Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 - Tuesday in the 33th Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Macc 6:18-31 and Luke 19:1-10]"Zaccheus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." [Luke]
I suspect that there may be more than one member of the Beloved Congregation who can sing, "Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he! He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see!....." The encounter between Jesus and Zaccheus is one of the more delightful moments in the Gospel According to Luke. It is also a very instructive moment.
The wise missionary disciple accepts the "seeker" as the seeker comes, and not as the missionary disciple wants them to be. The seeker in this story is Zaccheus. Jesus finds him up a tree and literally invites Zaccheus to invite Jesus to his home! How can Jesus do this, some in the crowd complain? Z. was a "chief tax collector and also a wealthy man." Tax collectors are never popular folks, but Z. was probably profiting from the job, worked for the Romans and handled money with the emperor's image on it! One may as well be a leper!
What the critics cannot see or believe is the change that Jesus' visit brings about. Jesus says it simply: "Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost." As in so many instances in the story of Jesus' ministry in the gospels, it is the "crowd" that can be blind. The filter of "correctness" would exclude Zaccheus from any salvation. As a result of Jesus' invitation, Zaccheus could sing, as all of us should, the lines from AMAZING GRACE; "I once was lost but now am found. Was blind but now I see." The "wee little man" is made a giant! AMEN