Let us reflect today upon Zacchaeus, and the root cause of our dignity as human beings, as sons and daughters of God.
Who was Zacchaeus, the protagonist of today’s Gospel? He was a “Taxman” – not only a front-line money collector, but the chief of all the tax collectors in the city of Jericho, possibly “the head of a taxing district” (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible – The New Testament, Scott Hahn ed., 2010, 143). Zacchaeus, in modern terms, was the Commissioner of the Jericho Revenue Agency. He was part of the system, he was part of the establishment. His task was to extract fees from those who passed through the borders of the city. Most tax collectors were “suspected of dishonesty and despised as sinners” (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible – The New Testament, Scott Hahn ed., 2010, 143). Worse, they were also seen as collaborators with the Roman occupiers. Zacchaeus was curious, he wanted to see Jesus, he even made the effort to climb up a tree and wait for the Divine Master to pass. Then, Jesus stopped, looked up, and made the demand – “I must stay at your house today”.
My brothers and sisters, today’s Gospel tells us something about the way God treats us, men and women, his beloved sons and daughters. What’s the first thing that Jesus says to the chief tax collector? Jesus doesn’t ask Zacchaeus to “Get down from that tree, you’re making a spectacle of yourself” – Jesus also does not begin the conversation by saying “Repent you sinner”. The first word out of Jesus’ mouth is “Zacchaeus”. “Zacchaeus”. Jesus calls the tax collector by name. God calls us by name – whether we are close to him, or whether we have strayed. Remember that scene in the garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit? They hide themselves in the greenery, and God walks around the garden calling out “Where are you?” God continually seeks out each individual member in the great sea of humanity. Part of the irony is that Zacchaeus thought that he was looking for Christ – instead, Christ was searching for him (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible – The New Testament, Scott Hahn ed., 2010, 143). Not only looking for him but calling him by name. God calls us by name. A name is what we have as distinctly ours, it is part of our identity as human beings, a name serves to distinguish you and me from other people. And just like he called Zacchaeus – by name – so also God calls each of us by our unique name. It is interesting that Jesus says, “hurry”. There is an urgency to accepting the call of God. Zacchaeus responded well to “being found” – he repented, and made restitution for his fraud and dishonesty, in quite a spectacular way – not only by giving back four time as much as he had stolen – but also by gifting half of his possessions to the poor.
God seeks out his beloved creatures, He calls them by name. God desires to bring us His boundless charity, for He wants us to live in communion with Him. This is in fact the reason for human dignity. Gaudium et Spes explains: “The root reason for human dignity lies in man's call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he not created by God’s love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator” (GS 19). The Book of Wisdom puts it this way: “Lord, you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made…Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin” (Wis 12).
Our being called to live in communion with God extends to the vocation to live in communion with each other, as much as possible. In these past days, we have been reminded of the Communion of Saints – our link with the Church Triumphant, the saints in heaven, as well as our link – and our responsibility to pray for – the Church Suffering, the souls in purgatory. We have the hope that we will come to a fulness of communion in the life to come – in heaven. The Second Letter to the Thessalonians speaks of “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him” (2 Thes 2:2). There are vestiges, hints, foretastes of that communion already here on earth.
We are called to communion with God as His sons and daughters, who calls us by name. Through our repentance we can prepare ourselves to enter fully into this communion. The prayers of the Church Triumphant – the Saints in heaven assist us, here on earth. In turn, our prayers for the Souls in purgatory assist them in entering into this communion. Amen.
(Fr. Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, Nov. 3, 2019)