Today’s readings: Wisdom 11,22-12,2; Thessalonians 1,11-2,2; Luke 19,1-10.
Life is worth living fully and we cannot afford to play around and ignore our deepest longings. We cannot put up a facade and act as if everything is business as usual, when in reality deep inside we feel divided, convinced we belong elsewhere. This seems to have been the experience of Zacchaeus in today’s gospel, who found the courage to face his real self and encounter Jesus.
Week after week, Luke’s gospel is dismantling our rigid frame of mind and our often distorted image of God. Even the first reading from Wisdom today gives a broad vision of how God works in the depths of our hearts and how radical changes can happen even where we presume they are most unlikely.
“You are merciful to all,” we read from Wisdom, “because you can do all things and overlook men’s sins so that they can repent. You are Lord, lover of life, you whose imperishable spirit is in all.” It is incredible how God deals with sinners. It is more incredible how throughout time we have radically changed perspective on life and tended consistently to a narrowing down in our understanding of the biblical depiction of God.
There is a radical difference between God’s way of forgiving and ours. We demand repentance first, then we forgive. God’s attitude towards us is amply portrayed in the way Jesus treats Zacchaeus in today’s gospel. Zacchaeus might have heard of this prophet Jesus. But what is remarkable in the narrative is that “he was anxious” to see him. That anxiety changes everything.
Recently Pope Francis distinguished between “a restlessness in the soul that comes from the Holy Spirit and another that comes from an unclean conscience”. The restlessness or anxiety that comes from the Holy Spirit is not the type that drains our energy, but it is a positive anxiety that makes us long to reach out to God as Lord of life.
Zacchaeus should make us ponder on what kind of anxiety is governing our lives and driving us to live as we actually live. In the story, the sycamore tree metaphorically stands for a change in perspective, a new and higher standpoint from where Zacchaeus could have a better view. He believed in something, he wanted to think out of the box, he made a choice. He was ready happily to face the consequences.
At times we avoid making choices for fear of change or because settling down makes us feel more secure. We can choose to be happy with life as it comes across and simply be resigned to daily routine. But to make things happen, we need to shift ourselves to ensure, as Zacchaeus did, that from where we stand we can have a better view of life.
St Paul’s words that introduce the hymn of love in Corinthians 1 touch a cord here: “Set your mind on the higher gifts. And now I am going to put before you the best way of all.” Zacchaeus had the deep desire to see Jesus, and to make that happen he had to exit from his routine. Against all complacency we need to set our mind on higher ground, we need the courage to aspire to higher gifts. It can be tempting to linger on in our things and to suffocate in us our own deepest longings.
There is more than that in this story. Coupled with the desire of Zacchaeus, Jesus himself intuited the spirit in him and eventually the encounter took place. “Today salvation has come to this house”. It is not a promise, it just happened ‘today’. And it goes beyond Zacchaeus, touching his entire household.
Zacchaeus was rich and occupied an envious and paying position. Yet he was restless, unhappy, and desirous to find himself. Those who sincerely seek the living God will one day find the courage to swim in deep waters. God cannot be found in the shallows, in the superficial religion of daily routine. This is the radicalism of the encounter narrated in today’s gospel.