Sunday, November 4,  2007

The Gospel today said that Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus but because of the crowd he had to climb a tree to do so because he was short of stature.  Now this may not seem to be a very important detail about him.  However, when you realize how rarely, if ever, the Scriptures give any physical description of any character in the Biblical accounts, we should pay attention to any detail that does appear about someone’s physical appearance.  For example, notice that the Gospels don’t record a single physical description of Jesus.  We don’t know his height,  his facial features, whether or not he had a beard.  We don’t know the color of his eyes or the color of his hair, or even if He had hair.  Maybe He was bald.  These details would never be omitted from a modern biographer’s account of a famous person.  But the Bible don’t mention any of these kinds of details.  Why?  Well, the writers of the Scriptures just didn’t share our curiosity about such matters.  They thought, who cares?  So, when the Bible does record a physical description, we should probably sit up and take notice.

Zacchaeus is described as very short.  The Greek word used to describe him was “micros”, from which we get the word “microscopic”.  So, he was certainly vertically challenged.  Besides helping us understand why a grown man would climb a tree to see Jesus pass by, what’s the significance of this reference to his short height?  

Just imagine what it must have been like for Zacchaeus as he grew up.  All his life he must have been the victim of insensitive jokes and comments about his shortness.  He was probably pushed around by bullies as a child, always shorter than the girls whose attention and affection he must have sought as a teenager, always living under the cloud of resentment and insult as he struggled to live in a world of giants.  Maybe Zacchaeus made a childhood vow that “one day, they'll all lookup to me.”  And to compensate for his lack of height, He learned to be ruthless as he got older.  Could the war within him over his physical condition be the explanation for the man he became in later life?  If so, he would not be the first nor the last person whose bruised adulthood began with a wounded childhood.

We also know that Zacchaeus was rich.  In fact, he was very rich.  Now, at first glance, we might think his wealth was something positive about him.  Obviously, he was a hard worker.  But when you consider the context in Luke’s Gospel where this story appears, we realize that Luke is telling us that Zacchaeus was not a very likable individual.  Just the chapter before this one, Luke told about a rich ruler who sought to follow our Lord but who failed to do so because of his great wealth.  As Jesus watched that rich man leave, He remarked with great sadness, “How difficult it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.  It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”  And now, right on the heels of that story, Luke introduces us to Zacchaeus, a man of enormous wealth.  But to make matters worse, the rich ruler of the previous chapter was at least a good, God-fearing, commandment-honoring individual.  Zacchaeus, by contrast, was a total reprobate.  As a tax collector, he was an extortionist and crook who defrauded his own people.  When he was born, his Jewish parents probably named him Zachariah, a cherished and honored Jewish name that meant “righteous one.”  But over the years, he failed to live up to that name and it was shortened, no pun intended, to Zacchaeus.  He was a chief tax collector, a man who cheated anyone and everyone in order to earn an extra shekel.

Zacchaeus was the town’s chief sinner according to every religious, political or polite standard one could imagine.  And Luke’s Gospel is full of stories where wealth is a signal of bad things to come.  Do you remember the story of the rich foolish farmer who died while planning his retirement and building bigger barns to store his stuff?  Or the story about the rich man who ended up in torment because he didn’t show mercy to the beggar Lazarus?

But then, just when we’re tempted to read Luke’s account as a condemnation of all riches and all rich people, here is this story of Zacchaeus, a sawed off shyster of a man, a swindler and a crook who made his wealth in the worst ways possible, but who ended up at the table with the Lord, welcomed in the Kingdom of God.  As the kids would say today, “What’s up with that?”

Well, the third thing and the main thing we know about Zacchaeus is that he was still a child of Abraham, a child of God, a child of promise and redemption.  This is really the point of the story about him.  If that man, with so much baggage from the sins of others against him as well as the enormous baggage of the sins he committed against others in return, if that man can be redeemed, then anyone can be redeemed.  Wealth or the absence of wealth, isn’t a predictor of spiritual status after all.  The opinions of an entire village don’t count as much as the opinion of God.  And whatever one’s past, no matter how wrong, how sinful, how misdirected, there is always a possible new future because of God’s grace, if we’ll just accept the invitation of Christ.

To the surprise and disgust of most of the proper people in the town, Jesus ended up saying about Zacchaeus, “This one, too, is a son of Abraham.”  In other words, Jesus welcomed him back into the community of faith by returning to him his true name, calling him again a righteous one in the family of God.

And with that amazing word of grace, as they celebrated around a table, Zacchaeus was so overwhelmed by God’s love for him that it soaked all the way to his wallet.  And the former tax collector became a wealth dispenser, splashing grace everywhere in the same way it had come to him.  Was it a miracle?  Oh, yes.  It was the day that a camel passed through the eye of a needle.  

Let none of us ever think that we are beyond hope, beyond redemption or beyond the mercy of God.  Let none of us ever believe that anything we’ve done or we’ve failed to do lessens us in the eyes of God.  And let none of us ever forget that, whatever our age, we still are and always will be a child of God, loved, forgiven and saved by the One who has given us a share in his very life.

 

Sunday, October 21,  2007

Did I ever tell you the story about the big, burley man who walked into the grocery store one day, went to the young clerk and said, “I want to buy a half a head of cabbage.” The kid looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we only sell whole heads.” The man glared at him, got in his face and said quite emphatically, “Listen, buddy, I don’t want a whole head. I only want a half a head. Now are you going to sell it to me or not?” Rather meekly the clerk said, “Just a minute. I’ll ask the manager.” He walked down the aisle and into the stockroom where the manager was unpacking produce. The young man said, “Hey, there’s a big, stupid-looking guy out there and he wants to buy a half a head of cabbage.” Just then he heard a noise behind him. He turned to see that the man had followed him and heard every word he had said. Turning back to the manager he said, “And this gentleman would like to purchase the other half of the head.” 
 
Now, we can split cabbages and we can split hairs but we can’t be half hearted or take halfway measures in our yearning for God or in our conforming our life to his ways. And we can draw this lesson from the story we just heard in the Gospel about the poor widow’s persistence in her pursuit for justice as she stood alone and defenseless before a corrupt judge. 
 
In our Lord’s time, being a wife wasn’t easy. It was almost like being a slave. She had few rights. She couldn’t divorce her husband but her husband could divorce her with a stroke of a pen. She was considered as just another of her husband’s possessions, along with the house, land and oxen. And she had to do much of the hard work. 
 
However, she did have some protection by law but when her husband died, her rather meager economic and social status deteriorated immensely. Because she couldn’t inherit anything from him, a widow joined the ranks of orphans and impoverished and she was indeed a charity case. 
 
In Jesus’ parable, a poor widow stood before a crooked judge who couldn’t have cared less about her. Time after time, the widow came before him and said, “I want justice from you.” And time after time, she was denied. But she kept coming and coming. Finally, the weary judge gave into the woman’s persistence. He said, “While it’s true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I’ll deliver a just decision for her.” The judge was literally nagged into doing the right thing. 
 
Our Lord drew a lesson from this parable by saying. “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to Him day and night? I tell you, He’ll see to it that justice is done for them speedily.” 
 
To really understand the parable, you have to understand the biblical concept of justice. We tend to use the word in terms of a “fair administration of the law.” But that’s not the way the Bible understands it. The Scriptures speak of two kinds of justice, divine justice and human justice. 
 
Divine justice, God’s justice, means that God is always faithful to his promises. God is always faithful to his word. God always does what He says He’ll do. God is just, not because He rewards good and punishes evil. God is just because He is forever faithful to the Words He speaks and to the ones He loves. 
 
Human justice is what we’re called to, which is to acknowledge in word and in deed that God is our Father, that Jesus is his Son and that we are brothers and sisters in his Holy Spirit. Our acting justly to one another is respecting the reality of who we are and it’s a responding to God’s fidelity to us with our fidelity to Him and each other. It means that we persistently and consistently turn to God who will not reluctantly show us his justice like the corrupt judge but who will honestly and earnestly desire us to know how much on our side He really is. 
 
I think that sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. I think there are times that we don’t really believe that God is on our side, that we don’t really think that God cares that much about us individually. 
 
Do you really believe that God knows and understands what you went through today, and every day? Do you really believe that today God shared your smiles as well as those things that brought you worry or sorrow? Do you really believe that God hurts when you hurt, that He laughs when you laugh and that He holds you in the palm of his hands? 
 
That’s the glory of being a Christian -- because we can believe, because we can know, because we can trust that the God of all creation is that deeply in love with us and will be with us through thick and thin. And that’s especially the glory of being Catholic -- because we not only believe that but we celebrate that in the Eucharist. How much closer can God get to us than when we receive Him in Holy Communion? How much more can He convince us of his love for us than when He invites us to share his very life? And how much more can we be charged to treat one another fairly and justly than when we’re reminded that we’re all drawn together as brothers and sisters in Christ? 
 
I think it would be good for all of us to ask ourself if we think that those around us would say that we treat them with justice, that we’re true to our word and faithful to our promises. Let’s not forget that when we stand before the mirror on Judgment Day and we look at the deeds of our life, hopefully we’ll see reflected back to us a true fidelity to Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Hopefully, we’ll see that we’ve treated God justly because we recognized his fidelity to us and we’ve treated those around us justly because we treated them as sisters and brothers in Christ. 
 
That’s how we give God glory. That’s how we give God honor. And that’s how we give ourself the assurance that we’ll have no fear of standing before God on that day of judgment. 
 

Sunday, October 14,  2007

One of the most unique things about us human beings is that we’re the only living things on earth that don't automatically mature to be what we’re supposed to be. Puppies become dogs. Saplings become trees. Bulbs become tulips. But in our case, certain choices and decisions have to be made, certain things have to happen before we develop into wise and mature adults. And unless we make the right decisions and choices, it’s possible for us to become less than what we were created to be. We may be mature on the outside but we can still be very immature and undeveloped on the inside where it really matters, where it really counts. 
 
The grand thing about the coming of Christ is that He shows us what it means to be a full human person. One of the attitudes that Jesus possessed and an attitude that really is necessary in any healthy, happy and holy personality is what we found in the first and third readings of today’s Mass. 
Both of them were stories of people who knew in their heart that God had touched their life in some way and they were humbled by it. And as a result they wanted to express their appreciation both in word and in deed. They were grateful, they were thankful, they felt indebted for what God had done for them. And I think it’s vital for us to realize that without that sense of indebtedness, we can never be mature and balanced and healthy human beings. 
 
I know people, and I assume you do too, who take a lot of things in life for granted. In fact, they take much too much for granted. And it probably shows itself in the kinds of prayers they say. Did you ever hear the story about the two angels who were sent by God to earth to gather up the world’s prayers? One angel was to fill a basket with the prayers of petition that were said and the other angel was told to gather all the prayers of thanksgiving that were offered. Some time later, they returned to God’s throne. One had a basket heaping high and running over with innumerable requests of every kind and shape. The other angel returned with a sad and heavy heart because his basket was almost empty. 
 
To be able to speak with appreciation and gratitude to God, as well as to one’s family and friends, is one of those qualities possessed by holy people which is a holiness to which all of us are called. In the 1950s there was a Secretary General of the U.N. named Dag Hammerskjold.  I remember as a teenager reading how he was killed in a plane crash while on a peace mission in Africa in 1961. Years later his private journal was published, a book called “Markings”. It was a kind of a spiritual diary of his in which he struggled with a deeply personal and private faith in the context of his calling to one of the most visible and influential offices in international politics. I’ll always remember one quote of his out of that book. It simply went, “Lord, for all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.” 
 
I’m sure that line puzzles many people. Some wonder if that means we should be thankful for having bad days, for experiencing personal failures, for suffering injustice, for making mistakes and even for committing sins? “For all that has been, thanks.” 
 
Well, maybe we should. Maybe the way to look at things like that is that there is a reason to be thankful for even the unpleasant and trying events in life — if we’ve learned from them, if we’ve grown in a sense of our fundamental helplessness and our dependency on God to get us through difficult times. We need to realize that, in the grand scheme of things, there is more good than evil in this world and that God has personally touched each one of us and blessed us with so much that we’d be amazed if we ever took time to really look for it. It’s all too easy for or us to see the bad and ignore the good, to count our crosses and not our blessings and to complain about what God hasn’t done for us rather than what He has done. What a perfect prayer. For all that has been, thanks. 
 
It wasn’t by accident that even before what we’re now doing became called the Mass, it was called the Eucharist, a word that means “Thanksgiving.” The first believers in Jesus saw the Eucharist as an action for people of faith to come together as a community in order to thank God for having touched them through Jesus Christ and having graced them with the Holy Spirit. 
 
It’s from the simple action of reading the Word of God and sharing the Bread of Life that this more elaborate ritual of today’s Mass has developed. But the meaning is the same. We’re here to give thanks. And if someone has nothing to be thankful for, it’s really sad because it means that for them the Mass is probably an empty investment of 50 - 55 minutes every week. 
 
It’s troubling to hear people sometimes say, “I don’t get anything out of Mass” because it means that they’ve come here to get something rather than to give something. It’s sad to see people not realize that, even in life’s painful and hurting moments, they need to give thanks that God is really there to strengthen them, to sustain them and to love them in their struggles. 
 
There’s a beautiful and true story of a mother who had several children, one of whom was being picked on in school. The mother agonized for days over what to do about it. Finally, she decided the best thing to do was to keep out of it. Having made that decision, she soon began to have second thoughts and she worried that she might be wrong to let her son work out his problems by himself. For days she had difficulty sleeping. Finally, one afternoon she got into her car and drove out into the country, just to get away from it for a few hours. After a while, she pulled off to the side of the road, put her head on the wheel and wept. When she was all cried out, she picked up her head and looked out in wonder at a field of golden wheat that she was parked next to. 
 
At first, she was overwhelmed by the beauty of the wheat waving in the wind. But as she watched it for a while, she realized that there was something more going on. And I want to read to you her words. She said, “I know God was saying something to me in that wheat field. And so, I dried my eyes and I let the glories of that field pour into me. I began to experience the love of God in my life. God didn’t send me any easy solution to my problem, just the assurance of his knowing and his caring. And that was enough because I knew that the same Fatherly love would reach down to touch my hurting child.” 
 
There’s a woman of keen insight and of deep faith. She knew that, in the midst of her wonders and her worries, God was present. She knew she’d been touched by the Lord and healed as surely as was the leper in the Gospel and Naaman in the first reading. Here was a woman who had reason to celebrate Eucharist. No one needs to wonder what kind of prayers she said because you can hear in her words that, even in her turmoil and anxiety, she was confident that God was there and that something good would come out of the uncertainty she was going through. 
 
I hope that all of us have that kind of gratitude, that kind of thankfulness, that God has not only gifted us with life but that He is present with us in every moment in that life. If we have that kind of gratitude, then whatever comes our way, we’ll accept it with the confidence that we don’t face it alone but with God Almighty at our side. For all that has been, thanks and for all that will be, yes.