Homily for the 26th Sunday of Year A

In the Gospels Jesus crosses swords with religious authorities on a number of occasions – it’s quite understandable – all they want to do is nit-pick. They want to accuse him of blasphemy, and are so fixated with what they think he may be doing wrong that they completely fail to see what he is doing right. It’s a sad state of affairs, but a very human one – we can all be judgemental, and it can blind us to what’s really going on.

The Pharisees and Elders are so concerned with detail that they cannot see the wood for the trees – they fail to recognise who Jesus is and what he does. They are troubled by John the Baptist, with his message of repentance, of turning away from sin, and turning to God and having new life in Him, through the waters of baptism. Jesus can beat them at their own game and asks them a question which they cannot or will not answer.

The central part of Jesus’ teaching is the Parable of the Two Sons: one says he will and doesn’t, and the other says he won’t and does. Actions then speak louder than words, and our faith as Christians is something which needs to be put into action in our lives – we have to walk the walk, rather than simply talking the talk –it is difficult, it is challenging but equally that is the point of our faith as Christians – as people who follow Jesus and who do what he tells us.

Unlike the religious leaders, the message proclaimed first by John the Baptist and then by Our Lord is listened to and accepted by prostitutes and tax-collectors. These people were the lowest of the low – shunned by polite society for what they did, with a reputation for being greedy and sexually immoral, and yet they despite their failings know their need of God, they have the humility to recognise their need for grace and love to be poured into their hearts, and are willing to turn their lives around. They are not stubborn, hard-hearted or proud, they are humble – the kind of people in whose lives God can be at work.

The message of repentance was proclaimed by the prophets, as we see in the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel. He calls the people of Israel to repentance, to turn away from their sins and be close to God, it is the same message proclaimed by John the Baptist, it is a message which finds its fulfilment in the person, teaching, and life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the hope for which the prophets long and to which they point. God wants us to live, to have life and have it in all its fullness by being close to him, humble, repentant, and fashioning our lives after the example of His only Son.

It is the same message which the Apostle Paul preaches to the Church in Philippi – the obedience of the Son to the will of the Father, and at the heart of it all, the Cross. The greatest demonstration of God’s love for humanity, the power of God’s reconciling love at work to redeem, to heal and transform humanity. It is truly amazing that God loves us this much and that Christ flings wide His arms on the Cross to embrace the world with God’s love. We celebrate it because it is the single most important moment of human history, which can affect all time and all people. Here is the healing for which we long, the reconciliation, the restoration of humanity, and our relationship with each other and the divine.

That is why on the night before he died Jesus takes bread and wine to point to what he is about to accomplish. He tells us to do this, and so we do – we have come here this morning to be fed by word and sacrament, to be fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, so that through the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary, we the people of God, can be fed by Him, and fed with Him, so that we can have new life in Him. So let us come to Him, knowing our need of God’s love and mercy, and letting it transform our lives, strengthening our faith and helping us to live out our faith in our lives, so that we can be built up as living stones, as a temple to God’s glory, with our lives proclaiming the saving truth that God loves us, that he forgives our sins, and can heal and restore us, and let us share this saving truth with others, so that they too may enter into the joy of the Lord.