It had been quite a day for Zacchaeus. Whoever would have thought that giving in to a crazy thought would make all life different in a day. But that’s what happened. This Jesus had been in and out of Jericho a number of times. Every time he passed through town he created a stir. He spoke the usual “obey the law,” but the people who heard him said he did it in a different way. He somehow communicated that God cared about his people.
Zacchaeus had had some strange thoughts about caring about people in his own mind. Somehow, lately, it bothered him a little when he overcharged people for their Roman taxes. He still did it, but it bothered him. So, this morning, he left his post to go see and hear this Jesus. But there was a crowd and nobody did him any favors when he tried to push through it. “Roman patsy, keep your distance,” one man said.
But Zacchaeus didn’t take no for an answer. He looked ahead to where Jesus and the crowd were likely to go. Hmmm. There were some trees by the side of the road. Maybe Jesus would stop in their shade. Hmmm. Maybe he would just climb one—and look down on this Jesus.
And so he did. He picked the perfect spot. Jesus did stop in the shade. But then the world turned upside down. Jesus stopped, looked up at Zacchaeus, and called him by name. “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”
Zacchaeus came down quickly with a smile. As they began going toward Zacchaeus’ house, someone said out loud so both Zacchaeus and Jesus could hear it, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.”
That was when Zacchaeus really surprised himself. Out of his mouth came the words, “Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and, if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” More surprising, Zacchaeus knew that those words came straight out of his heart.
Then Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the son of man has come to seek and save the lost.”
Yes, it was quite a day. But how good it had been! Better get some sleep. Tomorrow Zacchaeus needed to start giving away his possessions and responding to the people he was sure would be at his post whom he had cheated.
About 150 years earlier, in Egypt….
A Jewish scribe whose name we do not know sat at his desk as evening came. This was a day that was full of deep thoughts. He had been writing down Hebrew wisdom now for some time. Egypt had been conquered by Alexander the Great some two hundred years before. Greek culture, philosophy, and religion was everywhere. Much of the philosophy was good and integrated well with Jewish ways of thinking. But, of course, the Greeks believed in many rather adventurous gods, and that caused problems. The concept of one, totally good God who made rules for wise living instead of having less than virtuous adventures—that did not set well with the culture of the day. The Jews were becoming “hellenized”—they were mixing Jewish faith with Greek culture in all kinds of ways.
So, this scribe decided to write down Hebrew teaching in language and style similar to the Greeks, but with content that was totally Jewish.
What he wrote today that became known as the book of Wisdom filled him with a deep satisfaction, for he described how he saw the LORD working quietly in his own life. “You have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent.” “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing you have made.”
Writing those statements had a great effect. The scribe saw the wisdom in what he had said. The LORD made the Greeks, too. He loved them, too. There was goodness in them—even though they were not God’s chosen people.
But then his thoughts had gone beyond tolerance and acceptance of that which was different. He had also said, “Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little, warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing, that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in your, O LORD.”
He saw God working in himself and in the Jewish community, helping them identify when they gave in to the culture around them, instead of living by Jewish law and culture. He saw God’s patience and gentleness in his own life and in the lives of others. He was strengthened in his determination to live the Jewish way.
He saw that sometimes conversion—coming closer to matching the ways of God—happens in little, almost unnoticed ways: greater honesty and fairness in the marketplace, more attention to wife and children, better care of elders. “O LORD and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!”
Conversion
Rarely do I return a book I have purchased, but I returned one recently. I opened it to find a sentence that said something like, “Never use the word convert to mean anything other than someone who was not Christian who is now becoming Christian.”
No! No! No! No!
A convert is someone who has had an experience of God that brings him/her closer to matching his/her own thoughts, feelings, desires, and life choices with who God is and what God says. Conversion is mostly a daily process. It is about beliefs, yes. It is about loyalty, too—loyalty to God that comes from knowing him. That knowing might be from coming down a sycamore tree or it might come from reflecting on a sunset or it might come from realizing the quiet mercies God gives us as we struggle with temptation and sin.
It is about change of life to better match God’s way.
I believe it is also about moving from a personal autonomy of faith to living faith in the community of the Church. In the second reading today, St. Paul tells the Thessalonians that he prays for them, “that our God may make you worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment EVERY GOOD PURPOSE and EVERY EFFORT OF FAITH, that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified IN YOU, AND YOU IN HIM…”
II Thessalonians was written to a well-established Christian community. Yet St. Paul knew that God wasn’t finished with them yet. It takes a lifetime of formation to be ready to glorify God in all we think, say, and do.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. As you reflect on your life today, what has drawn you closer to God? Sycamore tree experiences or scribe-writing-in-Egypt ones?
What is God doing in you today? How is he calling you to conversion?
Prayer
Lord, I thank you for your perpetual efforts of conversion in me. Mostly, my life has been conversion in little ways—a new understanding of your ways from reading or a homily, a deeper attachment to you from prayer, the words or kindness of a friend that inspires me, the graces I receive from communion and confession. Help me to remember to bring such quiet conversions to fruition by everyday little changes in how I think and live. I also thank you today for those big moments when you gave me a metanoia conversion, one that called me to make a radical, turn-around change in my life. Bring all my conversions to the fruition you seek to have in me. Lead me, guide me, Lord.
