The 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 3, 2013     

Listen to this homily (mp3 file)

     We’re quickly coming to the end of the Church’s year, which means that we will soon be moving on from hearing Luke’s gospel on Sundays, to Matthew’s.  Nothing against Matthew, but I have a particular fondness for Luke. I love the powerful portrait Luke paints of the merciful, forgiving Christ.  We’ve gotten glimpses of that all year long, including these past several Sundays, with the wonderful parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son. And the mercy of Christ was front and center in the story of the healing of the leper a couple Sundays ago, and again last Sunday in the story of the humble tax collector who stood at the back of the temple begging for – and receiving – God’s mercy.  And today, we get one more story of mercy and forgiveness in the wonderful story of Zacchaeus.

     Zacchaeus has always been a favorite of mine.  You probably won’t find it surprising that I relate to this fellow who was a little on the short side.  In order to get a glimpse of Jesus, he had to climb a tree!  I’ve been there, done that. Maybe not climbing the tree, but I’ve done my share of looking for vantage points and standing on my tiptoes in a crowd, including a few weeks ago in Rome when I worked hard to get a decent glimpse of Pope Francis at the papal audience in St. Peter’s Square!

     But my fondness for Zacchaeus doesn’t stop at the fact that he was “vertically challenged,” as we sometimes say.  I also like the fact that Zacchaeus was curious about Jesus or, as Luke puts it, that he was “seeking to see who Jesus was.”  Zacchaeus represents all of us in that regard, wouldn’t you agree?  Who of us isn’t curious about Jesus? Who of us isn’t – in one way or another – “seeking to see who Jesus is?”  Isn’t that what our life of faith is all about?  We might not use those words but I think we’d agree that we long to get a good look at Jesus and to understand better who he is.

     And the Zacchaeus story tells us that this desire of ours to see and know Jesus is not one-sided.  Happily, it’s matched by his desire to be with us.  We’re told in the story that, when Jesus reached the tree that Zacchaeus had climbed, he looked up, called him by name, and invited himself to dinner!  “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”  You see what I mean by Zacchaeus’ desire to see Jesus being matched Jesus’ desire to be with him!

     And what happens as a result is life-altering for Zacchaeus.  He’s a changed man because of his encounter with Jesus.  Wealthy Zacchaeus becomes an instant philanthropist, a veritable Bill Gates! “Behold, half of my possessions I shall give to the poor.” And, not only that -- the despised, dishonest tax collector vows to pay restitution and more. “If I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over!” 

     What’s not to like about that story?  It’s so encouraging to us.  Not so much because our story is the same as Zacchaeus’ story.  It’s probably not.  No, for me, the encouraging part is that our desire to see and to know Jesus is met by his desire to be with us.  And it’s encouraging to know that there’s nothing about our life – not our shaky past, our failings, our sins, our compromises – nothing at all gets in the way of Jesus’ desire to be with us. And, of course, when Jesus is with us, when he comes and stays ‘at our house’ as he did with Zacchaeus, our lives are completely changed, much like Zacchaeus’ was.

     If you think of it, the stories of many saints down through the ages parallel the story of Zacchaeus.  Every saint had some sort of conversion, of course, but some saints required more conversion than others. I think of St. Paul, for one, and St. Augustine, and St, Ignatius -- “saints with a past,” as one contemporary writer refers to them.  Which puts me in mind of something I once heard: “There is no saint without a past and no sinner without a future.”  I like that, and it’s true!

     In more recent times, we might think of undeclared saints like Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day.  And you could no doubt add some saints of your own -- family members, maybe, and friends -- who have been part of your lives.  All of them, like Zacchaeus, wanted to see Jesus and had some kind of an encounter with Jesus, and their lives were never quite the same as a result!

     On Friday, we celebrated All Saints Day, a wonderful feast on the Church’s calendar. I always think of that feast as celebrating, not so much the saints we make statues of or whom we honor with shrines, candles, flowers, and prayers. No, it celebrates the saints who will never have a statue made of them, or a church named for them: all the people down through the ages – including many you’ve known – who, like Zacchaeus, were transformed by their encounter with Jesus and who let Jesus be their companion and friend even when they wondered why he’d ever want to be.  Every one of them stumbled and fell along the way, but they let God, not human weakness, get the last word.

     My friends, the encounter with Jesus is ours, too.  And we needn’t even climb a tree to have it!  He comes to us where we are and invites himself to our house – as he does now, and every time we celebrate the Eucharist!

     Father Michael G. Ryan