REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

31st Sunday in Ordinary time C
(31 October 2010)

Fr James McTavish, FMVD

Climbing sycamore trees

Often in life it is common to feel a bit bored, tired or just ‘wanting a change’. Sometimes these feelings can be disturbing. What to do with these emotions? On the one hand it is not just to follow them blindly without thinking, but the other extreme to be avoided is to ignore them completely. In a branch of moral theology today called ‘Virtue ethics’ more and more importance is given to emotions and intuitions and how they can be integrated into rational decision making. One Italian Saint who worked with the deaf and mute, St Philipp Smaldone, said “Le intuizione sono il linguaggio muto più bello di Dio”. If your Italian is more or less correct it should read “the intuitions are the most beautiful mute language of God”. Our man in the gospel of today, Zacchaeus, had an intuition! And he acted upon it!

Zacchaeus was a tax collector, much hated by his own people because he would collect taxes from his own people, cream off the profits, and give what was due to the Romans. Luke the evangelist tells us an interesting detail – “he was short” (See Luke 19, 1-10). Jesus was visiting Jericho but Zacchaeus being so short could not see him because of the crowds. Perhaps in this moment we can stop to ponder what it means ‘to be short’. Short in stature of course but maybe also short in joy, in enthusiasm, short in faith and hope. In some ways we all fall short of the ideal and at times we too come to see our limits. We find ourselves short on patience with some people, short on perseverance, short on initiatives to overcome problems. The crowd is the problem for Zacchaeus and for us too. Our schedule can be so crowded that we cannot see Jesus, our day is so crowded there is little time to stop and take a time out. Sometimes we have a crowd of voices in our heads and it makes it difficult to listen to the voice of God.

What did Zacchaeus do in that moment? Let us call him Zack for short. Give up? Throw in the towel? But God is not a God who gives up. In the first reading from the book of Wisdom today it reminds that God is merciful and can do all things (Wis. 11,22-12,2). St Paul in the second reading tells us that God “will powerfully bring to fulfilment every good purpose and every effort of faith” (2 Thessalonians 1,11-2,2). God is not a God of dead ends but a God of possibilities, a God who in Christ Jesus declares “I am the Way”. So what happened to Zack? He got an inspiration! A crazy one! Zack ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. Imagine that, he was totally forgetting about his social status and did something unbecoming to his position – he climbed a sycamore tree probably ass he had done many years ago as a young boy. How about you and I, are we able to do something ‘unbecoming’ of our status? To do something a little bit out of the ordinary, to break our routine? Sometimes we are afraid because of what the crowd might say. The crowd of the external opinions and the crowd of the bad spirit, the Accuser, who is not only in the external but is at times very noisy within us.

Pope John Paul II explained in a homily what happened to Zack. What was it that moved Zack? It was grace. God’s grace acting in his life. God’s grace is always working but we need to be open to respond to it. Grace acting in his life led Zack to encounter Jesus. Jesus passed that way and saw him up the tree. Perhaps Jesus was thinking that now this fruit is ripe to be picked. Zack was the ripe fruit Jesus had come to collect. With all his stirrings, his dissatisfaction with life, probably he was tired of his wealth even if he had all the mod-cons of the time; somehow it was the right moment to encounter the Lord. All was a mere preparation for this life changing encounter. Martin Buber, the famous Jewish philosopher said “All real life is a encounter”.

In that moment Jesus said "Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." Perhaps Zack nearly fell out of the tree in surprise thinking “who am I that Jesus should speak to me personally? To call me by my name”. But each one of us, since coming into existence, since our baptism have been ‘called by name’ and as Jesus reminds us John’s gospel “You did not choose me, I chose you to go and bear much fruit, fruit that will endure”. What was the effect of this meeting between Zack and Jesus? Well for one, the crowd, perhaps predictably was complaining about Jesus who had “gone to stay at the house of a sinner" but Zack came down from the tree immediately and received Jesus with great joy. Sometimes we need to come down from our trees! The tree of pride, of stubbornness, of fear even and embrace Jesus joyfully. And look at the effect in Zack’s life - Zack stood there and said to the Lord, "Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over." The law stipulated that in the case of cheating, the amount cheated plus one fifth should be returned to the aggrieved person but Zack was not satisfied with one-fifth but instead would return the sum four fold.

One missionary priest was giving his testimony. He told us that before he encountered the Lord he was quite stingy in his response to helping others. One day when he was a university student he received a letter asking for sponsorship for a child in Africa. He really wanted to give the 20 Euros that were asking but he also received another mail, advertising a digital radio for 19.99 Euros. Now he found himself in a dilemma and he was wrestling with his conscience. Of course to help the hungry child was vital but also a radio could be good as he could relax listening to it and being less stressed would enable him to study better. Even a little voice in him was telling him to get the radio as it was actually cheaper. He felt moved for the situation of the child but in the end he got the radio. What happened to this typical young man? He is now a missionary priest giving dedicated service to the Lord and all peoples of the world having been in the mission in Spain, Russia, Chile, and in so many places giving his life without reserve to so many people. What happened to this young man? Before despite all his high ideals he could not even give 20 Euros and now is giving his whole life. As he told the gathered listeners “what happened was I met Jesus”.

Let us open our hearts to meet Jesus and may his love turn us all into generous givers! Let us ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to be open to his crazy inspirations. Perhaps we can ask ourselves ‘in what way is the Holy spirit inviting me to take a step, to go ahead of the crowd, so that i can encounter Jesus?’ There will be many opportunities offered this very day. May we just open our eyes to see the many sycamore trees around us! Amen.