The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the greatness and goodness of God visible in Creation to those who observe with childlike openness the Divine seeking the lost.
An alternate viewpoint
The reading from Wisdom proclaims the greatness and the goodness of God.
* [11:23] The combination of divine mercy and power is an unusual paradox, but cf. 12:15–18; Ps 62:12–13; Sir 2:18. The main emphasis is on a creating that is motivated by love; the divine “imperishable spirit” (either Wisdom as in 1:4, 7, or perhaps the breath of life as in Gn 2:7) is in everything (12:1).1
In Psalm 145, God’s mighty acts show forth divine kingship.
* [Psalm 145] A hymn in acrostic form; every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Acrostic poems usually do not develop ideas but consist rather of loosely connected statements. The singer invites all to praise God (Ps 145:1–3, 21). The “works of God” make God present and invite human praise (Ps 145:4–7); they climax in a confession (Ps 145:8–9). God’s mighty acts show forth divine kingship (Ps 145:10–20), a major theme in the literature of early Judaism and in Christianity.2
The passage from the Second Letter to the Thessalonians identifies a man of lawlessness spreading false news about the return of Christ.
* [2:1–17] The Thessalonians have been shaken by a message purporting to come from Paul himself that the day of the Lord is already present. He warns against this deception in eschatology by citing a scenario of events that must first occur (2 Thes 2:3–12) before the end will come. The overall point Paul makes is the need to reject such lies as Satan sends; he also reaffirms the Thessalonians in their calling (2 Thes 2:13–14).3
Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zacchaeus the tax collector in the Gospel of Luke.
* [19:10] This verse sums up for Luke his depiction of the role of Jesus as savior in this gospel.4
Dennis Hamm, S.J. comments that Luke has provided a context for us to understand this properly. In his Gospel, we have just read in the prior chapter that “whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it (Luke 18:17)... in the story about Zacchaeus we meet another kind of rich man, one who is sufficiently childlike to scamper up a tree to see who Jesus is. His openness to the truth makes him ready to be healed of his blindness regarding his greed and his readiness to exploit others.
This Gospel account calls us all to seek the truth with childlike openness, so that we are ready to encounter the Lord Jesus and respond to his surprising initiatives in our lives. He might invite himself to dinner.5
Don Schwager quotes Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) who urges us to climb the sycamore tree like Zacchaeus that we might see Jesus and embrace his cross for our lives.
Zacchaeus climbed away from the crowd and saw Jesus without the crowd getting in his way. The crowd laughs at the lowly, to people walking the way of humility, who leave the wrongs they suffer in God's hands and do not insist on getting back at their enemies. The crowd laughs at the lowly and says, 'You helpless, miserable clod, you cannot even stick up for yourself and get back what is your own.' The crowd gets in the way and prevents Jesus from being seen. The crowd boasts and crows when it is able to get back what it owns. It blocks the sight of the one who said as he hung on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing... He ignored the crowd that was getting in his way. He instead climbed a sycamore tree, a tree of 'silly fruit.' As the apostle says, 'We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block indeed to the Jews, [now notice the sycamore] but folly to the Gentiles.' Finally, the wise people of this world laugh at us about the cross of Christ and say, 'What sort of minds do you people have, who worship a crucified God?' What sort of minds do we have? They are certainly not your kind of mind. 'The wisdom of this world is folly with God.' No, we do not have your kind of mind. You call our minds foolish. Say what you like, but for our part, let us climb the sycamore tree and see Jesus. The reason you cannot see Jesus is that you are ashamed to climb the sycamore tree.6
Elizabeth Klein reviews a book, ‘On the Road with Saint Augustine,” by James K. A. Smith that takes 21st century readers on pilgrimage with St. Augustine.
Nevertheless, the wisdom and beauty of Augustine’s Confessions does still shine out: Augustine’s way of expressing the exile that is human life, the emptiness that is ambition and the character of our life as pilgrimage, as we travel to a home we’ve never visited (what Smith beautifully recasts as “refugee spirituality”). We also follow Augustine as he wrestles with the true meaning of freedom and liberation. We glimpse Augustine’s reliance on the sacraments, the prayers of his mother and his friends. Smith also shows great reverence for St. Monica, and uses her life to reflect on the complexities of motherhood and our relationship with own mothers. And so, if Augustine’s wardrobe being juxtaposed with that of Beyoncé or comparing the The Confessions with “The Thin Red Line” awakens in some people a desire to follow Augustine’s path, or gives them a new, Augustinian perspective on the faith, then this book can serve as a useful starting point for such a seeker.7
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 19:1-10 asks did Zacchaeus follow up on this bold promise?
It’s okay to not always feel excited about life as a follower of Jesus. Our faith journey can be like a long, successful marriage that starts out with the magic and passion of an early romance and develops into something calmer but deeper and more meaningful. There’s no getting around the fact that our relationship with Jesus requires hard work sometimes. But it’s good to know that he is always with us, ready to give us the grace we need. Our attempts to follow Jesus do not have to be big, splashy gestures like Zacchaeus’ initial response. Change will be gradual, and there will be setbacks, but with Jesus’ help, our efforts will bear fruit.8
Friar Jude Winkler notes the combination of omnipotence and mercy attributed to God in the Wisdom passage. Conversion is not through fear but through Love. Friar Jude reminds us that Luke and John express that we are already living in the Kingdom when we are in relationship with Jesus.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that for centuries, science and religion worked together, learning from creation. As Ilia Delio, both a scientist and a Franciscan sister, says, “Doing science was a way of giving God glory.” But when Copernicus (1473–1543) discovered that the Earth was not the center of the universe—and Galileo (1564–1642) validated his observations—Christian leaders were not willing to change their thinking. Delio says, “That was the beginning of the rift between science and religion.” After centuries of dualistic dismissal, religion is finally ready to befriend the wisdom of science. And science is regaining the humility to recognize that the intuitions and metaphors of religion are not entirely naïve. They are both in their own way trying to honestly name our human experience, and they are actually quite attuned to each other.
Mystics like Augustine (354–430), Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), and John of the Cross (1542–1591) found that evidence in the very nature of the soul and its inner workings, but this was not taught to or experienced by most Christians. Many found evidence in Scripture and dogmas that matched and affirmed their personal God encounter, but perhaps even more used Scripture and dogma to deem human experience untrustworthy. Celtic spirituality in general, Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), Bonaventure (1221–1274), Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), many poets, and everyday mystics found evidence in the natural world, in elements, seasons, animals, and all living things. Sadly, these teachers were often marginalized outside the mainline Christian tradition. Theirs was not seen as “true Transcendence.” How did we miss the core Christian message of Incarnation and its implications when the message was so clear?9
The childlike openness of Zacchaeus and the witness of mystics like Augustine offer us a view of Creation wherein Jesus Incarnation calls us to a saving relationship.
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