Thirty-first Sunday In Ordinary Time
LUKE 19:1-10
In the person of Zacchaeus Luke brings together two groups of which he has written much throughout his gospel – the rich and the tax collectors. To these groups one could apply what Luke wrote earlier about Mammon (money) and God, “Love the one and hate the other.” He expressed drastically negative statements about the wealthy. Here are a few: “He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty,” 1:53; “Woe (a curse) upon you rich, for you have received your consolation,” 6:24. He ridiculed Pharisees as “lovers of money” and “an abomination in the sight of God.” In the parable of a rich man and poor Lazarus, the rich man dies and is buried in hell. These statements can leave a bad taste in the mouth of wealthy and generous Christians, so important to the Church already in the time of Paul and Luke. Something had to be done.
Another group of whom Luke had written much consisted of tax collectors. They were social outcasts, despised by their fellow Jews because of their employment by the Roman occupation forces in a job which endeared them to no one. Some scholars put them in the same sinner-category as robbers. Scholarly opinion said that it was permissible to deceive a tax collector. The gospels reveal how people of their time spoke of this group in such phrases as “tax collectors and sinners,” “Gentile and tax collector.” Yet Jesus associated with and ate with these despised creatures. He invited one of them, Levi-Matthew, into his inner circle of disciples. His friendship was extended to guide them into repentance, and to reform those who used their position to unjustly enrich themselves.
The story of today’s gospel is Luke’s final statement on both groups, the rich and the tax collectors. He unites them into the one person of Zacchaeus. It is Luke’s opportunity to speak to generous, wealthy Christians who put their wealth and their homes at the dis-posal of the Church and the poor. Jesus was still en route to Jerusalem. He had by this time crossed the Jordan to the west bank as he approached Jericho. “Now a man there named Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and a rich man.” Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but he was short of stature. He climbed a sycamore tree to watch Jesus pass by. Jesus noticed the little man in the tree, and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”
Jesus’ critics grumbled about Jesus tainting himself by associating with a social outcast, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” Luke gives Zacchaeus the proper lines expressing his will to correct any errors into which he may have fallen, the will to make restitution, and proposing the proper use of wealth. “Behold, half my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone, (by threats or false char-ges), I shall repay it four times over.” The standard of fourfold restitution is established in Exodus 22:1. In more serious cases, fivefold restitution was demanded. The fact that Luke uses the present tense, “I give, (instead of “I shall give”), would normally indicate that Zachaeus was already a decent man who was in the habit of almsgiving. Thus Luke presents him as a model for wealthy Christians. Translating the verb as future, “I shall give,” better fits Jesus’ response to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house….” Thus the story becomes a conversion story and an exhortation to repentance.
The Lucan Jesus notes that “this man too is a descendant of Abraham.” Despite being shunned by his people because of his employment, Zacchaeus was not cut off from his people. He is still entitled to the blessings of Abraham and to the form of those blessings available to him in the presence of Jesus. Luke adds a final statement about the purpose of Jesus’ presence on earth, “The Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” This statement echoes what is said of the Lord God in Ezekiel 34:16, “I will seek the lost, and bring back the strayed….” When attributes of God in the Old Testament are said of Jesus in the New Testament, it is an implicit teaching that Jesus is God.
WISDOM 11:22-12:2
The context of this reading is the patience of God with the Egyptians in the centuries during which they oppressed the Israelites. The author notes that God could have crushed them in one breath, but instead did everything in an orderly way. In the same way God has patience with the world, which to God is no more than a drop of morning dew. But God is merciful because he has the power to do all things. He overlooks the sins of mankind, so that they can repent. The use of this reading to accompany today’s gospel is an implicit interpretation of the story of Zacchaeus as a story of repentance. Jesus demonstrates his “Godness” by extending his love even to someone humankind despised.
2 THESSALONIANS 1:11 – 2:2
The Thessalonians of the first century had the same problem that has excited Christians in every century of Christian history – that the return of Jesus was at hand. The author warns them “not to be shaken out of your minds…, or to be alarmed either by a spirit or by an oral statement or by a letter allegedly from us that the day of the Lord is at hand.” Paul’s earlier teachings brought on this problem, both then and now.
