Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 21, 2023 - Tuesday in the 33th Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Macc 6:18-31 and Luke 19:1-10]"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." [Luke]
NOVEMBER 21 THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED vIRGIN MARY
Zaccheus the tax collector is one of the most delightful characters of the New Testament. The imagination required to go and climb a tree in order to be able, on account of shortness, to see Jesus is appealing to our own imagination. It reminds me of the stretcher-bearers earlier in this gospel [5:17-26] who bring their paralyzed friend up on the roof, tear off the tiles and drop him down in front of Jesus. In both cases, Jesus sees the faith which the crowd does not see. In today's gospel, when Jesus accepts Zaccheus' invitation to dinner in his [Zaccheus'] home, the crowd grumbles: "He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner." This, too, recalls the incident when Jesus calls Matthew [Levi], a tax collector, to be an apostle and Jesus also goes to dinner at Matthew's house. The same grumbling took place. What the "crowd" fails to see is that the challenge to repentance cuts both ways.
The judgmental reluctance to accept even a repentant sinner from a "certain category" of people is alive and well even in our own time. Punishment seems to be uppermost in the minds of folks who think this way. Pope Francis continually receives criticism for reaching out to those who are at odds with the Church for whatever reason. The paralytic and Zaccheus and the Blind Beggar in Monday's gospel are all rewarded for their faith (and the faith of the stretcher bearer friends]. Salvation and healing come from Jesus, not criticism and punishment. Zaccheus has some advice for the shortness of vision being shown by "the crowd:" "Go climb a tree!" AMEN