No condition is permanent – not even the condition of sin.

Homily for 26^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2014

Ezek 18:25-28 • Phil 2:1-11 or 2:1-5 • Matthew 21:28-32

Introduction

As a visiting priest, you don’t always have the chance to correct mistakes you made before; but this time I can do so.  Take last week, when the message was imitating God’s generous ways.  But in my excitement, I may have said: “let us make our ways the ways of God.”

I also gave some examples of how we too could be generous like God, especially as Matthew 25 says: feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.  But again I may have asked you to do the bizarre: to clothe the hungry and feed the naked.

I hope that today, I will not make such boo-boos again with my words.  For today’s gospel turns our attention from God’s generosity towards our readiness to receive this generosity, especially by changing from bad to good.

Scripture and Theology

In the gospel the Lord continues to address himself to the religious leaders of the time.  The Chief Priests and elders of the people were complacent in their own righteousness – thinking that they had it all.  At the same time they were cynical about conversion for sinners and denied that it was possible at all to change.

That is why Jesus compares these Jewish leaders to the second son who initially said “Yes” and the sinners to the first son who initially said “No.”

·        The Jewish people had said “Yes” to the Lord when they accepted to be God’s people, when they believed in his promises, when they worshipped him and when they followed his laws and precepts.

·        The sinners, that is, the tax-collectors and prostitutes had said “No,” to God when they refused to believe in his promises, when they refused to worship him and most of all when they refused to follow his commandments and instead chose to live in sin.

But then with the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, things changed.  He brought the Good News of Salvation.  He came to reveal God the Father to the world. Jesus came to reveal God’s will to men and women.

·        Unfortunately for the Jewish leaders, instead of continuing to say “Yes” to the God of Jesus who is the same God whom they have been believing, worshipping and obeying, now they say “No,” like the second son.  They reject the Way of Jesus, the Son of God.

·        Fortunately for the sinners, the tax-collectors and prostitutes, this message of Jesus touches a chord in them and they reverse their previous “No” and turn it into a “Yes,” just like the first son. They stop their sinful ways and turn to the ways of God.  Throughout the gospels we hear of many tax-collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus and prostitutes like the woman with the perfume, turning to the Lord and leaving behind their old lives of sin.

Jesus is teaching the Jewish leaders that change is possible; conversion is possible.  This is the message that both John the Baptist and Jesus himself had preached loudly: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” or as the gospel of Mark puts it: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  Some had believed that change was possible and had done it.

This failure to believe in change was not unique to the people of Jesus’ time.  Centuries earlier, in one place Jeremiah writes that a leopard cannot change its spots.  That is probably why during the time of the Prophet Ezekiel, the people had complained that the Lord’s ways, of forgiving people who changed from bad to good were unfair.  But the Lord says: “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”  The Lord punishes those who turn “away from virtue to commit iniquity.”   But The Lord forgives and preserves the life of the person who “turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just.” 

Christian Life

This message of change and conversion is just as relevant for us today as it was for the Jewish people and their leaders.

On the one hand, we can just as easily fall into the same complacency of thinking that our original “Yes” to the Lord will carry us all the way to heaven.  Our “Yes” at Baptism, confirmation, matrimony and other occasions was only the beginning of our commitment.  We must continue saying, “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Lord” every day of our lives.  We must say this “Yes” by continuing to believe in his teaching, by continuing to worship him and by continuing to live according to his commandments, every day of our lives.

I recall a story I had told by the best man at a wedding a few years ago. He advised the newly married couple to compare their love for each other to one million dollars.  But rather than give it to each other in one big check of one million dollars, he advised them to go the bank and get 1 or 10 or 20 dollar bills and give them out to each other one day at a time.  In this way, they would be saying "I love you" every day of their lives.  Our Yeses also need to be the same - saying "Yes" to the Lord every day of our lives.

On the other hand, we can just as easily fall into the same despair of failing to believe in the possibility of conversion; we forget that even when we or others say “No,” by our failure to believe, to worship and to live by the Lord’s ways, that “No” is not permanent.  We must believe that change from evil to good, from sin to virtue, from the wrong to the right path is possible.

Each of us needs to ask himself or herself:

1.    Do I live in despair for myself and cynicism in others or do I live in hope, hope that change is possible?

2.    Do I easily give up on myself and others, letting sin and addictions keep me down or do I harbour the hope that conversion to the Lord is possible?

3.    Do I concrete take steps to bring about change in my life and do I take steps to help others turn their lives to the Lord?

We all remember the great Nelson Mandela!  Do you know that he began his life in violence and would be called a terrorist today?  In his later years, however, he was to become a great ambassador of peace and reconciliation among races.

I have been teaching at the Seminary here in New Orleans now for five years.  So I have seen two classes of seminarians graduating after their four-year course with us and going to be ordained priests.  I am often happy to see that the scruffy, ignorant, stubborn young man who came to us four years earlier has morphed into this presentable, knowledgeable and humble man who is now a priest of God!  Brothers and sisters, with God’s help, change is possible!

Most families have their black sheep, a sibling, an uncle, a niece; my family is no different.  And I must confess that there is a time when we had given up on this one member of our family, who didn’t cooperate with the rest?  But the Lord spoke to us and invited us to see him in her!  While she is still difficult, we continue to try to make her a part of our lives.  Do you have such a person in your family?  Have you called them recently, even if only on their birthday?

But the best example of change is in our personal lives. Only you know what you need to change in your life.  This gospel passage is speaking to you about your life and giving you the hope, that although you once said “No” to the Lord, you can turn that “No” into a yes.  Did you have an abortion, an act of marital Infidelity, an addiction, a lie that damaged someone’s life?  There is nothing you could have done, which God cannot forgive, if you turn your life around to him.

Conclusion

Yes, leopards cannot change their spots because those spots are genetic.  Human beings can change from sin to virtue, evil to good, wrong to right, because the Lord helps us with the grace we need to do that.  The Lord left us the sacrament of Penance as a means to make that change concrete, to receive the assurance from God: “The Lord has freed you from your sins.”

Let us go home with the words of Isaiah 1:18, who assures us: “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool” (Is. 1:18).  Conversion is possible.