Breaking the Word

31^st Ordinary Sunday – 30^th October 2022 — Gospel: Lk 19,1-10

Overcoming Rejection

Zacchaeus suffers exclusion in the society on two grounds: as a short person and as a tax collector. He overcomes his physical problem by climbing the tree, something that a child or young person would do, but not any dignified person. But that extravagant gesture breaks through the barrier and gives him access to Jesus. The visitor’s emphasis on the word ‘must’ portrays the divine purpose that God visits the excluded/marginalized in the place where they are. It also brings home the mission of Jesus and shapes its direction towards his salvation and of his extended household. In welcoming Jesus joyfully, Zacchaeus overcomes his social rejection as well. Jesus brings him in from the margins to the center. His double declaration to share his wealth to the poor and others, articulates about his controversial trade and the exploitation it involves. It also manifests that he has undergone an external conversion with an implicit intention to give up this profession. However what brings him change is his position with respect to the community.

This episode offers the perfect paradigm of the hospitality of God. Zacchaeus, one of the marginalized despite his wealth, provides hospitality to Jesus and receives in return the hospitality of God. He not only gains dignity and decency in the society, but gains welcome into the community of salvation. This exchange of hospitality enlarges the sphere of God’s Kingdom that not only welcomes lost human beings but also offers new life. This salvation takes place here and now (Today) as Jesus seeks out, finds and incorporates within the community the excluded and the lost, like Zacchaeus, the rich tax collector.

Jesus physically looked up to a person of short stature who was used to other people looking down on him. Hearing Jesus’ call to come down, Zacchaeus complied and eventually stood there asserting or announcing the practices of charity and of reparations. This story invites the Church to look up to those who the systems looked down upon, to treat them with respect and honour their efforts to accommodate their own shortcomings, which are caused by the same systems. These systems may be political, social, economic, and religious. In this story, Jesus looked up but we keep looking down on the receivers of our charity. At times, we share tables with people experiencing poverty and homelessness and we look down on them as if our own wealth and lifestyle had nothing to do with their situations. What Jesus wants is that we look up to those who are climbing the systems and have established themselves in higher socio-economic locations and ask them to come down.

30^th Week in Ord. Time, Saturday – 29^th October 2022 — Gospel:   Lk 14,1.7-11

Observing Jesus

In today’s Gospel, just as the Pharisees were observing Jesus on his extraordinary behavior, Jesus was also watching the inappropriate behavior of the guests. They were competing for places of honor like his disciples who had been competing for position in the kingdom of God. The observed turned out to be the observer. Jesus was not against an eligible person taking his seat of honor. However, ineligible people were also trying to occupy higher seats and were getting humiliated by the host. Observing these, in the world of individualistic and egocentric culture, where the spotlight and attention are always ‘for me,’ Jesus teaches contrasting values with his parable. He had advantage to tell the guests, on how to be a guest and a host. Instead of seeking approval, recognition, and popularity from others, he wants us to direct our energy and our hopes to more worthy goals. Instead of trying to focus on the impulses of others, he wants us to think about ourselves less, to occupy our minds with other things, and to be freed from vain self-absorption. Jesus asks nothing of us that he does not accomplish first. As Son of God, Jesus had every right to expect the highest place of honor, yet that held no importance for him. Jesus, who is the source of honor, chose dishonor and endured humiliation throughout his life by embracing human form.