Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Hilda, Abbess of Whitby (680), and Mechtild, Béguine of Magdeburg, Mystic (1280).
The long odyssey back from Kuching continues today. We have been staying overnight in Singapore, and we are booked on an overnight flight late this evening, arriving in Paris early tomorrow morning.
But, before the day begins, before I have another look around Singapore, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
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Jesus calls Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree (Illustration © Henry Martin)Luke 19: 1-10 (NRSVA):
1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ 9 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’
Today’s reflection:
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning is a reminder that the oppressed, the small people, those who are made to feel small by others, especially the proud and the violent, are truly cared for by God, have the promise of new life, and are invited into the kingdom.
In this reading (Luke 19: 1-10), Zacchaeus is despised both as a tax collector and as a man who is ‘short in stature.’ Both his occupation and his physique squeeze him to the margins and put him outside the community of faith. Yet, he is seen by Christ not as he seems to others, but as God sees him to truly be.
In the previous chapter in Saint Luke’s Gospel, we read the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple (Luke 18: 9-14). I sometimes ask: what if Zacchaeus was the model for that publican, that tax collector.
The story of Zacchaeus is a fast-moving story: every verse from verse 1 to 7, in the original Greek, begins with the word καὶ (kai, and), indicating that the pace has heightened, the story is speeding up, we are moving closer to the climax of this Gospel.
Christ is about to set out from Jericho to Jerusalem. From Jericho, the road is going to be uphill and more treacherous: remember that it is on this road between Jericho and Jerusalem that a certain man is mugged and left for dead until the Good Samaritan passes by (Luke 10: 25-37).
Jericho was a major resting place or stopping point on a main trade route, making it a lucrative and profitable location both for tax collectors and for bandits.
But Jericho has other significance: the walls of Jericho fell down at the call of the trumpets (see Joshua 6). So, in this reading, after Christ passes through the walls of Jericho, his call breaks down all the walls people erect around themselves, individually and collectively.
Who is Zacchaeus?
Certainly, Zacchaeus is not any run-of-the-mill tax collector. He is the ἀρχιτελώνης (architelonis), the chief tax collector, and so by contract had the right to collect revenues throughout this district. His name (Ζακχαῖος, Zakchaios) means pure, but his neighbours would have despised him, not only because they believed he squeezed the last drachma and the last lepta out of widows and children, but because they would also have seen him as a collaborator with the Roman administration.
There, a man who wants to see Christ is probably pushed to the back of the crowd for two reasons that count him out: he is small in stature, and he is a tax collector.
The physical problem shows how Zacchaeus is pushed to the margins by those who should have counted him into their social and religious community. He is of little stature not just physically, but socially too.
Can you imagine yourself as a little child trying to see a great parade or a football match when you were small?
Did everyone want to let you through?
Or did you not count? Did no-one stand aside for you?
No-one is going to stand aside for Zacchaeus. They belittle him, and they probably think he deserves it – after all, the taxes he collects support the Roman occupation and administration.
But Zacchaeus overcomes, rises above, his exclusion, by climbing the tree – is there a symbolic reference here to clinging to the Cross? In any case, Zacchaeus climbs the tree to see Jesus – something you could imagine a child doing, but surely not the sort of thing a well-paid civil servant should be seen doing?
Zacchaeus sees Jesus and Jesus sees Zacchaeus.
And Jesus invites himself not just to dine with Zacchaeus, but to stay with him: ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for I must stay at your house today’ (verse 5).
Normally, it is the potential host rather than the intended guest who does the inviting. So once again, Jesus the Guest becomes Jesus the Host.
Zacchaeus is delighted. But the good burghers of Jericho are unsettled. They murmur that Jesus is heading off to dine with sinners.
We are so self-righteous at times in our churches that I am worried we are in danger of being unwilling to welcome those who would be seen today as the little people.
One priest I know in a comfortable parish challenged his parishioners, who are very generous in their giving, especially when it comes to development agencies, mission agencies and what we once called Third World causes. He asked them how they would react if refugees or asylum seekers were moved into a vacant hotel or hostel in the parish on a Saturday night, and all of them presumed to come to church on the following Sunday morning.
In welcoming Jesus, Zacchaeus has what can only be described as a conversion experience.
The NRSV translation tells us that he promises to amend his ways and that, in the future, he will give half his possessions to the poor, and return anything extra he has squeezed out of people when he has been collecting taxes.
Unfortunately, the NRSV translation is a little inaccurate here. Zacchaeus makes no such promise about the future. He says, in the original Greek, that this is what he is doing in the present – the present tense is used.
If he is telling the truth, then Zacchaeus has been grossly misrepresented, misunderstood and libelled by his neighbours and within his own community, even at the point where he is dining with Jesus.
The present tense is important. For this day, on this day, Christ affirms that Zacchaeus too is a child of Abraham, that he too is an heir to those promises made long, long ago to Abraham.
Those who needed conversion were not Zacchaeus and others like him on the margins, who were in need of seeing people as Christ sees them.
Christ seeks out the sinners, the lost, those who are excluded, those counted out, and invites them to the heavenly banquet. Like Zacchaeus, they too are brought from the margins into the centre.
The one person everyone thought was outside, is on the inside as far as Christ is concerned. And those who think they are on the inside are in danger of finding that they are on the outside.
Are we welcoming enough, as individuals and as a Church?
How would we feel if Jesus came to our parish next weekend, but decided not to come to our church on Sunday morning, but to go somewhere else?
What if we were left without Christ being present in our church on Sunday morning … in either Word or Sacrament?
How often are we prepared to welcome Christ’s presence among us only in the way we choose, on our terms?
For those of us in what might be described as ‘High Church’ or Anglo-Catholic traditions, do we neglect Christ’s presence in the Word too often?
To those of us in what might be described as ‘Evangelical’ traditions, do we neglect Christ’s presence in the Sacrament too often?
May our faith and love continue to increase and to grow abundantly so that we count in those who are overlooked, those who are not counted in, those who are pushed to the margins.
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 19 November 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Coming Together for Climate Justice’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by Linet Musasa, HIV Stigma and Discrimination Officer, Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 19 November 2024) invites us to pray:
We thank you for the earth you have created, we pray that you help us to take care of it.
The Collect:
Eternal God,
who made the abbess Hilda to shine like a jewel in our land
and through her holiness and leadership
blessed your Church with new life and unity:
help us, like her, to yearn for the gospel of Christ
and to reconcile those who are divided;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Hilda
that she served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
