Zacchaeus

I suppose that I am like many people – when I know that I’ve done something wrong, I don’t want anyone else to know about it.  I’m afraid that people will think less of me if they know my mistakes.  I try to hide them.  Maybe nobody will notice. 

Of course, I become ensnared by my desire to hide my mistake, inevitably creating more mistakes along the way, forcing me into more hiding and more disguising.  I can tangle webs with the best of them.  It is a vicious cycle and, to make matters worse, someone ultimately finds out and I end up looking even worse than if my original mistake had been known.  And yet, I find it hard to apologize for my mistake, to repent for my sin.  Most times, my only true sorrow is that I failed to keep it hidden.

Yet in Wisdom today, we hear that we need not care if our sins are known, for God overlooks people’s sins that they might repent.  (Wis 11:23)  That sounds a bit illogical.  God certainly knows that I’ve sinned, for he sees and knows all things, but he overlooks my sins.  He doesn’t think any worse of me at all.  And he does this precisely so I might repent for my sins.  That makes no sense at all.  If God overlooks my sins, why should I repent for them?  I don’t get it.  Zacchaeus did. 

Zacchaeus was a tax collector who lived in the very wealthy city of Jericho.  We presume that he gained his great wealth by extorting large sums from his fellow Jews.  They would have considered a traitor to his people and his faith, the very incarnation of sin and evil.

Despite Zacchaeus great sins, Jesus surprises Zacchaeus with an amazing gift.  Jesus overlooks his sins and declares that he will honor Zacchaeus by spending that day at Zacchaeus’ house.  For perhaps the first time in his adult life, Zacchaeus experiences unconditional love.  He is filled with the great joy that recurs throughout Luke’s Gospel.  The infant in Elizabeth’s womb “leaps for joy” when the pregnant Mary arrives.  The angels have “tidings of great joy” when Jesus is born.  Zacchaeus’ joy reflects the joy of the shepherd who found his lost sheep, the woman who found her lost coin, the father who found his lost son, and, most aptly, the angels who rejoice greatly at the return of one sinner.

This joy transforms Zacchaeus.  He declares his intent to put right anything he has done wrong.  He goes far beyond the mere law in giving half of his wealth to the poor.  No piddling tithing for him!  He returns four times whatever he may have wrongly taken, twice as much as the law would have him do…all because Jesus overlooked his sins and showed him God’s great unconditional love.

Jesus knows, as the author of Wisdom knew, that unconditional love is the only sure antidote to sin and evil.   As we hear in today’s passage from Wisdom: “you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.” (Wis 11:24)

We are loved not for what we do, but for who we are – creatures of a God who loves all that he has created; creatures of a God that overlooks our greatest sins, seeing beyond those sins to the person whom He loves.  And when we recognize this truth in our hearts, when we accept the truth that we can never be worthy of this love, yet we are still graced by it, this truth breaks the chains of our sins, setting us free from our enslaving sins and transforming us as it transformed Zacchaeus.  We repent and become the loving, joyful, generous people whom God created us to be.

Transformed by the unconditional love of God, we will hear Jesus say to us, as he said to Zacchaeus, “today, salvation has come to this house.” (Lk 19:9)