October 30, 2022: Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Constructed Amid Complete Conversion”

Isaiah 1: 10-17 / Psalm 119: 137-144 /2 Thessalonians 2: 8-12/ Luke 19: 1-10

Bishop Ariel P. Santos

Reading from Wisdom 11: 17-26, it proclaims that God Almighty created everything out of nothing. He is self-sufficient that He did not have to create anything. Have you ever wondered why God created what is seen? God is love, and He chose to create something not for His own good but to have a recipient of His blessings. All of His creation is the recipient of His overflowing goodness. There is always something instead of nothing.

Wisdom 11 also says that God could have easily killed enemies (Egyptians) with savage beasts or breath; but instead, He had chosen to show mercy upon them. Before Him, the whole universe is like a speck of dust, like a grain of sand or a drop of dew in the morning on the ground. This is how insignificant His creation is as compared to the greatness of our God; and yet, He loves everything that He has made. He loves all that He has created and is the recipient of all His blessings and goodness - from the least to the greatest of that which He created. God does not despise anything that He has made. All are precious in His eyes and this is the heart of God.

We have seen this love of God in the Parables of the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. They all showed the heart of God in how He would go through great lengths to seek us out and find us. Even the vilest and most despicable sinner, God loves.

This is the foundation as we look into the story of Zacchaeus. The name of Zacchaeus means pure and innocent. Zacchaeus’ story is our story. We were made good. Zacchaeus was born pure and innocent. Zacchaeus was brought up in a religious setting and he started his career as a tax collector. Establishing a name for himself, even though he was small, Zacchaeus had this ability to persuade and to intimidate people to be able to extort money from them. Tax collectors were hated by the people. They were vile, abominable and offensive. Zacchaeus was ostracized that he may have been expelled from the synagogue for being unclean and being a sinner. He grew old believing God but developed a hatred for Him because of how he was treated. He became a back-slidden child of God until He became too wealthy. He worked with the Romans and it might have happened that one day, he was speaking to a Roman soldier working for a centurion. This centurion had a servant who was like a son to him and was sick to a point of dying. The centurion heard about Jesus and asked for His help. Zacchaeus saw how this centurion, a very tough guy, fell on his knees at Jesus’ feet and asked healing for his servant.

The centurion knew that the Jews don’t enter the homes of the Gentiles although Jesus was willing, so the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus said, “Be it done according to your faith.” When Jesus was staying in the house of a fisherman in Capernaum, the whole community went to Jesus and He healed all the sick people.

After a few months later, Jesus was in Jericho, in the town of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus woke up and noticed the commotion outside the streets and learned that Jesus was coming. Imagine Zacchaeus, in his fifties, rich, wearing dignified and expensive clothes climbing up the tree because he was small just to have a glimpse of Jesus as He passed by. He wanted to overcome whatever challenges there was for him, however awkward it was, just to see Jesus.

A synagogue official who was very eager to welcome Jesus officially to his home speaks to Jesus that there was food prepared for Him according to Jewish standards. Jesus might have been standing beside this synagogue official, but His eyes was focused on Zacchaeus who was standing on the tree. Jesus shouts, “Zacchaeus, come down and I will have lunch at your home today.” Zacchaeus, maybe after twenty-five years to thirty years of dryness in his spiritual life, of being back-slidden, had something awakened in himself that told him, “God loves you and it may have been misrepresented by some people.” Jesus then says to him, “Hurry and come!”

When Jesus calls us, we don’t delay or put it off. We respond for now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. If Jesus calls us, we respond because we don’t want to miss out on what He has in store for us. Zacchaeus, as he was short, overcame the situation and did not let the crowd, or the tree stop him from seeing Jesus.

Sometimes, we allow our sin and our guilt or whatever we go through stop us from beholding the beauty of the Lord. Jesus calls Zacchaeus as he overcame. We may be thinking, like Zacchaeus, that we may have done something very, very unforgivable and serious against God. Don’t ever think that we are beyond reach of God’s saving grace and mercy. No matter how lost we are, God loves us. This is Zacchaeus’ life.

On the other hand, when the synagogue official and the other leaders heard of Jesus as the Messiah and was a very respected rabbi, and they heard that Jesus was going to eat at the house of Zacchaeus, they grumbled and complained. At that time, it was very unacceptable for a holy man to be eating with sinners because it is to say that they are all one with each other and they have a covenant with each other.

Nothing and no one is beyond the reach of God’s love. God loves everything that He has created. Do not belittle ourselves. Neither are we to do to think that others are unworthy of God’s forgiveness and acceptance and we are above them. We are all unworthy. We are just a speck of dust before God, but everyone is within the reach of God’s saving embrace. It doesn’t matter if our name is Zacchaeus or Adolf Hitler or whatever. Don’t think lowly of others. Regard all as a temple of God in whom dwells the Holy Spirit. Regard no one according to their weakness or their flesh, but recognize that they are a new creation because we are all children of God.

When Jesus calls us, He doesn’t want us to just look from a distance. He wants us to come, to stay in our house and to dine with us. This is not our physical houses but our lives. Jesus wants to come in our lives no matter how messy our temple maybe. We may have secrets in our lives and want to hid it from Christ, but remember, Jesus saw them already before we could even recognize it. Jesus wants to come to our house not to shame us but to help us clean up.

We, like Zacchaeus, were created pure and innocent, but somehow, we became tax collectors, traitors, and offenders of one another. We hated people and people hated us. Jesus was with us the whole time and He wants us to dine with Him and help us clean up. Jesus wants to restore us from being a self-centered tax collector that defrauds people to enrich themselves, to being somebody who is selfless and generous.

After Zacchaeus made an announcement, “Today, half of my possessions, I will give to the needy. If I have swindled or cheated anyone, I will make a four-fold restitution.” When Jesus heard this, He said, “Salvation has come to this house. This, too, is the son of Abraham.” Did Jesus say this because Zacchaeus made a promise? No, Jesus intended to come to Zacchaeus’ house even before he made a promise.

Salvation is deliverance from self-centeredness to generosity, from sinfulness to divine likeness. Sin is toward self – “I, me, myself. Others are there for me to abuse, to use so that I can enrich myself.” This is the exact opposite of God who made the whole creation when He did not have to, and the crown of His creation, man, so that they can be the object of His affection. It is the hell of self-centeredness to the heaven of divine likeness.

Salvation is a person, and His name is Jesus Christ. Salvation has come to the house of Zacchaeus. Is Jesus knocking at our hearts? Doesn’t Scripture say, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Anyone who opens the door, I come in and dine with him.” God, through Jesus, wants to help us, to change us, to restore us because we were created pure and innocent. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.

Change our minds from thinking that we are beyond God’s saving into thinking that God loves everyone. All – even people that we hate. We only love God as much as the person we love the least. We are being hypocrites when we say we love God and hate our neighbor. God’s intention is to live in our hearts and dine with us. This is what salvation means. This is what being a son of Abraham means, and this is the way it is in the kingdom of our God.