Thirty First Sunday of the year (Year C)

Thirty First Sunday of the year October 30, 2022

Wisdom 11:22-12:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10

(image courtesy: Google)

Boris Becker was the world’s number one tennis star. At the height of his tennis career, he had won Wimbledon twice, once as the youngest player. He was rich and could afford all the material comfort and luxury he wanted. Yet he was an unhappy man. In spite of all his achievements, his life was so empty and meaningless that he contemplated suicide. “I had no inner peace,” he said. Becker is not alone in this feeling of emptiness. Many successful people who have ignored the inner life have felt that way. According to J. Oswald Sanders in his book Facing Loneliness, “The millionaire is usually a lonely man and the comedian is often more unhappy than his audience.” Have we not witnessed the suicide of movie stars and wealthy people in our land?

A true seeker finds. Zacchaeus the chief of the tax collectors is introduced into the story because he wanted to see Jesus and find for himself who this person was. Tax collectors had never been popular in Roman Palestine and they were particularly hated by everyone including the Jews themselves.  It was bad enough that the tax collectors collaborated with the foreign oppressors, namely the Romans. They also oppressed people by collecting taxes more than demanded by Rome.  In the Gospel of today Jesus' encounter with Zacchaeus was not by chance. Jesus called him in a unique way. Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus was coming and out of curiosity, he wanted to see Him. We are also told that he was short in stature and, because of the crowd blocking his vision, he could not see Jesus.  So, in spite of being a rich and important man, he did not hesitate to climb a tree to get a better look.  He risked public ridicule to see Jesus.

As the chief tax collector of the city of Jericho, Zacchaeus would have been stinking rich by those days’ standards. The chief tax collector was not a worker on a fixed salary, he was the sole proprietor of a business enterprise. The Roman administration would levy a city the amount of money they expected the city to contribute in a year. The chief tax collector would pay that amount to the Roman authorities and then have the sole right and freedom to impose and collect taxes from the inhabitants of the city. He himself determined how much each person would pay. He would employ the actual tax collection agents to go round and take the taxes. Whatever money they collected over and above the lump sum he paid to the Roman administrator was his profit. Though the chief tax collector made a lot of money, he was hated in the city, not only because he overtaxed the people, but also because he was helping the pagan Romans to exploit his own people. He was regarded as a public sinner, as a traitor and as someone unclean before God. You can see that, although he was financially well to do, the chief tax collector lived a life of loneliness, alienated from his own people and alienated from God.

I would like to take five lessons from the story of Zacchaeus.

1. Make a solid effort in life and be sure that Jesus will reward you. It means seeking him with all your heart and doing everything he would have you do!

2. Never judge the appearance. Far too often we make a judgment about someone based on how someone looks or acts. This makes us impotent to help someone change their lives.

3. Never to judge someone’s bad reputation. People gain a reputation for better or worse from the lives they have lived and the reports that have been spread about them. When you hear a negative talk from someone, let God be the judge.

4. Practice looking into the person’s heart. My spiritual director once told me, “in prayer see your opponent’s heart. There we can see the person with his own struggles and joys, desires and disappointments.

5. Focus on seeking and saving the lost. We are surrounded by people who don’t know or follow Jesus. I am convinced that the very best life comes to us when we follow him. Are you? I want to help people find that life. When we do that, God changes lives and we become participants in that transformation!

Happy Sunday