stop taking oaths.”
• Pseudo-Chrys: “’A certain man had two sons.’ Who is he but God, who created all men, who
being by nature Lord of all, yet would rather be loved as a father, than feared as a Lord. The
elder son was the Gentile people, the younger the Jews, since from the time of Noah there
had been Gentiles. And he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.
Today, i.e. during this age. He spoke with him, not face to face as man, but to his heart as
God, instilling understanding through the senses. To work in the vineyard is to do
righteousness; for to cultivate the whole thereof, I know not that any one man is sufficient.”
• Pseudo-Chrys.: “This He brings in because the Priests had asked not in order to learn, but
to tempt Him. But of the common folk many had believed; and for that reason He brings
forward the parable of the two sons, showing them therein that the common sort, who from
the first professed secular lives, were better than the Priests who from the first professed the
service of God, inasmuch as the people at length turned repentant to God, but the Priests
impenitent, never left off to sin against God. And the elder son represents the people;
because the people is not for the sake of the Priests, but the Priests are for the sake of the
people.”

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• St. Agnes, martyr: “I already have a spouse, and I will not offend him by pretending that
another might please me. I will give myself only to him who first chose me. So,
executioners, what are you waiting for?”

6. Quotes
• Pope Benedict XVI: “It is not the power of an ancient or modern Goliath, but power
stemming from obedience, that is, from a relationship that is responsibility for being, the
responsibility of truth and the good. As portrayed in the hymn to Christ in the Philippians
(2:5-11), it is humble power.”
• Pope Benedict XVI: (Quoting Romano Guardini), “’Jesus’ entire existence is the translation
of power into humility…into obedience to the will of the Father. Obedience is not secondary
for Jesus, but forms the core of his being…’ For his power there is therefore ‘no limit coming
from outside, but only one from the inside…the will of the Father freely accepted.’ It is a
power that has such complete control over itself ‘that it is capable of renouncing itself.’”
• Pope Benedict XVI: “Faith requires conversion and that conversion is an act of obedience
toward a reality which precedes me and which does not originate from me…it is I who make
myself over to it, whit it always remains above me…it is Christ, the Word made flesh…He is
the new ‘I’ which bursts open the limits of subjectivity and the boundaries dividing subject
from object, thus enabling me to say ‘It is no longer I who live’…following in Christ’s footsteps
is the only way of losing oneself which attains the desired goal.”
• Pope Benedict XVI: Jesus “’emptied’ himself and, surrendering existence for himself,
entered into the pure movement of the ‘for’. But precisely therein, the passage goes on to
say, he has become the lord of all, of the whole cosmos, before whom the latter performs the
proskynesis, the rite and act of submission, which is due to the real king alone. The willing
subject thus appears as the ruler; he who humbled himself to the utter abasement of
emptying himself of his own being is for that very reason the ruler of the world.”
• Pope Benedict XVI: “He who does not cling to himself but is pure relatedness coincides in
this with the absolute and thus becomes lord. The Lord before whom the universe bows is
the slaughtered Lamb, the symbol of existence that is pure act, pure ‘for’. The cosmic liturgy,
the adoring homage of the universe, centers round this Lamb (Rev 5).”
• Pope Benedict XVI: “God has a will with and for us and it must become the measure of our
willing and being; and the essence of ‘heaven’ is that it is where God’s will is unswervingly
done. Or, to put it in somewhat different terms, where God’s will is done is heaven.”
• Luigi Giussani: ‘Communion’ means a capacity for personal life so deep that a person
cannot realize it alone: this capacity lies at the origin of our being, where it is made by God
(significantly this is called ‘capacity for obedience’)…it is an irresistible force with which, little
by little, God unites with Himself those whom He chooses according to His mysterious
freedom.”
• Luigi Giussani: “Obedience means to abandon yourself to follow an Other, and obedience is
the only true sacrifice, because sacrifice for the Christian is not necessarily pain or denying
yourself something, but rather identifying your will with that of an Other, of God.”

7. Other Considerations
• We are obedient to the Father’s will when we go and work in his vineyard, as asked. The
surprises of the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16) challenge our notion of worldly justice. Yet the refusal
to change our mind (in attune with God’s way of thinking) in response to graces seen
(sinners returning to the Lord) threatens our ability to enter the Kingdom.

Recommended Resources
Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI, ed. by Peter John Cameron, OP. Magnificat,
2006.
John Bartunek, The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer, Hamden, CT:
Circle Press, 2007.
Peter John Cameron, OP, To Praise, to Bless, to Preach, Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.,
2001.
Luigi Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, trans. Viviane Hewitt, Buffalo: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 1998.
Luigi Giussani, The Journey to Truth is an Experience, trans John Zucchi, Ithaca: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 2006.
Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 1, ed. by Daniel J.
Harrington. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991.
The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.
http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_fra.html