26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) 2023
INTRO:
REPENT
I always cringe at the word REPENT. It seems so “harsh.” It seems it is directed at someone who had done something BIG.

So why am I mentioning this today? Because of:

– The first son &
– The tax collectors and prostitutes

We sort of make a deal when we come to CHURCH FOR MASS and that deal is:
-to listen to God who is speaking to us in the SCRIPTURE READINGS!!!!!
and
When we listen to HIS WORDS the deal is that we are supposed to be changed to become a better person from what we hear about JESUS. AND today there is that word REPENT!

What Scripture scholars’ home in on for this Gospel is that regular people, the SON, THE TAX COLLECTORS, THE PROSTITUTES, you, and I do something to change our lives and we repent we change we become better.

Now, YOU are not literally a tax collector or a prostitute, or the SON of a vineyard master, THOSE WORDS are translated as the regular people of the day, and that’s what you and I are the typical people of life that the Gospel writer wants us to REPENT from something….. as we all have “that something” that needs change in us.

We criticize.
We pick on others.
We judge people.
We

CONCLUSION

All of us are good when we enter this church,
but we can always become better, we can always repent of something!

For YOU, what will that something be???