26th Sunday 2026
Ezekiel 18: 25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21: 28-32
I have told this story before, but t was several years ago, so no-one except Sr. Michaela will remember it. (Sorry, Sister, it isn’t the Scarlet Knickers.)
Its origins lie fifty years in the past. Having been ordained in the July, I was concelebrating Mass, in the autumn term, in the Junior Chapel at Upholland College with the youngest forms, whose surviving members are now in their sixties. The Principal Celebrant and preacher was the Headmaster, Fr. O’Neill.
That Gospel parable was tailor-made for a Headmaster. You can guess what he made of it: “You have heard that parable of the two brothers. There might have been a third brother. What would he have done?”
Immediately, a hand shot up. “He could have said ‘Yes’ and gone.”
“Very good. Shouldn’t we be like that third brother, saying ‘Yes’, and doing what we are asked?”
Meanwhile, Jim was looking thoughtful. At last, his hand too shot up.
“Father, there could have been a fourth brother, who could have said ‘No’ and not gone.”
Fr. O’Neill was not impressed, whereas I was pondering how that had been the answer I had in mind. The “correct” answer had never occurred to me.
Was it the correct answer, though? Our Lord is constantly emphasising repentance on the part of sinners, and forgiveness on God’s part—and ours. Perhaps the imaginary third brother gives the ideal response, but why? Is he simply trying to win his father’s favour? Is he the sort of person who will always obey without thinking? Will he carry that attitude into adulthood?
If the latter, there is a danger that he will become an unthinking, unquestioning upholder of the status quo, easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians, brutal generals, thuggish gang leaders. He will always obey orders, even unjust or evil orders. Subordinates of that sort were hanged at Nuremberg.
Yes, we want obedient, positive children, but we also want them to grow up knowing how to question, to reason, to think. We also want people who know how to fail, to make mistakes, to recognise their need of forgiveness.
Moving forward twenty years from that Upholland morning, I recall a parish mission “somewhere in England”—actually at Lancaster Cathedral, but that is by the by. One of the mission fathers constantly delivered bland, uninspiring sermons. They were always theologically correct: you couldn’t fault them doctrinally, but you couldn’t become excited, fired up, enthused by them either. They were like lukewarm semolina.
Eventually, another priest, a recovering alcoholic, muttered to me: “You know the trouble with that man? He has never needed a Saviour.”
This priest was right. Of course, the missioner HAD needed a Saviour, as we all do, but he had never been deeply conscious of his need. He wasn’t a Pharisee. He was sincere enough, but his sincerity had never caught fire, had never kindled fire in others, because he had never felt the need to cry out to God from the depth of his misery and pain. He had travelled tranquilly through life, keeping all the rules, absorbing all the lessons which his superiors had taught him, but none of those which failure would have taught him better: above all, the basic lesson that every one of us needs a saviour—needs THE SAVIOUR, Jesus the Christ—to heal us, to forgive us, to lift us to our feet when we stumble and fall.
This is something which the tax collectors and prostitutes knew. May we all know it, without needing to become tax collectors—I will leave the second part of the equation unspoken.
