Homily for Tuesday, Week 33 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
33d Week of Ordinary Time

Nov. 19, 2024
Luke 19: 1-10
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.

Zacchaeus (by Niels Stevns)

“Zacchaeus … was seeking to see who Jesus was” (Luke 19: 2-3).

Yesterday’s gospel (Luke 18:-43) told us of a blind man who called out to Jesus as he was coming into Jericho.  The blind man, unnamed in Luke’s version of the story, knew exactly who Jesus was:  Son of David.  He sought a cure, and his faith saved him.

Zacchaeus apparently doesn’t know Jesus, and as the story begins doesn’t have faith.  He was a seeker, trying to find out, perhaps trying to nurture a spark of his Judaism.  Maybe he’d already heard about the miracle from the other side of town.  Or maybe Jesus’ reputation had come to the tax collector’s ears even before that.

Something about Jesus attracted this wealthy, possibly hard and unsentimental man—mustn’t a collaborator with Rome be hard and unsentimental?  Something attracted Zacchaeus and compelled him to try to see Jesus, even to the ridiculous point of climbing a tree like a boy—he, a dignified, grown man.  Perhaps he knew Jesus was friendly toward outcasts like him.  Perhaps he had hope for a moment of grace.

Is there anything about us that makes people want to seek us out?  Is there anything about us that offers people hope?  Anything that might draw them thru us toward Jesus, toward the grace of God?  In our company, can people feel that salvation has come to their home (cf. 19:9)—not from us, of course, but thru us?