31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (03.11.13)
CHANCE ENCOUNTER?
The clues tell a story. They indicate that Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus was probably accidental. Luke’s Gospel (19:1-10) relates that Jesus’ intention was to “pass through Jericho” without stopping. In walled towns, such as Jericho, land was too precious for gardens or trees. According to Luke, Zacchaeus was small in stature, which explains his need for height in order to see what sort of person Jesus was. The Jews of Jericho treated Zacchaeus, who collected taxes for the Romans, as a ‘fifth columnist’.
The name Zacchaeus, meaning ‘the pure and righteous one’, didn’t exactly suit his occupation. Jericho was famous for balsam, a resinous gum from local trees used in the production of botanical medicines. The town’s lucrative export meant that Zacchaeus had the opportunity for real wealth. In telling us that Zacchaeus climbed into a tree, Luke sites the encounter outside the walls which makes it all the more likely to have been been unintended.
How did Jesus come to notice Zacchaeus? Did locals enjoy embarrassing this despised puppet of the occupying army, pointing him out as Jesus walked along the pathway? Whatever the cause, Jesus met Zacchaeus’ gaze. What did Jesus see in the man’s eyes that prompted him to say: “Zacchaeus, come down!”?
Chance encounters happen. Momentary encounters can be life-changing, for better or worse. St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road marked Paul’s transformation from persecutor of Christians to apostle of Jesus. Today, our prisons hold many who encountered the wrong influence at the wrong time. Lincon, a retired, long-serving prison warder whose deep faith always defined his treatment of inmates irrespective of their crimes, died recently. At his funeral it was recalled that a ‘lifer’, noted for his aggression, had once told Lincon, “if my dad had spoken to and treated me the way you do, I wouldn’t have ended up in here”.
We may view the daily living-out of our Baptismal promises and commitment to Christ as unspectacular. Nevertheless, we may have been, unknowingly, a ‘Godsend’ bringing a Divine invitation, a ‘come down’ moment, to a blighted life. Our continuing, daily effort to being faithful to Christ’s call leaves open the possibility of ‘our being in the right place at the right time’, unknowingly.
Jesus’ invitation: “Zacchaeus, come down!” provided a life-changing opportunity for a Jew whose wealth was no cure for his agony of soul. Zacchaeus’ subsequent actions revealed both the depth of his distress and his desire to make amends. It brings to mind Jesus’ words: (Matthew 7:16-17) “You will know them (people) by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.…”
The timing was everything. Zacchaeus had made the first move. Whatever motivated him, he wanted to see this Jesus of Nazareth and in so doing, had opened his heart. Though not intending to stop in Jericho, Jesus saw something in Zacchaeus’ eyes that caused him to change his plans and make possible a tax collector’s change of life.
We may choose not to let work colleagues, neighbours or friends know of our Catholic Baptism. If we live our faith openly then, in time, others will come to realise who we are. This is important, for if we want them to know us as we seek to know them, then their knowledge of our relationship with Jesus of Nazareth through the Catholic Church is fundermental!
There’s no sign on my gatepost that indicates I’m a retired priest. This fact just announces itself in the course of daily life and communication. A little distance away lives a man who tells me that I officiated at his marriage over forty years ago. To be truthful, I cannot recall either him or his wife, faces blur along with the memory as the years mount up! Little by little the neighbourhood came to know ‘of the priest in number 4’. Information about Catholicism is sometimes asked for and opinion sought; gripes are unearthed and good times recalled. Each Baptised person’s vocation, their ‘calling’, is to be a living, identifiable ‘Gospel’ wherever they are in their personal relationship with Jesus or the Church. What Zacchaeus discovered about himself the day Jesus of Nazareth invited him to ‘come down’, would have been his ‘identification’ thereafter. We’re still talking about it almost two milennia later!
All of us ‘lose our way’, drift ‘off course’ or are tempted to stray, especially when our ‘moorings’ to Jesus are not maintained. Even then, we have only to whisper his name in the depths of our heart and Jesus, through one of the innumerable members of his Body on Earth, the Church, will happen by. We may need to ‘climb a tree’ or two but it won’t be beyond us. All that is needed is an open heart.
Then, like Zacchaeus, we too will hear the personal invitation, “ —-, come down quickly! For today I must stay at your house.” And, like Zacchaeus, we will receive Jesus with demonstrable joy.
There’s a footnote from St. Peter’s second letter (3:8): “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”