Two Takes on Zacchaeus

based on the readings of the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

These readings lay out for us two radically different ways of assessing Zacchaeus’ behaviour. All of us have experienced them many times in our lives. So many times we have been judged by others and so many times we have judged others. Indeed Zacchaeus in this story stands for all of us.

God has his way of assessing Zacchaeus’ worth, a way exemplified by Jesus’ behaviour toward him. The first reading makes God’s way abundantly clear. Whatever God creates is good; God loves and cares for all his creatures, does not turn away from them in aversion when they fail, but seeks their healing and their fulfilment. The basic theme of God’s attention to us is compassion and redemption. Because at root we are good and worthwhile, God corrects us little by little – gentleness rather than harshness is the keynote – so as to free us from wickedness and instill in us radical trust in His goodness. He hates sin but loves sinners.

This is also Jesus’ way of approaching us, as exemplified in the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus as a tax collector collaborated with the Roman occupiers and in the process feathered his own nest. In this he was unjust. There may have been a secret desire in him to be delivered from the burdens of his own occupation when he heard about Jesus’ coming to Jericho, but the main motive of his climbing the sycamore tree apparently was to satisfy his curiosity, which he could not do from the ground given his short stature. Jesus sees him, with a sense of urgency bids him come down from his tree and invites himself into his home: he told Zacchaeus to hurry, because he needed – not just wanted or desired – to stay at Zaachaeus’ house, and it had to be today, not in some vague future. This encounter was for Zacchaeus a turning point. Recognized by Jesus as a valued member of the human family in spite of his flaws, he renounced the injust patterns which had marked his life and his work till then. Jesus could have ignored him, despised him, left him to his own resources, but he enters into his life in a way that is both gentle and forceful. Like everyone else Zacchaeus is a creature of God, beloved in spite of his trespasses, worth saving. Indeed Jesus came to fulfill the principles expressed in the Wisdom text: to seek out and save the lost.

Zacchaeus also experienced another form of judgement, which was harsh and dismissive. Those standing around were scandalized by Jesus’ action. A person like Zacchaeus was beyond the pale, not one of “us” but one of “them”, a reprobate, a worthy recipient of harsh criticism. They criticized in the name of their own flawed religious sense. Jesus consistently refused to give in to that form of religiosity, and ended up losing his life because of his commitment to God’s way rather than the way of the religious authorities of the day.

In a different way at times we also fall into the tendency to harshly judge ourselves. We imprison ourselves in a false and negative self-image in which we fail to recognize the goodness which God has imparted to us, and our true fulfilment is thwarted. Could this have been true of Zacchaeus? Could he have internalized some of the negative judgements he had to endure throughout his life?

All of us have experienced the harsh judgement of people who criticize us, often pointing out real deficiencies and flaws in our behaviour, but totally failing to affirm and recognize our own efforts to do what is right, our own intrinsic value and worth. But we have also at difficult times experienced the loving and compassionate judgement of those who focus on the good they see in us and try to build us up.

We have also experienced ourselves as caught between the urge to be ultimately compassionate and respectful in our judgements of others, even of those who rightly merit criticism because of what they have done, and to be harsh and condemnatory in our judgements, ignoring the fundamental goodness of those we condemn. Condemnation or compassion us a fork in the road we have often met.

One of the key issues we struggle with in both civil society and in our church communities is our propensity to isolate ourselves and isolate others because of harsh and peremptory judgements. Such judgements are toxic and destructive of community. These texts point out a way that will help us in our efforts to build a community that is in constant danger of falling apart. We might need to criticize, to tell others the truth as we see it, but our criticism has to be compassionate and loving if it is to unite us rather than divide. We are all members of the same family, we all struggle, we all need space and time to fully become ourselves. If God who is without flaws is compassionate, how can we who are flawed be any less compassionate to our companions on the human journey?