kabarsula Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: ‘God is patient with each of us: he does not tire, he does not desist’ bandar SLOT INDONESIA

Scripture readings for Sunday, Sept. 27, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ez 18:25-28  Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9  Phil 2:1-11 or Phil 2:1-5  Mt 21:28-32

“Is that your final answer?”

Spend enough time watching daytime TV — as I did recently while recovering from surgery — and you realize that on most game shows they almost always give you one more chance. You don’t have to lock in your answer right away. There’s time to reconsider, reverse, change direction, have second thoughts. Having doubts? Misgivings? Wondering if you’ve made the wrong choice? There’s a way out.

That is part of the message in this Sunday’s Gospel, too, as we hear how Jesus reminded the chief priests and elders that conversion — fundamentally, a radical change of heart — is open to everyone. Some of the most serious and public sinners were changing their lives. But what about everyone else? In telling the parable of the son who belatedly agreed to follow his father’s will, Jesus was sending a not-so-subtle message: It’s not too late to choose another path.

In a world where we often spend so much time making poor choices and stubbornly misguided decisions, God is patiently asking, “Really? Is that your final answer?”

Confronted with this scripture, it’s worth taking time to reconsider our time — and to rethink the choices we’re making and the answers we are giving to God’s call in our lives.

The first reading, from Ezekiel, states it plainly, focusing on a wayward and sinful man who doesn’t have to live that way: “If he turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life.”

The psalm that follows offers a prayer for anyone seeking a way to a better life: “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths … Remember that your compassion, O Lord,
and your love are from of old. The sins of my youth and my frailties remember not.”

How many of us wish we could rewrite the past — or at least redirect our future? How many of us live with regret?

To all who feel stuck in old habits or stubborn patterns of living, these readings say, simply, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Pope Francis liked to underscore that. He preached often about God’s limitless mercy. He even devoted an entire year to exploring that theme. The Lord is willing to wait for us. At one point, during his Angelus, Francis reflected on this passage: “God is patient with each of us: he does not tire, he does not desist after our ‘no; he leaves us free even to distance ourselves from him and to make mistakes,” he said. “Thinking about God’s patience is wonderful! How the Lord always waits for us; he is always beside us to help us; but he respects our freedom. And he anxiously awaits our ‘yes,’ so as to welcome us anew in his fatherly arms and to fill us with his boundless mercy.”

Francis went on to explain that conversion doesn’t usually happen overnight. Most of us don’t have a St. Paul road-to-Damascus moment. For most, it is a journey, a process. We need help to get there. The pope suggested a prayer: “Lord, give me the grace to improve.”

This should be the desire burning in our hearts — praying to be transformed, improved, converted in heart and mind from what we were to what God wants us to be!

If prostitutes and tax collectors could do it 2,000 years ago, what about the rest of us today?
This Gospel reminds us that change isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come without effort. But it is possible. God calls us all to be our best selves, our most faithful followers of his will. We need to ask ourselves: Are we listening? Are we at least hearing him and thinking about what he wants for us?

If we have already made up our minds, maybe it’s time to ask one more question.
Is that our final answer?

Deacon Greg Kandra is an award-winning author and journalist, and creator of the blog “The Deacon’s Bench.”