Homily

Zacchaeus wanted to see what was going on so he climbed a sycamore to get a better view. He must have heard something about Jesus, but we have no details. How shocking it must have been when Jesus calls out to him by name, and how embarrassing that there he is, this wealthy man, up in a tree. But if there was any embarrassment, it was very short lived, because the Gospel says that Zacchaeus welcomed the Lord with joy.

Everybody else is unhappy and grumbling that this sinful tax-collector is going to have the Master as his houseguest. This is the way the Scribes and the Pharisees are often portrayed—as grumbling, complaining, unhappy and sour. Zacchaeus doesn't care. Nothing can dim his happiness now that he finds himself in front of Jesus, and now that he has found the source of joy, he no longer needs his wealth to be the source of his satisfaction. All on his own he donates half of his money to the poor and declares that he will make restitution four times over. Scripture says that he stood his ground, not only against the complaints of the crowd, but also he stood his ground for his newly found faith in Christ

Before this moment he placed his confidence in his wealth. He looked for the security, the comfort, the distractions that money can buy as a necessary part of living well, of having a good life. Yet all the value he placed on his money fell to pieces once he accepted the call of Jesus, in Whom he found great joy. No longer does his life depend on material success. Instead it now depends on Christ. He detaches himself from one way of looking at life in this world and he embraces a very different philosophy—or to be more clear, not a philosophy but a person. Those who believe they are righteous are crabby and unhappy. But the man who gives away half of his wealth is full of joy.

I never get tired of hearing this Gospel because 1) it's a great story, 2) I am also a short man and I enjoy stories where the short guy is the hero, and 3) because when I read this Gospel, I know that Lent is not far away and soon I'll be in the arena of the Great Fast. It's there, if I choose to do so, that I will take up the challenge of this Gospel. What is my life hanging on to, what am I dependent on, what are my operating values, where do I really stand in regard to other people, and how joyfully do I accept the invitation of Christ Who wants to come and stay in my house?

On the one hand the Lenten effort is not a happy time because when it is taken seriously, it tends to reveal some unpleasant truths. I do believe in the Gospel Truth, but it's kind of like the Gospel according to Richard. I read it, I hear it, but it's pretty easy to find ways to make it fit into my own vision of what Christian life should be like. In that way, I think we're all tempted to be Protestant to a certain degree. We read the Scriptures according to our own interpretation allowing us to fit the message to work with our own viewpoint, our own lifestyle, in a way that’s kind of similar to the Scribes and Pharisees.

Before the summer of 2020 when ignorant people in a number of cities decided that the police were the enemy, and this show was then yanked off of TV, every Saturday night, I took a half-hour to watch the TV program, "Cops." I know all the dialogue. You would hear this phrase about 100 times: "Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!" And this one, "Stop resisting! Stop resisting! Stop resisting!" And this one, "That ain't my dope. I ain't never seen that before!" It's all there as a point for meditation, the result of fallen human nature and the effects of sin being played out on the screen before my eyes. I admit that once in a while, I fell to the temptation of thinking, "You bad—you going down. Me good, watching you go down." Kind of like the superior attitude of some of those in today's Gospel. It is true about those arrested in front of the camera. They did bad. But just because they committed worse offenses than I have, that does not make me good.

Yet more often this dramatic morality play which lasted about 20 minutes apart from commercials, brought to mind the truth of the sadness and waste of human lives, the tragedy of broken homes and families, the suffering of children and parents and spouses, the injuries to the innocent and the guilty, the quest for happiness and satisfaction in life that has gone so horribly astray into one bad solution after another. And in the conclusion of every scene, people were handcuffed and put in jail. So does it make me good that you're in jail and I'm not? Am I truly a free man simply because I am not behind prison bars?

So I'm already both loving and yet also unhappy about the coming Lenten season. It’s not pleasant to see any of the ways in which I am stuck on false views and values concerning life in this world.

Unhappy to take a more critical view of sin in my life, and reliance on my own solutions, and despite the weight of evidence from the past showing how faulty they are, can't we just give it a go one more time? Unhappy to think that at this point in life, I'm not better than I am. But of course, no wounds can be healed unless we're willing to look at them. To keep protesting, "That ain't my dope" is fooling nobody. Though it's painful to admit it, it's not the police who handcuff my life. I do it myself. I do it to myself. So I am loving the Lenten season because it pushes me to where I do not really like to go, but when I'm willing to do so I can find freedom. It gives me the push to be willing to stand before the Just Judge because I know if I plead "guilty" there will be mercy. I know He will allow me to stay in the same recovery program available for all those addicted to sin. I know that the result of my "guilty" plea will not be my incarceration, but rather my freedom. And my freedom makes me free for grace. It makes me free to live as a true son of God. And that's a genuine reason for joy, because then I am being saved.

I hope you can sense it in Luke's Gospel story, that enthusiasm, that joy, that sense of urgent happiness and freedom when Zacchaeus detaches himself from the bondage of his own style of salvation, from his handcuffs that chained him to what he thought would save his life. In a moment of great clarity, he finds his freedom by putting his faith in Christ. He no longer fears that he has to save himself and his family. His saving freedom has come to stay in his house. Let us beg Him to come to our house as well, and help us to shake off our shackles, so that we also can have that joy.