Reflection: 26th Sunday of the Year - Actions speak louder than words

Photo: unsplash.com/jediahowenPhoto: unsplash.com/jediahowen 

The meaning of this gospel passage is clear – actions speak louder than words – but it is not just that axiom, the gospel is more than that.

Working in different countries where language and custom are different from and to Australia has led me to ask myself the question: what does the community hear when the scriptures are proclaimed in church?

This gospel is a case in point, culture plays an important role in understanding this gospel. In this gospel, the son who refuses to go and work in his father’s vineyard and would have done so publicly would be criticised by a culture which values honour. Conversely, such culture resists shame, public shame.

A phrase we use is ‘saving face’ and many countries in the Middle East and Asia would regard this as extremely important. They would regard the son’s refusal as significantly more important than the fact that he did change his mind and go to work in the vineyard.

For Australians ‘telling it like it is’ is seen as a value and the fact that the son went to work in the vineyard was more important than rebuking his father publicly. ‘Saving face’ has less cultural value than saying ‘yes’ and doing nothing about it.

Neither response is right or wrong but two different responses to the father’s request. The heart of the matter is to do the will of the father.

In St Matthew’s gospel, the context is that Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, he is teaching in the precincts of the Temple. The religious authorities are outraged by his audacity to be doing their job without their permission and they try to shame him by saying ‘no’ to his behaviour. But he turns the tables on them.

They are like the son who says ‘yes’ but does nothing. They have not responded to the message of John the Baptist who many believed was a prophet. And in fact, many people who were sinners, those who did not go to the Temple because they did not fulfil all that the Law demanded, responded to what John preached.

When we take the context of the community that St Matthew was preaching to, the issue becomes more important.

The community was made of Jewish people, even former Pharisees, and then the Jewish ‘outsiders’, the tax collectors and prostitutes, people who had heard the words of Jesus as God’s word to them, giving them acceptance.

That would have been hard to take, yet added to these were the pagan outsiders who became followers of Jesus because he said they were welcome into the kingdom. Such a vastly different range of outlooks, each struggling to belong and to find their place in a new Christian culture with a Christian belief system.

What held them together? The person and words of Jesus whom they believed came from God. They were learning to do God’s will just as Jesus prayed through the night to discern what it was.

We follow the gospel: doing God’s will is what it is all about. Jesus gives us his perfect example.

Columban Fr Gary Walker is currently living at the Columban house in Sandgate, Brisbane. 

2024 Columban Art Calendar

Code : 180

In Stock | CALENDAR

$10.00  

Calendar Dimensions: 220mm (W) x 320mm (H)

1 Calendar $10.00 Special Offer: Buy more than one Calendar and pay $8.00 for each additional one. 

See all products