연중 제 26 주일 Fr. Don webber 강론

I get annoyed when people say they
will do something and then fail to deliver on their promise. I feel  let down and question their trustworthiness.
Yet, if I am honest with myself, I know that I can fail in this respect, to
some extent at least. We have all said that we will do this or that and then
failed to do it. In that sense, there is something of the second son in today’s parable in all of us, the son who
told his father he would work in the vineyard but never did so. Our ‘yes’
in  word become a ‘no’ in action. That’s
why we often hear the proverb, “Actions
speaks louder than words.”
We may say ‘yes’
just to keep someone happy, without ever really intending to follow up. Or some
may find it hard to say ‘no’. We say ‘yes’ to every request even though we could
not possibly do all that we promise to do.

If there can be something of the
second son in all of us, there can also be something of the first son in us. I
am sure you have had the experience of saying ‘no’ to some request, and then, having
thought it over, you changed your mind and agreed to do what you were first
inclined not to do. Our first reactions are not always our best ones. They do
not always express who we truly are. We struggle with self-centeredness and
selfishness, and sometimes our initial ‘no’ comes out of that. We might initially
say ‘no’
to avoid what we think will be difficult or demanding. Yet, often, when we
think back over our ‘no’,
we come to realize that it has not done us justice. We recognize that saying ‘yes’
is the more generous thing to do. Having reflected a little, we change our
minds.

It is this readiness to change our
mind, this willingness to change our ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ that Jesus is trying to encourage by
means of the parable of the two sons. It is addressed to those who have said ‘no’
to John the Baptist and to Jesus and who show no sign of changing their ‘no’
to a ‘yes’.
The religious leaders had not only rejected the appeal of John and Jesus, but
having seen how others – like tax collectors and prostitutes – had responded
generously to John and Jesus, they still refused to think better of their ‘no’.
They are stubborn and will not change their ways. The parable indicates that
the Lord is not put off by an initial ‘no’. What does trouble him is a persistent
and enduring ‘no’,
an ongoing refusal to reconsider our initial negative response. Indeed, the
parable suggests that the Lord can put up with a lot of ‘no’s’
on the way to a final ‘yes’.
In other words, the Lord is patient; he can wait.

The father in the parable of the
prodigal son was extraordinarily patient with his strong-willed son. Saint Paul
was someone who had a fundamental change of mind and heart. His violent ‘no’
gave way to a life-giving ‘yes’. Saint Augustine is another example of
someone who went on to make a powerful ‘yes’ to God’s
call after many years of saying ‘no’. Looking back over his life, he wrote,
‘Late have I loved you.” The gospels proclaim that it is never
too late to change for the better.

That is a message which we all need
to consider. Whatever ‘no’s’ we may have said in the past need not
determine our present or future responses. Each day is a new day, a new
opportunity to say ‘yes’
to the Lord’s call as it comes to us through the
needs of others. In the words of Psalm 95, ‘O
that today you would listen to his voice; harden not your hearts’. Every ‘today’ is a new opportunity to make a more
generous response to life’s
call, to God’s call –
an opportunity to put on the ‘mind
of Christ’ (second reading). That mind of Christ
shows itself in a willingness to put the interests of others before our own,
just as Christ emptied himself for the sake of us all. It is never too late to
grow more fully in the mind and heart of Christ. God is prepared to wait.