Fr. Bob Warren's Week Reflection: Zaccheus the Tax Collector

Zaccheus the Tax Collector (Luke 19:1-10) We read about a famous city in the gospel today: Jericho. Jericho was a kind of New Testament Miami, a popular holiday resort for the rich, especially in the winter. Zacchaeus was the senior tax collector in this wealthy place—a tax tycoon. We heard about tax collectors in last week's gospel and how they were hated by the people. They had become rich working for the Romans. Do not think "IRS" here... think Mafia or drug dealers. Perhaps it was because Zacchaeus heard about the story Jesus had told about the tax collector in the temple, and that encouraged him to want to see this Jesus. This Jesus who was so sympathetic, so understanding. So we read a huge crowd had showed up to see Jesus. He was receiving a great deal of attention, even adulation. Then He spots Zacchaeus in a tree. I would think that the first thing that would have impressed Zacchaeus was that Jesus noticed him. As they say, it's nice to be noticed. Jesus could have snubbed him. If He had, it would have increased His popularity. But Jesus stops under the tree and looks up and addresses him by name. He calls him down and says, "I am coming to your house." In doing so, He made Himself extremely unpopular with the townspeople. But Zacchaeus was delighted, and he welcomed Him with joy. It was with this one encounter that Zacchaeus' heart came to life, like a desert landscape after a rainfall. Jesus knew that the only way to change people was through a relationship with them. You never improve people by avoiding them or rejecting them. A cold climate does not encourage growth. If you snub a person, all you do is harden their heart. You have to find a way of touching a person's heart. All people, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency and are capable of changing if their hearts are touched. Zacchaeus experienced a conversion... one of goodness. To a greater or lesser degree, all of us need this kind of conversion. In many ways, we are all a bit like Zacchaeus. Some of us are more lost than others but all of us are lost to some extent or another. Like Zacchaeus, we are small people in many ways. But every week at Mass, we climb into the sight of God, and we say we are not worthy that He should come under our roof. Christ invites Himself in. He comes under our roof and gives Himself to us. He can say to us what he said to Zacchaeus—this day, salvation has come to this house. It is only in Christ that we can become whole. It is only in Christ that we can become complete. There is a religious novelist, Lloyd Douglas, who closes his version of the encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus with these words: "Zacchaeus," said the Carpenter gently, "what did you see that made you desire this peace?" "Good Master, I saw in You the Zacchaeus I was meant to be. And when You showed me that, I could not turn away." The Pharisee, blinded by the shining self-made image of his own imagined perfection sought no forgiveness from God, surely each received what he prayed for.

Yours in Christ, Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. Spiritual Director