26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (September 27, 2026)

A young priest once conducted a survey in his parish bulletin and website. His question was simple: “Do you think there should be an evening Bible study?” More than fifty parishioners said yes. Encouraged by the response, the priest began making plans.

A few days later, his wise and experienced pastor gently suggested that he had asked the wrong question. Instead of asking, “Do you think there should be a Bible study?” he should have asked, “Are you willing to attend an evening Bible study?” So a second survey was taken. This time, only twelve people said yes.

There is a difference between saying Yes and actually doing Yes.

Jesus makes that distinction in today’s Gospel with the parable of the two sons. One son refuses his father’s request to work in the vineyard, but later changes his mind and goes. The other readily says yes—but never shows up.

“Which of the two did his father’s will?” Jesus asks.
The answer is obvious. The first son.

Then Jesus turns the parable toward the chief priests and elders:
“Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.”

Those words must have been shocking. The religious leaders knew how to say Yes to God. They knew the Law. They knew the prayers and rituals. Yet Jesus points toward people regarded as public sinners—people who had said No to God through their lives but were now responding to the call of John the Baptist and changing their hearts.

That same possibility runs through the First Reading from Ezekiel. God refuses to define us forever by what we have done in the past. The person who turns away from wickedness and begins doing what is right “shall surely live.”

Obedience is conversion of the heart.

And that brings us to Saint Paul’s magnificent Christ Hymn in Philippians:
“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

We usually hear these words on Palm Sunday, but today they illuminate Jesus’ parable in a deeper way. Christian obedience is not simply following rules or reluctantly doing what we are told. Jesus shows us an obedience rooted in love—a heart so completely given to the Father that his Yes becomes his life.

Our own Yes to God will never be as perfect. Sometimes, like the first son, we say No. We choose our own way. We resist what God asks of us.

But the astonishing message of today’s readings is that our No does not have to be our final answer.

We can change our minds.
We can change our hearts.
We can turn around.

The father asked both sons to go into the vineyard. The invitation was the same. What mattered in the end was not what they said, but what they did.

Perhaps that is the question today's Gospel leaves with us. Not simply:

Do I believe in following Jesus?

But:
Am I willing to follow him?

There is a difference between saying Yes and actually doing Yes.
And God’s vineyard is waiting.