31st Sunday Pointers

31^st Sunday Pointers       

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Today the story of Zacchaeus is presented to us. Zacchaeus was a tax collector who was so short that he had to climb up a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus as he was passing by—somehow this small man climbs up the tree because of his great desire to see Jesus. Everyone including Zacchaeus himself is completely surprised when Jesus announces that he intends to stay at Zacchaeus’ house that day.

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“Come down, Zacchaeus,” Jesus calls out to him.  The crowds that recognized him must have boiled with hatred.  But Jesus showed him compassion, “I must stay in your house.” While no upright Jew would have dared enter the home of a public sinner, an unclean person, Jesus crushed through their borders and invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus.

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For people the incident was an opportunity to condemn the tax collector; but for Jesus, it was an opportunity to invite the tax collector to repentance. .  It is the Lord who reaches out to and embraces a man ostracized and condemned by society.  By expressing His wish to eat with Zacchaeus, the tax collector spontaneously repents of his sins and offers to make quadruple restitution to those he has wronged. Clearly, Zacchaeus was converted by his experience of God’s mercy.

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The aftermath:

1. After giving up his ill-gotten wealth, Zacchaeus , in a way, became poor but found his true wealth in Jesus.
2. Before his encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus  was a social outcast.  And being forbidden to enter any place of worship, he must have felt cast out of God’s circle.  Now he felt included in God’s embrace.
3. While he was previously miserable and desperate spiritually, now he was reborn and filled with joy and zeal — not because of what he had done for God, but because of what God had done for him.  Because God reached out to him and entered his home, God made a home in him.  As a result, Zacchaeus found himself finally at home in God.

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Life Situation and Application

  Like the crowds, we rightfully detest the corruption and sinfulness of people. Like the crowds we judge certain individuals as being beyond redemption—without the slightest compassion for them proudly and confidently proclaiming to the world that we are the insiders and they outsiders, that we are hold in God’s arms and sinners as beyond divine mercy.

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 At some moments in our life we too are like Zacchaeus—involved in questionable act.  But like Zacchaeus , having received God’s mercy, can truly repent and turn away from our sinful patterns of acting.  And strive to live a virtuous life. As we approach the end of the liturgical year and reflect on the Second Coming of Christ, we are invited to be reborn in Christ.  May Christ, King of the Universe, invite himself to our homes, win our hearts and in the process redeem us not out of this world but while in the world.

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The story of Zacchaeus is our own story as well. The God who searches for the tax collector, searches for us as well. In each of us there lives a sinner and the Lord who is too willing to give us a fresh start. We are all important in the eyes of God. When we accept our own sinfulness and the grace of God, we begin to live a new life.

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