THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
3 NOVEMBER 2019
The
book of Wisdom tells us that God loves all things that are. Even though the universe appears to God as a
grain from a balance or a drop of morning dew, God’s imperishable spirit is in
all things. Even when his creatures turn
away and reject him, God rebukes offenders little by little so that they may
return to him. God never gives up on us.
We see this
truth in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, as he travels from Galilee to
Jerusalem. We have been following him
every Sunday in the Gospel of Saint Luke.
At one point in his journey, he meets a rich young man. He looks with love at this rich young man who
has been faithful about keeping the commandments. When the rich young man asks what he needs to
do to have eternal life, Jesus shows his love for him by telling him to give
away everything to the poor and follow him.
The rich young man goes away sad, because he cannot imagine living
without his wealth. Jesus turns to his
disciples who had already given away everything to follow him and tells them
that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man
to enter the kingdom of God. Convinced
that wealth is a sign of God’s favor, the disciples scratch their heads and
wonder if anyone can be saved.
Today,
Jesus meets another rich man. Unlike the
rich young man, Zacchaeus is an older scoundrel. Not only is he in the business of ripping his
own people off, giving the proceeds to the hated Romans, and pocketing the
inflated balance. He is the chief tax
collector of Jericho. Isolated by the
citizens of Jericho, he must be looking for some kind of acceptance. He wants to see Jesus of Nazareth, who is
passing through the town. But he is
short, both in moral and in physical stature.
So, he makes a fool of himself and climbs a sycamore tree. We can only imagine the crowd making fun of
him. Jesus looks up, sees him, and
invites himself to stay at his house.
Zacchaeus responds in a truly repentant way. He is willing to make amends for his selfish
and greedy behavior. He will give away
half of his possessions to the poor and will repay whatever he has extorted
four times over. Since he had been in
the habit of ripping off the entire town, he is in effect giving away his
wealth. He has responded to the Lord’s mercy
given to him even before he repented and is filled with joy. The disciples have their question answered. Yes, the rich can be saved. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save
what is lost.
Jesus loves
both the rich young man who had been living a virtuous life and Zacchaeus who
had been living a life of greed and selfishness. Neither had earned his love. The rich young man cannot take a next step in
allowing that love to transform him.
Zacchaeus gladly takes that step and accepts the boundless mercy of the
one who loved him first.
This lesson
is very important for us as we follow Jesus on our road to the new and eternal
Jerusalem. Jesus loves us first, and we
cannot earn that love. In his relentless
pursuit of us, he is always yearning for us to respond positively. As the Book of Wisdom notes, Jesus rebukes us
little by little so they we may return to him.
Perhaps he looks at us with love, as he did with the rich young man, to
remind us that we cannot rely on our possessions for our ultimate
happiness. We need to let go of our
dependence on material comfort to be more faithful disciples. Perhaps he looks at us with love, as he did
with Zacchaeus, to call us to repent of destructive behavior or selfishness
that isolates us. We don’t need to climb
a sycamore tree to see him. Walking into
those Reconciliation Rooms is much safer and less embarrassing! Reconciled with him, Jesus wants to stay with
us in our houses. In turn, he wants us
to do the same for those who are hurting or in trouble. We can go a long way toward being
evangelizers simply by being present to those who need us and extending the
Lord’s mercy before anyone asks.
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