Thirty-First Sunday November 4, 2007

Wisdom 11:22‑-12:2 Ps 145 2 Thes 1:11‑-2:2 Luke 19:1‑-10

Lord you love everything that exists.

John Paul II on the 4th March 1979 at the beginning of his pontificate wrote these awesome words in the encyclical Redemptoris Hominis. “You are a unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable representation of the face of God to your people.”

This was also said by the writer in our first reading from Wisdom. “Lord you love everything that exits. This first reading gives us great hope, if the Lord loves everything that exists, God loves men and women who are the stewards of creation in a special way. And this love is irrevocable. God does not go back on the promises made by God. There is nothing that we can ever do that will make God take that love back. Like the Word of God, the Love of God will go forth and not come back until it accomplishes that for which it was sent forth.

Our write also gives us the reasons for this everlasting love. First God made the whole of creation and us humans at the acme of creation. God would not make something God hated. Secondly, the spirit of God resides in all God has created. This is not pantheism. It is just that God chooses to and bless us with His presence. In that sense the words of John Paul II ring true. We are unique. We have been gifted and graced, fingerprinted and blessed with gifts from God. Hence we are neither disposable or replaceable or repeatable. We are unique.

(Ps. Sometimes when I get swell headed and tell my mother I am unique, she brings me down to earth with “thank God, who could handle two of you.) But seriously speaking we usually have a poor image of ourselves. We would rather listen to the Demon of Discouragement rather than the Angel of Affirmation. And there is no reason, and we have no right to do that.

If we look creation, we have not taken our responsibilities seriously. We live in an ecological mess. We have treated the Commandments as an examination paper, given 10 commandments, keep any six. We pick and choose those whom we love - and we are not willing to forgive. There are some people who will never enter our Circle of Love - paedophiles, serial killers, ruthless capitalists - we now add terrorists and by association people belonging to a certain religion. In spite of all this mess, we still remain a part of God’s creation. God will still love us because God’s immortal spirit lives in us.

The second reading from St. Paul to the Thessalonians is not exactly connected to our readings. It deals with a rumour, a gossip that was making the rounds in Thessalonica. The gossip was around a letter which was not written by Paul, but the rumour said he had written it. The letter spoke of the immanent coming of the day of the Lord. It spoke of the Judgment Day when the good would be separated from the bad, the wheat from the chaff.

In itself it would not have impact on the theme of today: namely the Mercy of God is universal. It excludes nobody. However, the Gnostics in Paul’s time considered themselves to be the elite group that was already saved. They were enlightened as the chosen ones. The rest of the people were simply spinning their wheels. They would never be saved. They were outside the Love and Salvation of our God. Not this is not true. It flew in the face of both the first reading and the Story of Zaccheus.

The Story of Zaccheus has a certain charm and humour about it. We see a short little man who was generally scorned by Jews and Gentiles alike. He was a tax collector for the invading Roman Power. For the Jews, he was a traitor, working for the despised conquerors. For the Romans, they only dealt with him because he brought in the taxes. But apart from that they despised him.

The humour and charm is seeing this short little man climbing a tree to see Jesus. He might not be liked by others, but here was a man, Jesus who had a reputation for liking and mixing with the underdog, the outcast, those on the fringes of society.

Immediately we can hear echoes of the first reading: God does loves everything that exists, including the tax collectors and sinners. And so Jesus decides to stop and eat with Zaccheus.

There is double jeopardy here. First if he is truly a prophet, why does he mix with sinners and tax collectors. Why does he defile himself by those excommunicated, those shut out of community? Secondly, Jesus decides to share the table with Zaccheus. Dinning together was a poweful symbol. It was the symbol of the future banquet in heaven. Here the righteous and just had a place. It was also a symbol of fellowship. It was unheard of for a person of some standing to mix with the riff-raff. This is precisely what Jesus will do because God loves everything that exists. God cannot hate anything because the Spirit of God resides in that creation. Emeril Legace would like to say, “kick it up a notch.” Jesus too kicks it up a notch. He will eat with this outsider because Zaccheus too with all his reputation, still remains a person created in God’s Image and hence Zaccheus is loveable, irreplaceable, unrepeatable representation of God’s face to the people around us.

Finally, Jesus does not come into the house of Zaccheus and tell him to change is ways or else ! Jesus did not come to judge or condemn. Jesus came to announce the Kingdom of God is here, it is at hand. Being in the presence of someone good always challenges us to take another look at our lives. It challenges us to be true to ourselves and not false. We or our parents in our names, made choices the first time when we were children. Now we get the chance to make our choices. Zaccheus in the presence of the Anointed one will give half his money to the poor and four times the amount if he defrauded any one.

Our call is to recognize that persons and not money are most important to God and should be for us as well.