Readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Ezekiel 18:25-28; Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32.
Last Tuesday, before the United Nations, President Trump said he had “a big decision to make.” Would there be a deal allowing Iran to rebuild? Or would he “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and drive its people “into hell with no chance of survival”? Those are his words, as recorded in the available transcript of the speech. They sound like a man who thinks he’s God.
In any case, I keep coming back to the people who would have to live under such threat: a mother trying to get her children to school, a nurse caring for the sick, an elderly man who has already lived through too many wars. What decision have they made that gives an American president authority over their future? How can anyone speak of leaving a people without hope for future generations and call it a choice that belongs to him?
The United Nations was created so that nations would settle their conflicts without threatening one another with destruction. Its charter forbids members to use threat or unauthorized force against other states. Yet there stood the president of the United States, before that very assembly, speaking of annihilation in his illegal war of aggression.
This Sunday’s readings give us a way to judge what we heard.
Through Ezekiel, God asks a question: “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?” It is a question worth putting to every government that speaks of security while treating other people’s lives as expendable. Would we accept such words from the leader of another nation directed at us? Would we call them statesmanship if our own grandchildren lived under the threatened bombs?
Ezekiel does more than condemn wrongdoing. He says that people can turn from it. The one who has done evil can begin to do what is right and just—and live. The word turn matters. God does not demand that we defend yesterday’s course simply because we chose it yesterday. God calls us to change course when we see where it leads.
That is a word for our president and for everyone helping to prosecute this war. It is also a word for us. Americans can turn. We can refuse to lend our silence to threats made in our name. We can insist that diplomacy, the protection of civilians, and an end to the killing are possible and necessary. Ezekiel will not let us say that it is too late to do what is right.
Then Paul asks us to have the mind of Christ Jesus. In one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament, he says that Jesus, though in the form of God, did not treat equality with God as something to be grasped. Instead, he emptied himself, took the form of a slave, and accepted death on a cross.
Think of the direction of that movement. Jesus goes toward those with the least power. He shares their vulnerability. He ends among the people an empire could execute.
Christ refused to grasp at godlike power. Our president appears eager to exercise it.
For Christians, that contrast should be impossible to miss. No human being has the right to decide that another people will have no future. And no follower of the crucified Jesus should be comfortable hearing such power claimed on our behalf. We cannot kneel before a man executed by an empire and then applaud an empire’s threat to destroy others.
Paul’s words are addressed to a community. He asks the Philippians to look not only to their own interests but also to those of others. For us, that means asking what the war looks like from beneath the bombs and from inside Iranian homes. It means seeing the people who will suffer before we repeat a government’s account of its aims.
We need not approve of Iran’s rulers to do that. We need not overlook injustice committed by any government. Iranian civilians do not lose their claim on our conscience because of what their leaders may have done. Their lives cannot be reduced to a bargaining chip in a dispute between states.
That brings us to Jesus’ story of the two sons. Their father asks each of them to work in the vineyard. One says no but later changes his mind and goes. The other says yes, sir, and never appears. Jesus asks which one did the father’s will. Everyone knows the answer.
He tells this story to the chief priests and elders. They know how to give the proper religious answer. But when John calls them to change their ways, they refuse. Meanwhile, people they look down upon—tax collectors and prostitutes—hear the call and respond.
It is hard to read that Gospel this week without thinking about the churches. We know how to say yes to Jesus. We praise the Prince of Peace. We recite Paul’s hymn about his self-emptying. Some Christian leaders have spoken against this war and pleaded for diplomacy; Pope Leo has done so. But after a threat as stark as the one voiced at the UN, why don’t we hear church leaders speak with unmistakable clarity about the lives at stake?
And I have to ask the same of myself. It is easy for me to preach against a president. The Gospel asks what I will do once I have finished speaking. Will I make my opposition known to those who represent me? Will I stand alongside people organizing for peace? Will I keep paying attention to Iranian lives when the speech has passed from the headlines? Jesus asks whether we actually go into the vineyard.
Perhaps some of us have supported the war. Perhaps some have feared speaking against it. Perhaps many of us have simply grown weary and stopped listening. The first son gives us reason for hope. His first answer was no. It was not his final answer. He changed his mind and went.
That possibility is the mercy running through all today’s readings. In the psalm we pray, “Teach me your paths.” Ezekiel says that we can turn and live. Paul shows us the path of Christ, who gave up power and stood with the vulnerable. Jesus tells us that what matters is whether we will take that path today.
I pray that our president will turn from the language of annihilation. I pray that our churches will find their voices. And I pray that we, who say yes to Christ every Sunday, will hear the invitation he places before us now: go into the vineyard. Defend the lives being threatened. Work for peace. RESIST. VOTE.
