October 30, 2022

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]

Zacchaeus Changed—What About Me?

Msgr Thomas Gervasio

The religious leaders of our Lord’s time thought it a scandal that Our Lord would associate with tax collectors. They were among the most despised of the community because they collaborated with the occupying Romans to collect taxes and they took full advantage of the situation. Zacchaeus of Jericho was one of these, but he was no ordinary tax collector but the “chief tax collector.” He wasted no time in enriching himself by cheating the people and lining his own pockets.

Zacchaeus did not exemplify the meaning of his name—“pure and innocent.” We can presume him to be calloused, greedy, selfish, and disinterested in anything other than his own comfort. In the eyes of the community, he had become a financial giant but a moral midget. But it is on just such a person that Jesus focuses his time and attention.

Somehow this unlikely and unpopular citizen wanted to see Jesus. Saint Luke tells us that Zacchaeus was short in stature and so he climbed a tree in order to have a good vantage point from which to see the Lord as he passed. One scholar suggests that he may have climbed the tree to avoid joining the crowd because of his ill repute. In the midst of the crowd and to their amazement, Jesus looks up and tells Zacchaeus to come down quickly. Cardinal Hume reminds us that “God became man not for a crowd but for each one of us.” I imagine that many in the crowd thought that Jesus was going to publicly scold Zacchaeus—take him to task for his corrupt practices, but instead Our Lord honors him by inviting himself to his house.

We are not privy to the conversation that took place there, but we know the result! Zacchaeus makes amends. He gives half his wealth to the poor and restores any ill-gotten money four times over. Our Lord declares “Today salvation has come to this house.” In a word, Zacchaeus had changed.

What lesson can be gleaned from this episode?

No matter our past, no matter our sin, we can change. The Lord offers us a fresh start. We can experience this most profoundly through the Sacrament of Penance—Confession! It is the sacrament that lifts from our shoulders the heavy burden of our past and offers us a new beginning.

It also reminds us that others can change. How often we write people off, content to leave them eternally in the “boxes” we have created for them and labeled unchangeable, hopeless, or useless. The Lord’s grace enables everyone to have a new beginning; do we offer people that opportunity?

Our challenge is the one that Zacchaeus met successfully—of moving from where we are to where God wants us to be. What do I need to change? What must I put behind me so that I can move in a new direction?

Zacchaeus moved from injustice to generosity. In what direction is the Lord calling us? Perhaps Our Lord is calling us to descend from the tree of our pride and move from
 

• Anger to Peacefulness
• Annoyance to Patience
• Complaining to Gratitude
• Despair to Hope
• Disorder to Self-Control
• Fear to Courage
• Greed to Simplicity
• Idleness to Good works
• Resentment to Forgiveness
• Self-Hate to Self-Love or
• Self-Reliance to Prayer

Let us pray: Lord God, how often we desire a new beginning! Help us, like Zacchaeus, to close the door on the past that is not pleasing to You. Forgive us the mistakes and sins of the past. May we welcome you into our house, the house of our soul, so that we might be changed, moving from where we are to where you what us to be…to be like Zacchaeus, a new creation.