Ajay's Catholic Commentary
Sunday GospelLiturgical Calendar
Sunday, September 27, 2026·Liturgical Year A

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time"He Changed His Mind and Went": The Two Sons and the Obedience That Acts

Gospel: Matthew 21:28-32

Before you read: Read this Sunday's full Mass readings at USCCB.org →

Key Themes7
Tap to expand
  • •"What is your opinion?" — Jesus invites the leaders to judge the story, and in doing so to judge themselves
  • •"I will not," but afterwards he changed his mind and went — the Greek metamelomai: conversion as second thoughts that change one's course
  • •"Yes, sir," but did not go — the polite religious "yes" that never becomes obedience
  • •"Which of the two did his father's will?" — in Matthew, the will of the Father is done, not merely professed (cf. 7:21)
  • •"Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you" — "going ahead of you," not shutting you out; the door remains open
  • •"John came to you in the way of righteousness" — the Baptist's call to repentance is the test the leaders failed and sinners passed
  • •"Even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds" — the tragedy is not the first "no," but the refusal to reconsider

Historical & Literary Context

The 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time moves the Church into the last week of Jesus' earthly ministry. In Matthew 21, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to the cry of "Hosanna," cleansed the temple, and healed the blind and the lame in its courts. The next morning, as he teaches in the temple, the chief priests and elders demand to know by what authority he does these things (21:23). Jesus answers with a counter-question about John the Baptist — was his baptism "of heavenly or of human origin?" — and when they refuse to answer, he refuses to answer them (21:24-27). This Sunday's parable follows immediately. It is the first of three parables addressed to the religious leaders in the temple — the two sons, the tenants of the vineyard, and the wedding feast — which the Church reads on three consecutive Sundays. The parable is found only in Matthew, and it is one of the shortest in the Gospels. Its power lies in a single Greek verb. The first son, after refusing, ὕστερον δὲ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν (hysteron de metamelētheis apēlthen), "afterwards, having changed his mind, he went." Metamelomai means to regret, to think again, to have second thoughts that lead to a changed course. Jesus uses the same verb in his closing charge to the leaders: when they saw the tax collectors and prostitutes believing John, they did not "change their minds" (metamelēthēte) and believe him either. The parable is built around this one movement of the heart: whether a person is willing to reconsider. The second son's answer is only two words in Greek: ἐγώ, κύριε (egō, kyrie), "I [will], sir" — literally, "I, Lord." It is the reply of perfect courtesy, addressed with the title Christians use in prayer, and it is empty. The first son's reply is equally short and much ruder: οὐ θέλω (ou thelō), "I do not want to." Neither son is a model. The father would have wished for a third son, who says yes and goes. The parable teaches through contrast that of these two, the one who did the father's will is the one who went, whatever he first said. Jesus' application is deliberately shocking. "Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you." The verb is προάγουσιν (proagousin), "they are going ahead of you" — present tense, and a word of precedence, not exclusion. The door is not shut on the chief priests; they are being overtaken. And the reason is John the Baptist, who came ἐν ὁδῷ δικαιοσύνης (en hodō dikaiosynēs), "in the way of righteousness." Righteousness (dikaiosynē) is one of Matthew's key words: Jesus was baptized by John "to fulfill all righteousness" (3:15), and warned that "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (5:20). Those whose public lives were in open disorder heard John's call and turned. Those whose lives looked ordered did not. On authorship and date, mainstream Catholic scholarship dates Matthew around AD 80–90. The Church reads these temple parables with the Second Vatican Council's clear teaching that what happened in Christ's Passion "cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today" (Nostra Aetate 4; cf. CCC 597). The parable's target is not a people but an attitude — the religious "yes" that never becomes obedience — and Daniel J. Harrington, SJ (Sacra Pagina) rightly notes that Matthew addresses it first to his own Christian community. Pope Benedict XVI, preaching on this Gospel at Mass in Freiburg im Breisgau (September 25, 2011), turned it on the Church of his own homeland, warning that a faith grown "routine" can be further from the kingdom than an honest, searching doubt.

Commentary

"What Is Your Opinion?" — A Parable That Turns Its Hearers Into Judges

Jesus begins by inviting the chief priests and elders to decide a case. It is the prophetic technique Nathan used with King David: tell a story, ask the listener's judgment, and let the verdict fall on the one who pronounced it (2 Samuel 12:1-7). The leaders answer correctly — the son who went did the father's will — and in doing so they condemn their own response to John the Baptist. The Catechism observes that Jesus' parables are never neutral stories: "Jesus' invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables," and through them "he also asks for a radical choice" (CCC 546). This parable demands a decision from everyone who hears it, and the leaders show that one can give the right answer about a story while failing to make the decision it asks for.

Two Sons, Neither Ideal: What the Father Really Wants

It would be a misreading to conclude that Jesus prefers rudeness to courtesy. The first son's "I will not" is disrespectful, and nothing in the parable excuses it. The second son's "Yes, sir" is exactly the right answer, and nothing in the parable criticizes the words. What divides them is what happens next. The father in the story wants what every father wants: a son who says yes and goes. That son does not appear in the parable, and his absence is itself a teaching. We are all some mixture of the two sons, saying yes in prayer and no in practice, or no in our first reaction and yes after grace has worked on us. The Christian life is the long work of closing the gap between the word and the deed.

"Afterwards He Changed His Mind": Conversion as Second Thoughts

The first son is the hero of the parable not because of his first answer but because of his second thought. The verb metamelomai describes someone who looks again at what he has done, regrets it, and changes course. That is the very shape of conversion as the Church understands it. The Catechism describes interior repentance as "a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart" (CCC 1431), and it insists that this movement is itself a grace: "the human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart" (CCC 1432). The good news of this parable is that the first "no" is not the last word. No one is defined by their first refusal of God. What matters is whether, later, they go.

"Yes, Sir" — The Danger of the Religious Yes

The second son is more troubling, precisely because he sounds like us. His answer is prompt, respectful, and addressed to his father as kyrie, "Lord." He is the Christian who says the Creed every Sunday, answers "Amen" at Communion, and never lets it change a single decision on Monday. Jesus has already warned about him in the Sermon on the Mount: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (7:21). St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew 67) draws the lesson that promises without deeds are worse than refusals followed by repentance, for the one who promises and does nothing adds insincerity to disobedience. The warning is aimed not at unbelievers but at the devout. Pope Benedict XVI made the point with startling directness when he preached on this parable in Freiburg in 2011: agnostics who are genuinely troubled by the question of God, he said, and people who long for a pure heart but suffer on account of their sin, "are closer to the Kingdom of God than believers whose life of faith is 'routine.'"

"Tax Collectors and Prostitutes Are Going Ahead of You"

The sentence was meant to shock, and it still does. Tax collectors were collaborators with the occupying power and notorious for dishonesty; prostitutes were outside every circle of respectability. Yet these are the ones who heard John the Baptist's call to repentance and responded. The verb Jesus uses, proagousin, means "they are going ahead of you" — not "instead of you." The chief priests are not told that the kingdom is closed to them; they are told that others have gotten there first and that the way is still open behind them. Pope Francis, preaching on this Gospel (Angelus, October 1, 2017), stressed exactly this: that God's patience waits for everyone, and that no one is so far gone that conversion is impossible, just as no one is so secure that it is unnecessary.

John and "The Way of Righteousness"

Why does Jesus bring John the Baptist into the parable? Because the question in the temple was about authority, and Jesus had answered with a question about John (21:25). John came "in the way of righteousness," preaching repentance and baptizing for the forgiveness of sins. His message was the father's command in the parable: go into the vineyard today. Those whose sins were public — tax collectors, prostitutes, soldiers — heard it and went (cf. Luke 3:10-14; 7:29-30). The leaders, whose sins were hidden beneath observance, heard it and nodded. In Matthew, "righteousness" is not a status but a way of walking. The question the parable puts to every reader is not "Are you respectable?" but "Did you go?"

Ezekiel 18: God's Way Is Not Unfair

The first reading answers an objection that the parable provokes. Is it fair that sinners who repent should go ahead of the lifelong observant? The exiles in Babylon made the same complaint: "The Lord's way is not fair!" God replies that his way is perfectly fair, because he judges a person by the direction of his life, not by a ledger of past deeds. The righteous man who turns to evil is not saved by his record; the wicked man who turns to righteousness is not condemned by his. That is precisely the two sons. It is also a word of hope for anyone who thinks their past has already decided their future. Ezekiel's God, like the father in the parable, is waiting for the son to change his mind.

"He Emptied Himself": Christ, the Son Who Said Yes and Went

The second reading shows us the son who is missing from the parable. Paul's hymn in Philippians 2 describes Christ Jesus, who was "in the form of God," saying yes to the Father not with words only but with his whole existence: "he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." The Greek ekenōsen ("emptied himself") gives the Church the word kenosis. Here is the perfect Son, whose "yes" was spoken in the Incarnation and fulfilled on the Cross, and whom the Father exalted with "the name that is above every name." The Catechism teaches that in this obedience Christ took on our human condition to accomplish the Father's saving plan (CCC 461, 602-605, 2824-2825), and that we can do the Father's will only by being united to his Son. The parable of the two sons ends with an absence; Philippians fills it with Christ.

"Have in You the Same Attitude": Humility as the Soil of Obedience

Paul introduces the hymn for a practical reason. The Philippians were quarrelling, and he wanted them to "humbly regard others as more important than yourselves." That is the secret of the first son's change of heart: humility. It takes humility to say, "I was wrong," to go back on a refusal, to accept that tax collectors got there before you. The second son's problem was the reverse: a pride that was satisfied with appearances. Pope St. John Paul II, in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (1984), described conversion as the humble recognition of one's sin, which alone opens the way to reconciliation with God and with others (§§ 13, 31). The Philippians hymn tells us where that humility comes from: from contemplating the Son who humbled himself first.

A Note for the Homilist

This short parable preaches well because every listener recognizes both sons in themselves. Avoid turning it into a contrast between "bad" religious people and "good" sinners; the point is conversion, and the path of the first son is open to all. Speak plainly to those who feel their past refusals disqualify them, using Ezekiel and Psalm 25: God does not remember "the sins of my youth." Speak equally plainly to the faithful about the danger of the polite, unchanging "yes." Offer a concrete step: one promise to God that has not yet become action. This Sunday is also the Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees; the parable's welcome for those considered outsiders gives a natural bridge. And bring it to the altar, where the assembly will soon say "Amen" to the Body of Christ. Ask them to make it the "Amen" of the son who goes.

Living the Gospel This Week

- For the homilist: Let the congregation find themselves in both sons. Preach conversion as "second thoughts" made possible by grace (CCC 1431-1432), and resist casting any group as the villain; the parable's target is the unchanging religious "yes" in all of us - For the promise you have not kept: Name one thing you told God you would do — a reconciliation, a habit of prayer, a return to confession, a commitment to serve — that has remained a "Yes, sir." Take one concrete step toward it this week - For the one who said "no" to God: Your first refusal is not your last word. Ezekiel's God and the father in the parable are waiting for you to change your mind. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the ordinary place where that change is sealed - For humility in community: Paul's cure for division is to "humbly regard others as more important than yourselves." In a disagreement at home, at work, or in the parish this week, practice saying, "I was wrong," once, without qualification - For welcoming those on the margins: On this World Day of Migrants and Refugees, remember that Jesus said outsiders were "going ahead" into the kingdom. Pray for migrants and refugees by name if you know any, and look for one practical way your household or parish can welcome the stranger - For the Eucharist as fulfillment of the Gospel's promise: When the minister says "The Body of Christ," your "Amen" is the answer the father asked of both sons. Receive the Son who "emptied himself" and was obedient to the end, and ask him to make your "Amen" the yes that goes into the vineyard - For daily prayer: Pray Philippians 2:5-11 slowly each morning this week, and ask at night whether your day looked like the mind of Christ Jesus

Sources & Further Reading

  • New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), Matthew 21:28-32; Ezekiel 18:25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; Psalm 25:4-9 — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 546 (parables as a call to decision), §§ 1427–1433 (conversion and interior repentance), § 1989 (conversion as the first work of grace), §§ 461, 602–605 (the Incarnation and Christ's obedience), §§ 2822–2827 ("Thy will be done"), § 597 (the Jews not collectively responsible for Jesus' death)
  • Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), § 4, October 28, 1965
  • Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), § 8 — the Church as at once holy and always in need of purification, following the way of penance and renewal, November 21, 1964
  • Pope St. John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on Reconciliation and Penance), §§ 13, 31, December 2, 1984
  • Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at Holy Mass on Matthew 21:28-32, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, September 25, 2011
  • Pope Francis, Angelus address on the parable of the two sons, Saint Peter's Square, October 1, 2017
  • John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 67 — on the two sons, and on promises without deeds, NPNF Series I, vol. 10, c. AD 390
  • Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, vol. 1, St. Matthew, ch. 21 — compiling Jerome, Origen, Chrysostom, and Hilary on this parable, c. AD 1263
  • Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina 1, Liturgical Press, 1991 (on Matthew 21:28-32)
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC, vol. 3, T&T Clark, 1997 (on Matthew 21:28-32)
  • Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, Anchor Bible vol. 22, Doubleday, 1983 (on Ezekiel 18 and individual responsibility)
  • Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, New International Commentary on the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1995 (on the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:6-11)
  • Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (on the Gospel of Matthew and its polemic read in context), 2001

Found this helpful? Share it with your parish or priest:

Share:WhatsAppFacebook
← Back to Sunday Gospel