Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXI per Annum C

3 November 2019

 Still on Jesus’ extended journey to Jerusalem narrated by St. Luke, in the verses immediately before today’s Gospel passage, just outside the city gate of Jericho Jesus had healed a blind beggar who wanted to see.  Now inside the city, amid throngs of people, Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus.  Zacchaeus could see with his eyes; his eyes functioned properly.  The Gospel narrative tells us important details, however, about Zacchaeus’ moral stature, not just his physical height.  Tax collectors were viewed as public sinners.  The Israelites who were tax collectors were viewed as cheats among God’s people because they cooperated with the occupying Roman government to take money from their own kind.  Added to that, tax collectors made money by taking their own cut from their own people.  Zacchaeus is not just any tax collector but a “chief tax collector AND a wealthy man.”  First century ears would hear this description and immediately hear that Zacchaeus was a very grave, dishonest, and public sinner.  The difference between the blind beggar and Zacchaeus then becomes clear: Unlike the blind beggar, Zacchaeus had the use of his eyes but he is morally blind and in spiritual darkness for he is lost and headed to eternal destruction.  The final line of the Gospel selection fills in the picture of just how important for salvation was Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

I find this Gospel account intriguing for who is doing the seeking.  The first part of the Gospel shows us that Zacchaeus had a strong desire to see Jesus.  He fights his way in the crowd but, being short, he knows he won’t be able to catch a glimpse of Jesus.  Zacchaeus desires to see Jesus and he employs whatever is necessary to see him.  But as Jesus passes by notice that the subject switches and it is Jesus who is doing the seeking.  Jesus, who is, as the first reading said, the “Lord and lover of souls,” reads Zacchaeus’ heart.  Jesus knows that despite his great sin, Zacchaeus is in the process of changing.  Zacchaeus’ desire to see Jesus is not a matter of his eyes, which function well, but of his faith and its expression in moral conversion.  And so, it is Jesus who stops and looks up at Zacchaeus.  Jesus meets Zacchaeus’ desire and Zacchaeus’ efforts, and so Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus with an invitation for more intimate life and communion with him.  “Come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”  As the light of new life dawns on Zacchaeus he moves from being the chief tax collector who has cheated everyone to – we might say – being the chief of stewardship who now gives half of his belongings to the poor and who repays those he has extorted by repaying four times over – far more than required by Jewish law.  When you have Jesus, the greatest treasure, well, giving up material things is of comparatively little consequence.

 What are you seeking in life?  Or better yet, Whom are you seeking in life?  Is it Jesus?  Is it a relationship with him?  Is it salvation in his kingdom?  And if you want to seek Jesus are you taking a cue from Zacchaeus and using the means necessary to accomplish that goal?  Are you rising up, like climbing that sycamore tree, to place your eyes on Jesus?  Are you ready and willing to receive Jesus with joy today into your house?  If I say I seek Jesus but I’m not working to focus my way of thinking and acting to be like the Gospel, then not only am I NOT climbing that tree to see Jesus, but I’m actually descending; I’m digging a hole.  If I want to see Jesus but I won’t battle that tendency to gossip or to drink heavily, or any other sin, then not only am I NOT climbing that tree, but I’m actually digging a hole.  If I say I seek Jesus but I won’t work to eradicate lust and to live greater purity of heart, mind, and body, then I’m not placing myself in a position to see Jesus; rather, I’m digging a hole.  If I hang out in the crowd somewhere near Jesus but I don’t make the effort to pray and to confess my sins then I’m not making my way up that tree, but I’m digging a hole.  That hole won’t help me see Jesus.  But it will swallow up my body and result in seeing damnation!  The choice to let oneself be transformed by Jesus is yours and it is mine.  Ultimately, what it comes down to, as it did for Zachhaeus, is will I let myself be found by Jesus?  Will I put myself where I can be found by Jesus?

 Jericho is a place in the Old Testament where walls tumbled down so that God’s people could enter the fortified city and be victorious.  That setting in today’s passage – Jericho – is rich then.  What walls need to tumble down in our lives, walls that prevent us from seeing Jesus?  What walls in our moral life prevent us from entering deeper life with Jesus?  What walls in our spiritual life keep us distant from the Lord who seeks us and who desires us to have salvation?  Truly seek Jesus.  Truly desire life with him.  And then, like Zacchaeus, employ the effort necessary to make that happen.  And you know what?  Jesus will look up at you, tell you he’s been seeking you, and then he’ll ask to come dwell with you while the grumblers and complainers remain lost and unsaved.  The salvation that Jesus brings – the salvation that he himself is! – means that he invites us to come down from the tree while he himself climbs up the tree: not a sycamore tree, but the tree that is the wood of the Cross, where all who look upon him lifted high (cf. Jn. 3:14-15; Num. 21:8-9) find that “today salvation has come to this house.”