The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate the action needed to change our self centered arrogance to humility that reflects the Love of God for all people.
Humble service
The reading from the Book of the Prophet Zephaniah calls for a change to the wickedness of Jerusalem.
* [3:1] The tyrannical city: Jerusalem.1
Psalm 34 is praise for deliverance from trouble.
* [Psalm 34] A thanksgiving in acrostic form, each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this Psalm one letter is missing and two are in reverse order. The psalmist, fresh from the experience of being rescued (Ps 34:5, 7), can teach the “poor,” those who are defenseless, to trust in God alone (Ps 34:4, 12). God will make them powerful (Ps 34:5–11) and give them protection (Ps 34:12–22).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus presents the parable of the Two Sons.
* [21:28–32] The series of controversies is interrupted by three parables on the judgment of Israel (Mt 21:28–22:14) of which this, peculiar to Matthew, is the first. The second (Mt 21:33–46) comes from Mark (12:1–12), and the third (Mt 22:1–14) from Q; see Lk 14:15–24. This interruption of the controversies is similar to that in Mark, although Mark has only one parable between the first and second controversy. As regards Matthew’s first parable, Mt 21:28–30 if taken by themselves could point simply to the difference between saying and doing, a theme of much importance in this gospel (cf. Mt 7:21; 12:50); that may have been the parable’s original reference. However, it is given a more specific application by the addition of Mt 21:31–32. The two sons represent, respectively, the religious leaders and the religious outcasts who followed John’s call to repentance. By the answer they give to Jesus’ question (Mt 21:31) the leaders condemn themselves. There is much confusion in the textual tradition of the parable. Of the three different forms of the text given by important textual witnesses, one has the leaders answer that the son who agreed to go but did not was the one who did the father’s will. Although some scholars accept that as the original reading, their arguments in favor of it seem unconvincing. The choice probably lies only between a reading that puts the son who agrees and then disobeys before the son who at first refuses and then obeys, and the reading followed in the present translation. The witnesses to the latter reading are slightly better than those that support the other.3
Colleen Chiacchere shares a theme that emerges for her is about the need to examine our behaviors and lifestyle, and perhaps exhibit God’s mercy in new and explicit ways.
It may be easy for me, and for us, to judge others. It may be commonplace for us to measure ourselves as being in a place that is more advanced or better than others – others who are not as religious, not as moral, not as open to receiving God’s call. We may have heard Jesus’ words for many years and think that we can be complacent with our deeds. And yet, Jesus calls out this thinking and invites all of us to a deep openness to letting our hearts fall in love with, and be led by Jesus today during this Advent season and each day as we move forward.4
Don Schwager quotes “The Father and his two sons,” author unknown, from the 5th century A.D.
"Who is this if not the God who created all people and loves them with a fatherly affection, the God who preferred to be loved as a father rather than feared as a lord, even though he was Lord by nature? On this account, at the beginning of the commandments of the law, he did not say, 'You shall fear the Lord with all your heart' but 'you shall love the Lord with all your heart' (Deuteronomy 6:5). To elicit love is not characteristic of a lord but of a father. Of the two sons in this parable, the older one represents the Gentiles, since they come from their father Noah. The younger son represents the Jews, who come from Abraham. 'And approaching the first, he said, "Son, go and work today in my vineyard." 'Today' refers to this present age. How did he speak to his sons? He didn't address them face to face like man, but he spoke to the heart, like God. Man only utters words to the ear, but God supplies understanding to the mind." (excerpt from an incomplete Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, HOMILY 40)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 21:28-32 comments that Jesus was trying to drive home a point: these men needed a change of heart and mind. They had been resisting God’s will by rejecting John the Baptist, and now they were rejecting Jesus, God’s own Son, who had come to save them.
Like the first son in the parable, we all need ongoing conversion—that “change of mind” that leads us back into the vineyard to love and serve the Lord. Working in the fields isn’t just a matter of completing one task or duty; it means having a servant’s heart and being open to whatever God asks of us. So to change our mind means making sure each day that we are not resisting God and his will but are trying to follow him, wherever he may lead.6
Gemma Simmonds, Director of the Religious Life Institute at the Margaret Beaufort Institute in Cambridge, shares there is no aspect of human life where God is not present, but that way of being present often confounds our expectations and preconceived notions of the divine. The season of Advent shines a focused spotlight on this whole process of longing, seeking and finding, but also on our expectations confused and confounded by a response entirely unimagined.
The Advent story reminds us of what happens when we try to bend God to our own will. As Saint Ignatius Loyola experienced in the cave of Manresa, the God who is near whenever we call also allows us to experience our radical emptiness outside the one relationship which gives all others meaning. The Advent call of the O Antiphons is a declaration of hope while also the appeal of human desolation without a sense of God-with-us. But that very desolation and hunger portend a gift. Saint Augustine of Hippo, the patron saint of desire if ever there was one, writes: “The whole life of a good Christian is holy desire. What you desire you cannot see yet. But the desire gives you the capacity, so that when it does happen that you see, you may be fulfilled… this is our life, to be exercised by desire.”[1] Saint Thomas Aquinas follows on from this: ‘The greater the love, the greater the desire. And desire in some sort prepares and opens the one who desires to receive the one who is desired.’[2]
Friar Jude Winkler explores the words of Zephaniah who condemns Israel for sinfulness but asserting God can heal and change people even those who come from other nations. The humility of the holy is contrasted with the arrogant self righteousness of the religious leaders. Friar Jude reminds us that humility opens us to accept the mercy of God.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that it is difficult to hear, but Albert Nolan is simply quoting Jesus from several contexts—usually when the Twelve are all in their heads arguing. We cannot become humble by mere intellect or willpower. Pretending to be humble only makes us more self-absorbed and self-referential. All we can really do is become more aware of our pride or vanity by noticing how we respond to even minor slights or humiliations.
Jesus was uncompromising in his belief that all human beings were equal in dignity and worth. He treated the blind, the lame and the [sick], the outcasts and beggars with as much respect as that given to those of high rank and status. He refused to consider women and children unimportant or inferior. This turned a carefully ordered society of status and honor upside down—even more so when he advocated moving down the social ladder instead of striving to reach the top. [1]
Our Advent journey to renew our role as Christ bearers is action toward humble service for others.
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