Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
"Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not equal.'Hear now, house of Israel: Is my way not equal? Aren't your ways unequal? When the righteous man turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and dies in it, then he dies in his iniquity that he has done. Again, when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he will save his soul alive. Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.
Show me your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth, and teach me, For you are the God of my salvation. I wait for you all day long.
Lord, remember your tender mercies and your loving kindness, For they are from old times. Don't remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, For your goodness ' sake, Lord.
Good and upright is the Lord, Therefore he will instruct sinners in the way. He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way.
If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion, Make my joy full by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; Doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; Each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.
Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, existing in the form of God, didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, 'Son, go work today in my vineyard.' He answered, 'I will not,' but afterward he changed his mind, and went. He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, 'I'm going, sir,' but he didn't go. Which of the two did the will of his father?"
They said to him, "The first."
Jesus said to them, "Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God's Kingdom before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn't believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you didn't even repent afterward, that you might believe him.
There's a kind of uncomfortable honesty in this Sunday's parable that most of us would rather sidestep. Jesus doesn't ask which son made the better speech. He asks which one actually showed up.
We all recognize both sons in ourselves. There are moments when we say yes to God — yes to patience, yes to generosity, yes to showing up for someone who needs us — and then quietly don't follow through. And there are other moments when we resist, when we push back, when we're honest enough to say "not right now" — and then something shifts, and we go anyway. The question Jesus poses isn't really about which son had better manners. It's about whether our lives, not just our words, are oriented toward the Father's vineyard.
Ezekiel frames this with striking clarity: God's way is consistent. What changes is us. And the good news embedded in that is enormous — because it means the door doesn't close. The person who has wandered can turn. The one who has said no a hundred times can still say yes today. Conversion isn't a single dramatic moment reserved for extraordinary sinners. It happens on ordinary Tuesday mornings when we choose differently than we did yesterday.
Paul deepens this by pointing us to Christ himself, who didn't cling to status or comfort, but emptied himself — took the form of a servant. That's the pattern we're invited into. Not the performance of righteousness, but the quiet, unglamorous work of actually going into the vineyard.
The Psalm holds all of this together gently: *show me your ways, teach me your paths.* Not a demand — a request. An openness.
Consider what that openness might cost us today.
Which son are we being right now — in our relationships, our work, our prayer life?
And what would it look like, concretely, to change our mind and go?