Do you like this story about
Zaccheus the wealthy tax-collector? I
do.
This
story we hear in today’s Gospel appears ONLY in the Gospel of St. Luke. He is the only one that tells us this story
about the wealthy tax collector, Zaccheus.
It
is interesting where Luke situates this story.
Immediately before this passage, as Jesus is approaching the city of
Jericho, there is the story of the healing of a blind beggar. Luke 18: 35-43
Now
Luke gives us another healing that involves sight: not physical sight, but rather insight. For we are told that Zaccheus “was seeking to
see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was
short in stature.”
The crowd that
keeps Zaccheus from seeing who Jesus is, was not just a lot of tall people
standing in the way. It can also mean
that the crowd is that set of expectations that get laid on us of “going along
with the crowd”; all the conventions and expectations of society, what those
around us expect of our behavior, what everyone is expected to do. And these crowd expectations can get in the
way and block us from truly seeing who Jesus is. All the expectations about keeping up with
the Joneses, all the subtle pressure to have the latest fashion, the fastest
smart phone and tablet, the recent model car, a certain type of house, who to
like and who to disdain, and on and on.
All that stuff can become clutter in our lives that keeps us from seeing
who Jesus truly is. And so it was for Zaccheus.
For all his faults, Zaccheus is still
an attractive and sympathetic character because he is persistent. You see Zaccheus doesn’t give up. He takes the initiative and breaks away from
the crowd to get a different perspective.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see
Jesus, who was about to pass that way.
When is the last time you climbed a
tree? On the way here to church? Probably not. For most of us it has probably been a good long
while. Climbing trees was NOT what a
chief tax collector, a wealthy man, an important personage, was supposed to be
doing. In a society that put great
emphasis on dignity and decorum, this would have been highly unusual. It tells us that Zaccheus was willing to risk
appearing ridiculous, risk looking foolish, in order to see who Jesus was. So intense was Zaccheus’ desire, so driven
was he to see ‘who is this Jesus?’
What is Jesus
all about? What is it about Jesus that
is so attractive and so compelling?
So Zaccheus
throws dignity to the wind, leaves the crowd behind, runs ahead and climbs up
into a sycamore tree along Jesus’ route.
Along comes Jesus. The scene is rather
comical. There is Jesus standing on the
road, talking to Zaccheus up in the tree.
What does Jesus see? He does NOT see someone acting foolish. Rather, Jesus recognizes in Zaccheus a burning
desire for something more in life than just making money. Jesus recognizes the hunger and thirst in
Zaccheus that all his wealth does not satisfy.
Jesus sees that Zaccheus is hungry; so Jesus invites himself to dinner,
not to be fed but rather to feed Zaccheus. “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must
stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and
received him with joy.
This little Gospel scene
is a beautiful lesson for us. First
Jesus heals a beggar of blindness, and now Jesus is going to heal a wealthy man
of his inability to see. They are
equally needy and equally blind, but in different ways. We too have blind spots. We don’t see clearly our purpose in life; we
don’t see how we are blessed by God; we don’t see what Jesus is calling us to
do. Jesus wants to heal us also.
Often,
like Zaccheus if we want to really see then we have to break out of our
routine. We have to get away from the
crowd, from all the conventional expectations.
We have to stop worrying about looking foolish, we have to take a risk
to go out on a limb to get a different perspective on life. Probably that does not mean literally
climbing up in a tree. But it might mean
turning off the TV and the smart phone and all the other distractions to spend
time in quiet and prayer. It might mean
including daily mass in your schedule, something totally different than the
rest of your day. It might mean taking
time for a retreat or an evening of recollection, even going off to a monastery
or a retreat house. Your family and
co-workers may think you have gone a little nuts, but we will never hear the
Lord’s inviting Himself to our house, that is into our hearts, until we stop to
listen.
We
can then receive the Lord with joy into our hearts, into our lives.
This will, of course, require
changes. For Zaccheus it required a
fundamental shift from looking on his possessions as something to hoard and from
the accumulation of more and more and more, to a very different approach of seeing
his possessions as the opportunity and the means to do good, to achieve
something positive and lasting with them rather than to hoard them just for
himself in a sterile way.
Zaccheus
found his true treasure in the Lord. So
can we.
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