Homily for 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sept. 27, 2026
Matt 21: 28-32
Ezek 18: 25-28
Ps 25: 4-9
The Fountains, Tuckahoe
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

“Which of the two did his father’s will?” (Matt 21: 31).

I suppose most parents have had to deal with a willful child at one time or another.  Probably most of us have at one time or another been that willful child.  In Jesus’ short parable, one son turns from his willfulness to obedience, and one pays lip service to obedience but practices willfulness.

Jesus was a willful child for one instance, the time when he stayed behind in the Temple in Jerusalem while Mary and Joseph started for home.  When they finally found him, he seemed a startled that they were upset, asking, “Why were you looking for me?  Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Nevertheless, he turned from his own desire and, St. Luke tells us, “went down with them to Nazareth and was obedient to them” (2:43-51).

Thruout his public ministry, Jesus met all kinds of people.  By his preaching, his kindness, and his miracles, he invited everyone into his Father’s vineyard.  We heard a parable about that last Sunday (Matt 20:1-16), altho that parable raised a different issue than today’s tale of the two sons.  Today one son chooses to go to the vineyard and work as his father asked, and one son doesn’t.

Similarly, Jesus’ invitations to all kinds of people met with different responses.  Many weren’t leading good lives.  Jesus references “tax collectors and prostitutes” (21:31) because the chief priests and elders often objected to his speaking with them and eating with them.  But he welcomed those, like Matthew the tax collector, who wanted to be his disciples.  They accepted John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ own calls to repentance—to change their minds and their behavior, like the 1st son in the parable.  So the “kingdom of God” was opened to them.

Jesus doesn’t tell the chief priests, the elders, and others who refused to believe John or himself that they’re doomed.  He says only, “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you” (21:31).  There’s still a chance for them to change their minds (21:32).

When sinners change their minds and begin to believe and follow Jesus in obedience to God, then the kingdom of God opens up for them.  Six centuries earlier, the prophet Ezekiel had preached the same thing:  “If someone turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life, since he has turned away from all the sins he has committed” (18:27).  The door to God’s kingdom remains open to all who decides to enter by repenting their sins and trying to live virtuously.

For Jesus, that includes chief priests and elders, scribes and Pharisees.  It included the criminal crucified next to him on Calvary (Luke 23:39-43).  Now it includes you and me; Jesus risen and alive stands ready to forgive, to wipe our slates clean of anything we’ve done, said, or failed to do.  The responsorial psalm reminded us:  “Your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old.  The sins of my youth and my frailties remember not; in your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord” (Ps 25:6-7).

“Remember me” is exactly what that crucified criminal pleaded to Jesus.  And Jesus promised him paradise that very day.

We must be mindful of our sins.  But the moment we hand them over to our Lord Jesus with a repentant heart, with an intention of changing our minds and our behavior like the first son in the parable—in our case, by making a sacramental confession—then Jesus wipes out those sins, ceases to remember them, and rejoices to have us in his company.  “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need to repent,” (Luke 15:7) Jesus told the Pharisees and scribes when they complained that “tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to him” (15:1).  That’s when he told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son—“the prodigal son.”  That last story ends, “We must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found” (15:32).