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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Matt. 21: 28-32 |
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| Background:Today's reading is the first of three parables of judgment upon the religious foes of Jesus. The parables continue Mark's emphasis on Jesus and his preaching as the crucial moment in Israel's history. This parable can be viewed from a number of perspectives. First of all, the gospel is preached and heard by sinners and outcasts and rejected by the religious establishment. We also find the hypocrisy of the religious person saying one thing and doing another. In addition, vs. 31-32 links Jesus with John the Baptist who also urged repentance and was rejected by the religious leaders but accepted by tax collectors and harlots. | read the padre |
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Story:Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a parish
had, in addition to the regular run-of-the-mill parishioners, two particularly noticeable
groups – the politically, socially and financially well connected and those that
might be called the marry’em, bury ‘em and Christmas and Easter Catholics. The
Sunday after the pastor learned that an organization for the homeless had bought property
in the community, he set about encouraging his parishioners to work with the organization
in order to create a working relationship that would reflect their concern for the poor.
The next day a group of parishioners asked if they might have a meeting with the
organization for the homeless in order to determine what they might individually and as a
parish community do to support the workers and those who came to them for help. Many of
the marry’em, bury ‘em etc. parishioners came to the meeting and agreed to do
their part. A few nights after the meeting two representatives of the well connected took
the pastor to dinner and let him know that they were not at all pleased with his support
of the program. They suggested that he might better serve the community by encouraging the
group to move elsewhere. When it became apparent that the pastor did not buy their
suggestion, they took their contributions to another parish.
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