Homily for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Ezekiel 18:25-8; Psalm 25; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32
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Our world leaders have speaking past each other and at each other this past week at the United Nations. Just a couple of examples. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu commenced his address: ‘Before I begin, just a quick announcement: if there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now’. President Donald Trump spoke about the option of annihilating Iran while at the same time offering to sit down and negotiate with them. This is the way some of our world leaders now conduct themselves in the General Assembly of the United Nations, the very assembly which was constituted after World War II to facilitate dialogue and compromise in place of conflict and war, the forum where leaders could meet and debate ideas despite their differences.
In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us the simplest possible parable about the coming of the kingdom – a kingdom with the hallmarks of justice, mercy and peace. If you mean yes, say yes. If you mean No, say No. If you agree to do something, just do it. If you hear from a good person like John the Baptist, believe him. Jesus is trying to get the chief priests and elders to see how simple it is. These learned, righteous ones had tied themselves in knots over John the Baptist. They could not answer whether John had divine or human power. Meanwhile unpretentious tax collectors and prostitutes could see the goodness in John and they readily believed in him.
Jesus builds on this simple story to which we all know the answer:
A man had two sons.
He came to the first and said,
‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’
He said in reply, ‘I will not,’
but afterwards changed his mind and went.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order.
He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.
Which of the two did his father’s will?
They answered, ‘The first.’
In today’s second reading from Paul to the Philippians, Paul is addressing a divided church community. He pleads that they be ‘of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing’. How is this to be achieved? For Paul, the answer is so simple and practical:
Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory;
rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,
each looking out not for his own interests,
but also for those of others.
It might be naïve for us to expect world leaders to follow this script at the UN. But it’s a very useful checklist for us in our daily lives.
Paul then goes on to provide Jesus as the role model, invoking an ancient hymn about Jesus in salvation history. Like the hymns we sing at mass, this ancient hymn does not purport to give us the whole theology about Jesus. The hymn would have been known by heart by many of these early Christians. They would have sung it at worship. The ancient hymn, like our best modern hymns, contains key ideas about Jesus which can be readily recalled by the congregation because the ideas have an internal consistency and they sound good when put to music. Paul thought ‘the Philippians were leaning toward selfishness, ambition, vainglory, and self-centeredness that should have no place in God’s realm and reign. … The remedy Paul proposes is the humility of Jesus Christ himself…and the Philippians’ humble submission to Christ’.[1]
United in song, like the Philippians, we are all called to be one in Christ:
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO, Adjunct Professor of Thomas More Law School at ACU and Adjunct Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, is a former Rector of Newman College, University of Melbourne, and CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). His latest books include Pope Francis: the Disruptive Pilgrims Guide (ATF Theology, 2025), and Equality, Reconciliation and Social Cohesion: The Inspiration of Sir William Deane (Connor Court, 2026).
[1] Bonnie B. Thurston and Judith M. Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), 90.
