September 27, 2026: Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 21: 23-32
When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
The two themes that arise from today’s Gospel reading are, to me, authority and obedience. By what authority do you act upon?” the chief priests and elders ask Jesus when he is teaching in the Temple. They were already on edge, perhaps even angry, at Jesus’ prior actions, as just before this he had been hailed as the Messiah while riding into Jerusaelm, had cleansed the Temple by getting rid of the money changers and had healed the blind and lame within the Temple boundaries. Of course we know that Jesus’ authority came from his Abba, the One who had referred to Jesus as “My beloved Son.” Out of this relationhsip with his divine Father flowed Jesus’ ability to teach, to heal and to preach.
I am reminded, in light of his recent beautification, of another person who also acted with authority gained from his relationship with God: Bishop Fulton Sheen. The stirring words he spoke on his weekly televison series Life is Worth Living, a show that touched millions of lives, were gleaned from his active prayer life and time spent in communion with God. His writing and his teaching came out of his love for God and his willingness to put himself into God’s hands.
How different this sense of authority is from so many of our modern day leaders, who speak recklessly, whose actions cause havoc, and who seem to have no spiritual foundation upon which to draw.
Jesus highlighted our second theme of obedience in his parable of the two sons in the vineyard, but we know that he himself is the supreme example of obedience, as exemplified in Philippians 2: 8, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross.” Jesus’ willingness to die arose from the complete surrender of his will, and his embrace of the courage of his convictions in the face of evil.
Fulton Sheen wrote that, “Obedience does not mean the execution of orders that are given by a drill sergeant. It springs, rather, from the love of an order and love of Him who gave it.” Obedience in love. Love is what enables us to be obedient to our call, to our commitments, to one another. Perhaps we could say that obedience, in this context, is really another form of fidelity: being true to ourselves and those with whom we are in relationship. And this obedience, this fidelity to ourselves and each other, forms the wellsprings of our joy.