26th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026
My dear friends, modern man and lady suffers from a peculiar psychological disease. It is the disease of lip service. We live in a world that confuses words with virtue, intentions with execution, and lip service with love. And often than not, we say "Yes" to justice in our speeches, but "No" to sacrifice in our daily living.
And yet, Almighty God looks past the mask. He looks past the superficial piety of the lip and peer straight into the altar of the human heart.
The liturgy today brings us face-to-face with the divine mirror, forcing us to ask: Who are mine when the talking stops?
In our First Reading, Ezekiel records humanity’s ancient complaint against God: “The way of the Lord is not just!”. Look at the screens, listen to the intellectual saloons, walk through city streets and you will hear same old complaint recorded by prophet Ezekiel. We look at the world’s misery and we point an accusing finger at heaven.
How typical! humans commits the crime, yet blames the Judge. We say "Why does God allow this?" ‘if God is good, why did my business fail?’ ‘if God is loving, why did illness strike home?’ ‘Why should God allow me to be in this situation’. ‘Lord i went to Mass for 20 years and i gave charity in 1995, how dare you let this cross come upon me?’ we treat God like an accountant, demanding dividends for past virtues. We sit in our own court room and demand that God should conform to our standard of justice. Is that your situation? is that my situation?
Yet, God responds with piercing clarity and humility: “Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?” Dear friends, God has not abandoned us; we are in such situation because we have abandoned his ways.
Notice what Ezekiel unmasked, by telling us two radical truths:
A righteous person who turns to wickedness will perish for his present state, while a wicked person who turns away from sin and does what is right shall surely live.
Our past does not guarantee our future. Sanctity is not a pension plan you cash in from yesterday’s good deeds; it is a dynamic, a constant obedience offered to God in the present moment. However, that obedience is not an ordinary kind of obedience that is uttered with lip service, it goes beyond saying YES. This is why the gospel made that clarity with the parable of a father who sends his two sons into the vineyard: The First Son says, "I will not," but later repents and goes. The Second Son says, "I go, sir," but does not go.
Christ turns to the respectable religious leaders; the Pharisees, the polite society, the "good churchgoers" of His day and delivers one of the most terrifying sentences in all of Sacred Scripture: "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you."
WHY THE STATEMENT BY CHRIST? The second son represents the sin of self-righteousness. He had polite manners, he had pious vocabulary, and an outward appearance of respectability "I will go, sir!" yet his heart was cold, defiant and static.
The son, whom the world considered to be a sinner, a tax collector and the prostitute; initially said "No" to God through their broken lives. But when faced with the truth of Christ, they experienced metanoia; a profound, radical turning around of the mind. They had the courage to change their mind and entered the vineyard.
Dear friends, permit me to tell you that the tragic tragedy of the "respectable sinner" is that he thinks he does not need a saviour.
THE AUTHENTIC YES
How do we move from the hypocritical "Yes" to the authentic "Yes"? Saint Paul gives us the answer in Philippians.
Look at the divine direction: Pride climbs upward, seeking status, self-justification, and praise. Christ moves downward; He who was in the form of God emptied Himself (Kenosis), taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient even unto death on a Cross.
To go into the vineyard requires humility. You cannot work in God's vineyard carrying the heavy luggage of your own pride. You must descend in order to be exalted.
Therefore, stop measuring your spiritual life by what you say you believe or what you intend to do. You may attend Mass every Sunday, say the right prayers, and pass for a saint in public, but if your heart remains selfish, forgiving no one, seeking your own ambition, you are the second son saying, "I will go, sir," while remaining standing still.
Cultivate the "Second Thought": Have you said "No" to God in some area of your life? Maybe in a broken marriage, an addiction, a secret sin, or a refusal to forgive? It is not too late. The vineyard gate is still open. God loves the man or woman who has the humility to say: "I was wrong. I will go now, I will return to the Lord now."
Empty Yourself today, practice Christ's humility this week. When tempted to assert your pride, to prove you are right, or to look down on the broken sinners around you, remember: You were saved by mercy, not by merit.
MAY THE LORD BLESS YOU AND RENEW OUR MIND, AMEN!
FR EMMANUEL
(ASSISTANT PARISH PRIEST)