The two brothers responses to their Fathers request are worth looking at. One says no I won’t go but changes his mind and goes. The other says yes I will go but does not go! The first response requires a change of heart, it requires an examination of conscience and a turning back. It is a formula for confession. For a confession to be sincere it has to involve a change of sorts on the part of the penitent. I realise the error of my way and I will do something about it. Changing the heart’s mind and doing the right thing is a motivation for understanding God’s will for us. We discover God’s will for us in obedience to his word.

The second brother says yes he would go to the vineyard but does not go. Maybe a party was offered him in the meantime. Something distracted him from his resolve to go and his not going. Selfishness and his own desire ruled his thinking. The Fathers request was ignored and the Son lost out by disappointing his Father.

God’s will is offered us for our own good. We are obedient to God’s word because it gives us life. Doing our own thing leads us to down a path that takes us away from the security of God’s love.  Jesus calls the people to task in the gospel for not listening to John’s call to repentance and prepare the way for God’s Word. We are to take heed of the warnings given today and embrace God’s will so that our living may be inspired by it.

The Christian message is one is that is carried by all the baptised. The message is to remind each other of the goodness and faithfulness of God. The message is to speak the truth of the gospel and proclaim it in the way a life is lived. Being a Christian does not involve pointing out to people that they are wrong, it means being a custodian of gospel values that take root in our own hearts first.

There are many prophets who claim to know the will of God. Some become exposed as false prophets when their glimpse into the future fails to materialise. A while back an evangelical Christian predicted the world would end back in May this year, you would think he would walk away with a red face but he has re calculated and it is now October when the world will end!  But an authentic prophet is one who
reminds people of the goodness and faithfulness of God.  In the first reading Ezekiel is entrusted with reminding the people of God and encouraging them to be faithful to God. If we are to assume Ezekiel’s role then we are to look at our own house first before we point out the faults of others.

St Paul speaks about the vocation we have to love one another, to temper our desire
to tell people how to live by demonstrating our love. What is harder to do; to
point out faults or to love, despite faults? Tolerating each others weaknesses
and pointing towards Christ and his healing, forgiving grace is a vocation well
worth embracing.  The gospel reminds us of our collective responsibility towards each other, remembering that when we gather Christ is present in the midst of us. No man is an island, we don’t reach heaven by living in splendid isolation from one another, our interaction with one another is important.  Perhaps the greatest challenge this gospel presents to us is not just to be a speaker of the truth but to be a listener too. A
responsibility to each other does not involve speaking at each other but
listening and growing in mutual trust around Christ.

The Eucharist that we celebrate, the altar around which we gather, the Body and Blood of Christ that we are to consume is what binds us to each other, that calls us deeper and deeper into Truth itself.

The Bigger Picture

The fortunes of St Peter in the gospels are mixed indeed! Last week in the gospel Jesus was calling Peter the rock on which he would build his church. This week Peter is likened to Satan and told he is an
obstacle to Christ! Why this reversal? St Peter Knows that Jesus is the Christ, he confesses this faith but his longing is for Christ to defeat the occupying powers in Israel and free God’s people.  It does not occur to Peter that there is a much bigger picture here, that Jesus is not just the Saviour of a people but the Saviour of the world.

People can miss the point of Faith at times using it to justify violence, using it to serve oppression, using it for the wrong reasons. The goal of faith is tolerance, peace, the bringing about of God’s Kingdom, it is a doctrine of love and forgiveness.  It is one that champions compassion and hope and yet often people take their eyes off the bigger picture and focus on smaller details, bogged down in rules and regulations and not concentrating on the reality of Christ. Christ sees the heart of faith as loving God and neighbour, all else flows from that. Without love we are just gongs booming as St Paul tells us.  The Pharisees rejected Jesus because he challenged
their perception of God, the difference with Peter is that when he is challenged he gets with the program. He eventually sees the truth of Christ and slowly it dawns on him that his trust in Christ even when he does not fully understand it crucial for faith.  There seems to be many modern day Pharisees who fail to see the big picture of faith. We serve our faith, our faith does not serve us. Your will be done Lord, not my will! Peter learned that lesson when he was scolded by Jesus who reminds Peter that the will of God does not always lead
us to where we expect but when it leads to trust in the goodness of God it may lead to suffering but then it leads to the fullness of life.

In Madrid at the moment the Pope has been attending World Youth Day. Pope Benedict the sixteenth is the successor of St Peter, the “Rock” on which the church was built. Peter told Jesus in the gospel today that Jesus was the Christ the Son of he living God. Jesus was asking the disciples who they and the people thought he was. I suppose it was a question that would give Jesus an understanding of how far his disciples had come in their journey with him. If I asked people who I was there would be a cross section of views expressed: Maybe some would say a son, a priest, a brother, a friend, a man, a Villa fan even! The better people knew me the more accurate the answers may be.  Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, the hope of all mankind, the Messiah, the Saviour, all pretty accurate in his appraisal of who Jesus is! I can imagine Jesus looking at him at thinking how did he get to that knowledge and did he fully realise what he was saying! What had revealed it to him was a higher power, Jesus’ Father in heaven. It was a confirmation to Jesus that here was where the church would be built when he returned to his Father.  An interesting Analogy Jesus gives to Peter is he tells Peter that he will be given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. When a new priest arrives in his parish he is given a bunch of keys and told get on with it! It may take a while to get used to the keys to find the doors to which each key fits. The most important key is the tabernacle key which is kept in the sacristy safe. After a while a priest becomes familiar with his keys.  Faith can be likened to a series of doors that needs a key if it is to be opened.  After a while of growing in faith the keys to opening faith become more familiar too. The fruits of the Holy Spirit, kindness gentleness patience can all open faiths door a little wider. St Paul talks in terms of Faith Hope and love the three keys that open the doors to faith.

Growing in faith deepening our love of faith will be a key to opening wide the doors of faith for us.  St Peter has the keys to heaven, we cannot begin to hope to reach heaven unless we love Peter, in other words unless we love the church and through our love of the church, deepen our faith and knowledge of God in the process.