26th Sunday Ordinary Time - Year A

Adam and Eve said “No” to God.  Since then each member of the entire believing community has been engaged in the daily and lifelong struggle of changing that all too naturally arising “No” into a thoughtful and decidedly deliberate “Yes!.”   Something of that struggle is reflected in today’s first reading from Ezekiel (18:15-28) as well as in the gospel parable of the two sons (Mt. 21:28-32).  Appointed as God’s watchman for the sake of his contemporaries, it was the prophet’s task to warn them to avoid sin and evil. Those who heeded him, i.e., those who transformed their disobedient “No” into a willing “Yes”, were promised life; those who refused, warned Ezekiel, would reap the dire consequences thereof.

In today’s gospel, the no-yes struggle is epitomized in the responses of two sons to their father’s request that they go and work in the vine-yard.  One son said yes but lived no…no struggle here, just a lie and refusal to obey; the other son said no but then struggled to turn his initial negative response into an obedient one.  Though the tax collectors and the prostitutes during Jesus’ time gave a negative response initially, they changed their “No” to “Yes” later. 

Similar struggles are also reflected in the lives of many other biblical characters.  Recall Mary of Magdala and the prodigal son, both of whom turned what had become a habitual no into a definite and obedient yes  to God, to grace and to a new way of life.  We find this no-to-yes transformation in Peter who denied our Lord and then repented…and in Thomas from the no of doubt to the yes of belief…in Paul, whose no was exercised in wrathful persecution and whose yes continues to preach the good news and prompt his readers to continue to struggle as to respond positively to God. 

The point of such stories is precisely the point made in today’s gospel, viz., the past is not prologue, the past is not destiny.  Even the worst “No” can become a glorious “Yes” if the one who struggles to make it so will surrender to God and accept to be graced by God’s mercy.