OT XXXI [C] Wis 11:22–12:2; 2 Thes 1:11–2:2. Lk 19:1-10

The basic message of today’s gospel account is that Jesus went into Zacchaeus’ house and Zacchaeus ended up going into God’s house. The message in all three of today’s scripture readings is all about receiving God’s life-changing love, about receiving and accepting the presence, power, and love of God, which is why He has invited us here today into His house.

God knows our weakness. He does not want us to stay lost or to keep hurting ourselves and others by our habitual fears and failings, and so, as the First Reading reminds us: ‘Little by little, you correct those who offend, you admonish and remind them of how they have sinned, so that they may abstain from evil and trust in you, O Lord’.

God’s gentle and pardoning love is revealed in Jesus, and perhaps nowhere more convincingly that in the scene portrayed in today’s Gospel (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus is constantly lamenting the problems that material wealth brings to those whose hearts are distracted by it (see Luke 6:24; 18:24-25). Yet, here we see Zacchaeus who must have been one of the most hated men in Jericho.

Jewish tax collectors were the most hated of them all because they were puppets of the Romans. They could unleash the Roman soldiers upon Jews who didn’t pay the amounts set by those tax collectors. Not only were these tax collectors traitors to the Jewish people; they were traitors to the Jewish religion.

Not only had he acquired wealth from his fellow countrymen by extortion, he had done it in the name of the hated foreign overlords, the Romans. This man is truly ‘lost’.

However, he is keen to see Jesus and is willing to go to any lengths to do so. Jesus responds to his wishes and sees in this distracted man’s heart a generosity hidden from the man himself and from all who knew him. Jesus invites himself to enjoy Zacchaeus’ hospitality and the childlike delight with which the tax collector responds is proof of an innocence that underlay his foolish preoccupation with wealth. He receives Jesus with joy. He now has something to live for and so finds the energy and determination to bring about changes to his way of life.

Notice Jesus’ words: ‘Today, salvation has come to this house!’ The Church wants each of us to hear these same words. There is a grace here in today’s liturgy for each and all of us. We are fragile; we make mistakes; we are more frightened than we dare admit; we are often lost and bewildered. Today, this same Jesus is inviting us to look into our hearts and discover there our longing for love. He is inviting us to look out at creation and ponder the beauty that we see there: fragile creatures held in a wonderful harmony, which transcends even the destructive forces of human folly.

Zacchaeus, we are told, ‘was trying to see Jesus. As the scene draws to a close it becomes clear that the longing in the heart of Zacchaeus was in response to an even deeper longing in the heart of Jesus who ‘came to seek out and to save the lost’. Today he wants to touch that part of each of us that is lost. He wants to share this meal with us and lift our hearts to trust in the Father who is drawing us to himself. Believe in the delight God has in looking at each one of us. He sees our frailty, but he also sees our longing and the beauty of our soul made for communion with God.

 

Zacchaeus, wealthy and oppressive at the expense of others, was friendless up to this point in his life. No one of his own people would associate with him. No one, that is, until Jesus came down the road. Suddenly he had the greatest Friend anyone could ever have!

Two things need to be seen here. One was that the Jews had completely misjudged Zacchaeus. The second was that as a result of his encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus was completely changed. Not only would he make good on any fraud or extortion he had committed, he would see to it that his victims were more than repaid. He went beyond simple restitution and in effect put those whom he had oppressed into standards of living they had never known before.

The encounter incident of Jesus and Zacchaeus teaches us that it is God who justifies us — we can never succeed in our own self-justifications. It is God who sanctifies us, we can never succeed in making ourselves holy. It is God who saves us. We are total failures when it comes to saving ourselves.

If you and I want to have our life changed, then give up the self-delusion that we can change our life. Only God can change our life. And He can do it just as easily as He changed the life of Zacchaeus, that hated and traitorous Jewish tax collector who found holiness in simply responding to God’s invitation. God’s life-changing love is here for us in a way that is infinitely more powerful than the life-changing experience that came to Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus allowed himself to be found. He did not hide from Jesus. Christ also asks us to let ourselves be found by him. He’s always seeking, but, since we’re free, we have to choose to be found. One of the most powerful ways to do that is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Christ meets us in a personal encounter of mercy. When we go to confession, Jesus repeats the same words he said in Zacchaeus’ home: “Today salvation has come to this house.”