Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 9:1-10

I think most of the time we see this story as one in which Jesus forgives a sinner and offers him salvation. But when you look at the story more closely, I think the point may be very different. I think Jesus is demonstrating something to us, something we need to reflect on. CS Lewis said the following:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, to some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." We humans are naturally cautious. When we encounter a stranger, we look for clues. Do we want to be closer to this person? Do we want to avoid him or her? Or do we want to go on with our lives as though that person doesn’t exist?

Zaccheus is not only a tax collector, but the chief tax collector. Jericho is a good sized city, and Zaccheus is wealthy. He’s also someone everyone looks down upon, figuratively because he has a hated profession, and literally because he’s short. And over the years Zaccheus has ceased to care what people think about him. His reputation is in ruins and can’t get worse. Tax collectors in those days were protected by the Roman soldiers, so Zaccheus could come and go freely, although probably having to put up with bad looks and the silent treatment. And I’m sure that as he stood there by the side of the road trying to get a look at Jesus, none of his fellow citizens felt the slightest desire to move aside.

So Zacheus climbs a tree. We all are a little shocked at this, but to the people of that time and place, no grown man would climb a tree. It was like running around with your fly open, or a piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe. But Zaccheus obviously didn’t care what people thought. His reputation couldn’t get much worse.. Jericho was noted as “The City of Palms' ', so it's interesting that Luke calls our attention to the tree Zaccheus climbed. A sycamore tree is not a native of Israel. The few sycamores had been imported from Egypt. Zaccheus, the outcast, climbs a foreign tree.

Jesus calls him by name and invites himself to stay in his house. There is a subtle message here that we of course don’t pick up unless we know Greek and Hebrew, or are proficient with Googling, like me. Zaccheus is probably a Greek form of the Hebrew name “Zacal” which means “The one who is untainted”, or “The one who is pure”. And that fits, you see, because as we will see, Zaccheus is not what his fellow citizens think of him, he is untainted.

Zaccheus climbs down from the tree as the people of the city grumble and toss around words like sinner. Luke tells us that Zaccheus stood there -- standing his ground, as it were -- and tells Jesus not that “I will give half my possessions to the poor” but that “I give half my possessions to the poor”. Our translation puts this in the future but in the Greek text it’s happening right now, and the same is the case with his statement about extortion -- it’s his policy that if he finds out that more than the prescribed amount is taken, he returns four times its worth. Zaccheus is revealing to Jesus and the people around him that he is honest, in fact more than honest. Jewish law required that every three years you would give your tithe to the poor, the widow, and so on, instead of to the temple. Zaccheus goes beyond that. Jewish law says that if you find you’ve overcharged someone, you return the value plus twenty percent. Zacchaeus goes way beyond that. When Zaccheus finishes with his statement, Jesus doesn't say, as he might have said elsewhere, “Your sins are forgiven”, he says, “This man too is a son of Abraham”. His actions show that.

So what should we take away from this little story? I think we should ask whether our approach is like that of Jesus -- who sees through the superficial to the goodness of the person in and of himself. Our chance encounters are where God wants us to work. Jesus, in the gospel story, intends to pass through the town. He encounters Zaccheus, who badly needs his reputation restored. Jesus recognizes the goodness of the man and sees that everyone else does as well. He stays with Zaccheus, giving him an honor that the townspeople would envy, because Jesus’ reputation as a prophet and miracle worker preceded him. And in this restoration of Zaccheus to the community, it’s a first step in Zaccheus’ own salvation. As CS Lewis said, “All day long we are helping each other in some way to one or the other of these destinations.” Let us be conscious of the power which we have.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 18:9-14

Well, thank God you and I are not like that Pharisee!  I think that’s the initial reaction for a lot of people who hear this parable.  We don’t want to be like the Pharisee.  But why not? Because he is not justified before God.  And we all want to be justified before God, or putting it another way, be accepted by God -- get to heaven.

As I was researching today’s gospel I ran across several pictures of this scene.  The Pharisee was always portrayed as proud and arrogant and dressed in fine clothing.  Some pictures made him look absolutely villainous.  And the tax collector is in the background, head bowed in humility, wearing clothing which was straightforward, working man’s kind of stuff. 

But maybe the parable is not just a caution about being proud, maybe there’s more to it.  First, it isn’t as though these two men were standing in an empty church praying.  They were with the community.  Jews then and in some branches, Jews now, pray out loud.  They pray in the presence of others to God.  Second, even though the tax collector considers himself a sinner, he has been allowed to go into the temple.  He’s ritually poor, he’s paid his temple tax, he hasn’t done anything outrageous.  He probably isn’t popular, but most people may have looked at him like we look at tax collectors or used car salesmen -- however blameless these people are, they have a bad reputation.  If he’s in the temple, that means something.

Getting to the pictures I mentioned, they probably aren’t accurate.  Pharisees, according to the historian Josephus, who lived in the early second century, lived modestly, and while they wore various things that were prescribed in the old testament, they all had day jobs.  Remember Saint Paul, who was a tent maker? And if anyone was dressed well and maybe a bit overweight, it would have been the tax collector.  He probably made alot of money at has profession, even if he as pretty honest.  He had to collect a certain amount and then turn over a prescribed fraction to the romans, the rest was his salary.  Sure, tax coloectors took advantage of the people, most of whom couldn’t read or write, but even without a bit of cheating they were wealthy compared to most everyone else, so people were jealous.  So I hope you have a different picture in mind now.

The Pharisee begins his prayer with a reasonable statement -- Thank you God, that I am not like the rest of men.  I’m not greedy, dishonest, or adulterous.  Those are good things, right? And he’s thanking God for this.  Every time we say, “There but for the grace of God go I” we are doing the same thing, aren’t we?  Then he adds, “or even this tax collector”.  So, yes, I guess there is a little arrogance there -- but the Pharisee goes on to describe how he goes over and above the law.  The law said to fast once a year.  He does it twice a week.  He says he tithes everything he gets.  But the law says that you have to tithe the produce of your land and the offspring of your animals.  It doesn’t say anything about monetary income.  So the Pharisee is going above and beyond the law here, as well.  Except for the comment about the tax collector -- and even there, the comment can be taken as thanking God for something, not looking down on him -- There but for the grace of God that could be me”

So why isn’t the Pharisee justified?  Why is the tax collector justified?  Are you justified for acknowledging you are a sinner?

I think Jesus is teaching us two lessons here.  The first is that no matter what we do, we can’t save ourselves.  That was the Pharisee’s mistake.  He’s doing everything right -- in fact I doubt that he’s anything like the pictures we have.  He is following the law and even going beyond it.  The average Jew would look up to him and think, “I wish I could be like him”.  But the point is, we can’t save ourselves.

The tax collector realizes this.  He may not be conscious of any sins.  Not all tax collectors were dishonest.  And there is nothing in the scriptures about working for the government, even if it was the Roman government.  In fact the Old Testament has many heroes who worked for a foreign government -- Joseph, who ran Egypt for the Pharaoh, comes to mind, and Daniel, who worked for the Babylonian king.  And there were others.  In fact, maybe the tax collector could have said the same prayer as the Pharisee.

But the Pharisee is in his bubble, trying to save himself.  The TAx collector realizes that he’s part of a sinful world, that there is really no way he can escape sin. Because we are part of humanity, because we are responsible for the well-being of our brothers and sisters in the human family, and we come up short, even if we do everything we can to make the world a better place, we continue to be immersed in sin.  And that’s why we call out to God for mercy and that’s why we acknowledge that we are sinners.  It’s only then that we become justified in God’s eyes.