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The Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

In our first reading today (Wisdom 11:22-12:2), we are called to trust in the mercy of God, abandon our sin, and exhibit a life of faith. This call to repentance is tied up with the divine act of creation at the beginning of time. Even though the whole universe is likened to a grain of wheat or a drop of morning dew, it was created out of the superabundance of God’s holy and divine love. God not only created but upholds his creation in existence, willing it continually into being. As God loves his creation, so he is a “lover of souls” (11:26).

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The fact that God loves us is not simply an idea or an invisible reality, for this Love became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and lived among us. Jesus, the God-man, suffered and died the horrific death by means of crucifixion out of pure love for every single human soul that will come into being.

Yet, for the human person – fallen in his sin – to be immersed in this divine love for eternity, that person must choose to reciprocate that love. The Christian term we use for this action is repentance.

In today’s Gospel (Luke 19:1-10), we are presented with a terribly sinful soul whose heart was pierced by this incarnate, divine love and so turned his life from that of sin to the will of the Father. Zacchaeus was a “chief tax collector and also a wealthy man” (v. 2). This was not the equivalent of a modern-day IRS agent. A tax collector was a Jew hated and despised by his fellow Jews. Why? Because he collected and paid to Rome the taxes this foreign oppressor demanded of its subjugated territories. Anything he collected over and above what Rome demanded, he kept for profit. He was viewed as a traitor, an extortionist, and a cheat. His profession labeled him as a public sinner.

By extending forgiveness to this chief tax collector and dining in his home, Jesus probably outraged the crowd. In sum, it would have been a horrific move if Jesus were out to polish his public relations image. Jesus is no prude. He is the radical manifestation of the eternal love that defines who God is in his inmost being. While the crowd “began to grumble, saying, ‘He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner,’” grace changed a soul.

Each of us can point out grievous sinners in the midst of our day-to-day lives. Jesus yearns for his loving call of repentance to adorn our own actions and words. We live so as to serve as Jesus’ mouthpiece, his arms, his hands. The nature of the Church is evangelical, and the Church is none other than you and me. Let us lay aside our scorn as well as our indifference to the fate of these sinners. We are their lighthouse.