21 November 2022 - gifts and presentations

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people

putting their offerings into the treasury

Jesus had previously stated that it was difficult for those who are wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God (see Luke 18:24). It was too easy for the rich to become attached to their riches, and to the power having riches entailed. It was too easy to rely on these riches and this power and to never know the poverty of spirit which Jesus told his disciples was truly blessed (see Matthew 5:3). It was not impossible for the rich to be saved and to come to learn a new relationship to their riches, holding them loosely, using them to build the Kingdom, just as we saw with Zacchaeus (see Luke 19:8). In today's Gospel, however, we see another way in which wealth can be a challenge, a way that should act as a warning for all of us moderns with our comparatively great wealth. 

those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth

What do we offer to God? Is it from what we have leftover, what we don't need to begin with and what really miss once it's gone? Do we always only give from our surplus and then call that love or devotion? Most of us have rigid defenses and strong fortifications built against even the idea of giving out our need. And it is not that case that Jesus is calling us to ruin ourselves by imprudence with those blessings with which he has entrusted us. But he is calling us to see the difference between the genuine love possible in even the smallest gift and the lack of love even truly generous donations might conceal.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (see First Corinthians 3:13).

What the widow offered was more than two small coins. It was her very self. The reason she was praised was not so much because after giving these two coins that she would have nothing left, although that may have been. It was also because of the fact that she thought these two coins worth giving even though they were insignificant in the eyes of the world when compared to the largess of the wealthy. 

she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.

This was an offering of her own lowliness and insignificance, all that she was, even though it was difficult for her, even though it was all but meaningless to others, because she somehow sensed that it would be pleasing to God. It was as if she said, "I have nothing to give, Lord, so take my heart". And in this way she was a type of Our Lady's own gift of self to God which we celebrate in today's Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

this poor widow put in more than all the rest;

We recognize that some are specially gifted in gifting (see Romans 12:8). Some are specially called to give away what they have to follow Jesus, whether that is a great amount of wealth or small. Yet should also recognize that we too are called to be poor in spirit. We are called to learn a new and spiritual relationship to our possessions that will allow us to give even if the gift itself seems small and the giving seems difficult. We are called to break from the idea that giving from our surplus is doing the true work of love. Our surplus gifts may be large, but they cost us nothing. We are called to begin to learn to give our very selves. This seems dangerous, and our egos push back. But we know that God delights to see such gifts, which, though often small in the eyes of the world, are great in his eyes.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work (see Second Corinthians 9:8).

Let's become creative about how we use our two coins, more and more willing to put them into service for the Kingdom. Whether they represent love of God and neighbor, faith and prayer, they can have immense value disproportionate to the way the world would assess them. They can become the coins which the master rewards and increases so that our ability to give grows with our faithfulness.

These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

They have been ransomed as the first fruits

of the human race for God and the Lamb.

When we are no longer ruled by riches but instead live by love we are led by the Lamb himself and free to follow him wherever he goes, just as Mary stayed as close to her son as he permitted during his earthly life. Then, at the hour of our death, she will guide us to the pastures of the blessed where her little Lamb now reigns. Just as Jesus drew Mary after him when he ascended into heaven, so too can our imitation of the fidelity she demonstrated open us to being drawn up to join the chorus of eternal praise, a new song before the throne.

Dan Schutte - Sing A New Song

Roland Palmer - Sing Of Mary

Matt Maher - Great Things

20 November 2022 - the eyes of faith

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Here we are, your bone and your flesh.

David was qualified to unite the tribes of Israel under his kingship because, among other reasons, he was of their bone and their flesh. But in a way this also circumscribed his kingship and limited it to the tribes of a single nation. Jesus was qualified to unite all of humanity because of his incarnation. By sharing in our common humanity Jesus was potentially related not only to his brothers and sisters in Israel, but by all who would have faith in him.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity (see Hebrews 2:14).

David was a man after God's own heart (see First Samuel 13:14), and so it was no wonder that it was from tending the sheep that he was called (see First Samuel 16:11) in order to be anointed king.  His reign as king was in turn a call to be a shepherd for the people of Israel. The care and compassion he demonstrated in tending weak and vulnerable sheep was practice for the solicitude to which he was called for the sake of the people of his nation. To David, this king with the heart of a shepherd, God promised to raise up offspring after him to build a house for his name and to establish the throne of his kingdom forever (see Second Samuel 7:12-13). Yet this was obviously not fulfilled in Solomon, although Solomon did build a temple a reign throughout his life. But he himself did not retain a heart like David's, chasing instead after many wives and their pagan gods. And he himself was only the beginning in a long line of kings who were largely sinful and corrupt. It was not long after his reign ended that the kingdom was divided and conquered. It seemed that perhaps the sinfulness of men had canceled out the promises of God. But it was not so. God himself lamented that state of things and promised that the role of shepherd over the people would again be filled.

I myself will be the Shepherd of my sheep and cause them to lie down in peace,” the Lord God says. “I will seek my lost ones, those who strayed away, and bring them safely home again. (see Ezekiel 34:16-18).

‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding (see Jeremiah 3:15).

First, God himself would come to be the Good Shepherd who would lay down his life for his sheep (see John 10:11). Then he would call his apostles and their successors to share in that role.

At the birth of Jesus we see that it precisely as a fulfillment of the promise God made to David that he had come into the world.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end (see Luke 1:32-33).

David gained fame for his military victories, shepherding his people by uniting them and protecting them from human enemies. It was rather a different sort of victory by which Jesus gained for his people true and lasting peace. It was his victory over sin and even over death itself that made it possible for his sheep to dwell in everlasting peace. Jesus and his Church would shepherd people even through the dark valley of the shadow of death in order that we might dwell in his courts forever more. It was not human enemies that Jesus conquered for our sake but the very powers of darkness themselves, thereby rescuing all of the lost sheep who had been slaves and captives in that darkness, bringing them into his own Kingdom of light.

He delivered us from the power of darkness

and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The Kingdom of Jesus looked very different from the kingdom of David, almost so much as to be unrecognizable. To the eyes of the world it appeared that he had failed to fulfill the promises that the Messiah was meant to embody. Thus they jeered at him and taunted him as he suffered agony on the cross. But this was not defeat. This was exactly where he intended to be. It was precisely here, in this gift of himself for the world, that he was most perfectly reigning as shepherd and King. It was precisely here, as he took on himself our just condemnation, that he most perfectly revealed God's unchanging love for humankind. When seen with the eyes of faith it was not a defeat but rather a victory, the one true victory without which nothing else would avail for us, his lost and scattered sheep. This was what the good thief was able to recognize.

Then he said,

"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

He replied to him,

"Amen, I say to you,

today you will be with me in Paradise."

Behold the Lamb by Paul Beckman covered by Paul Harvey

Elevation Worship (featuring Brandon Lake) There Is A King

Peter Furler - Psalm 23

19 November 2022 - God of the living

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

came forward and put this question to Jesus

There are many today who deny the possibility of a resurrection because to affirm it would in their minds imply various absurdities. This was the sort of argument made by the Sadducees as well. Thus the tragedies of this fictitious women's life seemed to argue against the possibility of the resurrection. She had been married to each brother in turn, always exclusively given to one alone. But  at the resurrection how could this be honored and restored? How could she be uniquely in a relationship with each brother? And if in the resurrection she was given only to one (perhaps the first or the most recent?) how was that fair to the others and how were they to bear it? Given the strong stance of God against the practice of polygamy there didn't seem to be a viable option to the critique of the Sadducees. 

Finally the woman also died.

Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her.

The error of the Sadducees is the same error that is shared by many who deny the possibility of the resurrection in modern times. It is an assumption that the present age and the age to come must be identical. The Sadducees for their part could not see beyond the explicit teachings of the Torah. Our modern skeptics are often limited by their perspectives, such as materialism and scientism. Things which don't fit into the framework, or which would result in absurdity within a narrow band of understanding, are discarded. What would be preferable is for such perspectives to recognize their inherent limitations, to be able to open outward, to not insist that they are the exclusive basis for understanding the world, and therefore be open to possibilities that they can't contain or describe. It is not the business of science to explain away miracles or to discover regular laws that can predict them. Yet it also is not the place of science to disclaim or deny the very possibility of miracles. Such declarations are inherently not scientific. 

The resurrection of the body is not only a particular instance of a miracle, it is associated with the age to come when many of the assumptions that mark the present age will no longer be valid. Did the Torah explicitly describe this? No, but, as we will see, it was implied. Does science in fact predict anything like it? No, but by the very contingency of created things there is implied to be an ever greater freedom of the creator himself over his creation.

Jesus said to them,

“The children of this age marry and remarry;

but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age

and to the resurrection of the dead

neither marry nor are given in marriage.

Jesus did not say that those married in this age would have no relationship with their spouse in the age to come. What he did say was that the premise of marriage in this present age was ordered toward the procreation of the species after a fashion that would no longer be necessary once everyone became "like angels" insofar as they could "no longer die". The primary relationship that would define those worthy of the age to come was that they were children of God in a way that was no longer expressed through the symbolic mediation of earthly realities (such as how marriage was a symbol of God's covenant relationship with his Church). Yet there would doubtlessly also be a way that the age to come would make good and bring to fullness the marriages of this present age. It would be a way that could only be understood on the terms of the new realities of that age, not merely by the exigencies of our own. The absurdities suggested by the Sadducees would vanish if they were able glimpse the way that, in the age to come, God would be all in all (see First Corinthians 15:28). The age to come would not contain marriage as it was narrowly understood in this present age. But for those married in this age it would doubtlessly contain something better.

That the dead will rise

even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,

when he called  ‘Lord’

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;

and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,

for to him all are alive.

When we try to confine God to our particular moment in time, or limit him to our own point of view or presuppositions, we do not adequately imagine God. We are for the most part limited by this particular point in our linear progression down the timeline of temporal reality. But God is present at every point in that timeline. Indeed, he sustains it by his powerful word (see Hebrews 1:3). His relationships with creatures whom he has destined for immortality is not limited in the way that time and death limit our own relationships. This very fact, this very presence before him of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all of the just, along with his love for the goodness of creation, all but implies the resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection itself is something God can already behold, the place where he lives together with all of those who trusted him in their lives in this age. It is his very beholding it, rather than, say, the laws of science, that is the ultimate source of its reality. This perspective shift, from our own limited viewpoints, to humility before the God of the living is that to which Jesus called the Sadducees and calls us now as well. Once we recognize that he is the God of the living we begin to also realize the truth of what was had seemed previously to be only a pious expression, that with him all things are possible. And then our own doubts are silenced.

Some of the scribes said in reply,

“Teacher, you have answered well.”

And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

Once we learn to place our perspectives in second place to God's perspective we can become witnesses, sources of the oil of gladness like olive trees, and lights for the world like lampstands. We can give powerful testimony for the sake of a reality that transcends the limits of the physical and temporal world we see around us, over all of which God reigns as sovereign king.

Debbye Graafsma - To Him Who Sits On The Throne

Songs In His Presence - Our Hearts Will Rise

18 November 2022 - putting his house in order

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out

those who were selling things

Jesus put a stop to these transaction that defied the purpose of the temple, that filled it with noise and worldly concern, and probably all of the vices that often come along with concern for money. This was something worse than a bake sale in the entryway after a mass. It was subverting the purpose of the temple, which was to be a house of prayer for all peoples. How were the Gentiles to pray in this, the Court of the Gentiles, if it was consumed was worldly activity?

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples (see Isaiah 56:7).

God himself had announced through his prophet that even the Gentiles would join themselves to the LORD and participate in the worship of his holy temple. Jesus, as the only Son of the Father, had not forgotten his Father's purpose. Jesus was not overstepping his authority by cleansing the temple since it was the house of his Father and therefore his own as well.

but you have made it a den of thieves.

The first temple had come under judgment for having become a den of thieves and was destroyed as a consequence. This second temple was no declared to be under similar judgment. Its destruction in turn would soon be foretold by Jesus. But although the second temple was destroyed it was in turn replaced by something still more perfect in which worship would be offered "neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem" but rather "in spirit and truth" (see 4:21, 4:24).

Instead of a temple made of stone it was to be a temple made of the "members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord" (see Ephesians 2:19-21). It was to be made up of "living stones" (see First Peter 2:5) who were each a temple in miniature.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (see First Corinthians 3:16).

As pieces of the very temple where God himself is present we are appointed to be the places, individually and collectively, where true worship is offered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. But it is very possible for us to subvert this purpose just as those who were selling things in the second temple did at the time of Jesus. What worldly concerns do we allow to predominant when we attempt to enter into worship? On the one hand, we can't control ever thought that arises within us. But on the other, we do have the power to prevent distractions from consuming us entirely. When we do so the outer courts of our hearts remain open to others who might otherwise find us distracted and unwelcoming, and as a consequence not find room for themselves in this new spiritual temple that is the Church. More and more let us "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (see Second Corinthians 10:5). Jesus is willing to help us to cleanse the temples of our hearts, though of necessity this will not be a comfortable process. But it is nevertheless worth it precisely because it is so good to live for the purpose for which we were made, offering right praise to the Triune God.

In the way of your decrees I rejoice,

as much as in all riches.

As we become purified as temples, as our worship becomes more and more a pure and fragrant aroma of incense arising before God, we will begin to speak with a voice that is prophetic, a voice that the world needs to hear. 

Then someone said to me, “You must prophesy again

about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”

The world is meant to be God's temple, but the nations that refuse this vocation will be swept away with the vendors and the moneychangers from the Gospel. Let us clear our own courts of that which is non-essential so that all might find a place in God's house.

Vineyard Music - Exodus XV

Randy Rothwell - Salvation Belongs To Our God

17 November 2022 - what makes for peace

Today's Readings

(Audio)

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem,

he saw the city and wept over it

Jesus did not delight to prophesy judgment over Jerusalem. He would have gathered the children of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her brood, but they were unwilling (see Matthew 23:37). Jesus not only did not desire to come in judgment but was even willing to use his own flesh to shield the people from judgment. 

If this day you only knew what makes for peace–

Jesus was a teacher of the things that make for peace. He taught the necessity of forgiveness, first received from God, then shared with others in turn. He called blessed those peacemakers who worked to make his promise of peace a reality in the world. He himself was finally the only true source of peace, the only one who could impart a peace that was durable and lasting and independent of the rise and fall of fortunes and circumstances. 

but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Do we know what makes for peace? Even if we welcome Jesus into our hearts with cries of Hosanna as he was welcomed into Jerusalem it does not necessarily follow that we are as yet willing to embrace his entire plan. For his plan makes him goes forth from that celebration and continue even unto the cross. And it is the cross alone that can truly establish a lasting peace between God and man, the cross alone by which our sins can be put to death so that we can rise to new life with him. Sin is ultimately antithetical to peace. And the cross alone can conquer sin. But we shy away from the cross, both when it is Jesus suffering, and especially when we in turn are called to take up our own cross and follow him. The beauty of the cross, the beauty of the love that brings about peace and reconciliation is often hidden from our eyes as well.

They will smash you to the ground and your children within you,

and they will not leave one stone upon another within you

because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

Jesus desires to impart his peace for us so that he can become a sure refuge in the trials of our lives. If we recognize his visitation, his rescue mission, and avail ourselves of his protective peace he will deliver us from danger as he did for the Christians during the siege of Jerusalem by Rome in 70 AD. Or else if will give us the grace to bear it in union with him, grace that will help us to follow in his footsteps as peacemakers, offering ourselves for the sake of the cities over which we weep and who as yet do not recognize him.

Let us learn the things that make for peace by letting the Prince of Peace reign in our hearts. Then we will recognize his visitation and be empowered to participate in his plans in a way that is uniquely suited to each of us. We will each not only know but even come to embody that which makes for peace, which is always the presence of Jesus himself.

I shed many tears because no one was found worthy

to open the scroll or to examine it.

The answer to tears that long for peace is found in the victory of the lion of the tribe of Judah. He is able to open the scroll and proclaim the Good News that was hidden from the eyes of Jerusalem. But he does so precisely as the lamb of sacrifice. This isn't how any of us would have done things, or how any of us would have written the story. It is in fact better than anything we could ask or imagine. So let us recognize our visitation by this lamb, this one whom we are free to receive in each and every mass. For peace for ourselves and for our world this is a good place to begin.

Michael W. Smith - You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

16 November 2022 - the return of the King of kings

Today's Readings

(Audio)

While people were listening to Jesus speak,

he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem

and they thought that the Kingdom of God

would appear there immediately.

The people still did have a clear understanding of what it would mean for the Kingdom to appear. To them things appeared to be accelerating toward a climax, especially given that Jesus had said that "the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you" (see Luke 17:21). Jesus was indeed the true Son of David, the true heir and rightful King of this Kingdom. Would not Jerusalem, the royal city toward which they now drew near, be the place of his enthronement where the Kingdom of God would appear immediately in its final and perfect form? 

A nobleman went off to a distant country

to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.

Jesus was to receive a crown that no human was qualified to bestow. To receive it he had to pass through Jerusalem to the distant country, through death itself, before receiving his crown, revealed in his resurrection and ascension into heaven. The King and his Kingdom were indeed both present among the disciples, but not in their final and fully manifest form. The conquest that the King would bring about in Jerusalem was not immediately to be over occupying Roman military forces, but was rather to be a victory over sin and a conquest of death itself.

He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins

and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.

But why, if Jesus was meant to be the King, did he not bring about the Kingdom all at once and completely? It was not because he himself had insufficient power to do so, but rather to give space for the special role he had for his servants.

He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins

and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’

Jesus himself did all that was necessary to establish the Kingdom. But he desired that those who were to share in it with him would first grow in maturity by responding to his gifts in a way that would mark them out as worthy to be not only citizens, but rulers in that Kingdom. Yet it was not a matter of these servants proving themselves by their own ingenuity our skill in trade. It was rather a matter of trusting that if they put the gifts they were given to work that they would bear fruit.

The first came forward and said,

‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’

The positive return received by the first and the second seemed to imply that the more they trusted in the gifts of their master the more return they were able to receive. The third was less concerned about the gift and more concerned about consequences. His fear was probably a mixture of self-doubt and misapprehension of the character of the master. But it caused him to smother the potential of that gift which he might at least have invested, with little risk, and received return. 

‘Sir, here is your gold coin;

I kept it stored away in a handkerchief,

for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man;

The third was misled by his perception of the master. The fact that he was a demanding man who took up what he did not lay down and harvested what he did not plant was the very fact that ensured that the ten gold coins would have brought return of themselves in spite of either the skill or lack thereof on the part of servant. If his fear was something a little more akin to awe he would have remained free to invest the master's wealth, not burdened by the false image of a master who was looking for an excuse to condemn. A servant such as this third one was not yet fit to be given cities to rule for he had not yet learned to be faithful in small things, nor could he so learn while paralyzed with fear. But although the ten coins were taken from him in this instance we may hope that he would yet receive future opportunities to be faithful, now having seen the principle of grace at work wherein the master was worthy of trust in the gifts he gave.

Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king,

bring them here and slay them before me.’”

It was a different story for those who would not accept the Kingship of the King. They too were given ample opportunity to welcome him. Jesus wept over Jerusalem for this very reason, and prayed for their forgiveness. Yet for those who persisted and hardness of heart there was no neutral alternative in which they could remain forever. It would finally have to be either heaven or hell and the King would not force anyone to join him in his heavenly Kingdom. Indeed the principle of the Kingdom was actually an elevation of human cooperation with grace, as we saw with the servants in the parable. Heaven could only truly be a paradise for those who had allowed grace to heal the deformity of their minds and wills that was the result of sin. The ones slain in this parable represented those who were finally only receiving in fullness that choice which was implicitly theirs all along, preferring death, and refusing to come to Jesus to be healed.

yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life (see John 5:40).

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (see Matthew 23:37)

Our King longs for servants willing to participate in the reign of the Kingdom, which always a matter of service and self-forgetfulness. Let our fear not keep us from this high call we have received. It is by engaging it, first in small things, then larger ones, that we learn to trust it. As we do so our very being itself is reshaped, refashioning us as creatures of worship, creatures who will be at home in the heavenly liturgy.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,

who was, and who is, and who is to come.”

Elevation Worship (featuring Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham) - Forever And Ever Amen

Elevation Worship (featuring Brandon Lake) - There Is A King

15 November 2022 - knock, knock

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Now a man there named Zacchaeus,

who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, 

was seeking to see who Jesus was;

Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, which had the potential to be a problem, because Jesus had said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" (see Luke 18:25). Difficult, perhaps, but not definitively impossible as we shall see. Zacchaeus gained this wealth in his unsavory profession as chief tax collector. This meant that he was thought of as a collaborator with the occupying Roman forces and was considered a sinner. He might have used these facts as reasons to ignore the inner draw he felt to Jesus, but he did not. Instead, he sought to see who Jesus was. Perhaps he had heard that Jesus had spoken of a sinner and tax collector who went home justified (see Luke 18:9-14) and this stirred something within him. Although his wealth and his profession were not ideal there was still hope for him. 

but he could not see him because of the crowd,

for he was short in stature. 

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,

who was about to pass that way.

This decision to climb the tree was key for Zacchaeus. His natural endowments were not enough to allow him to see Jesus. Neither his height, not his position in society, nor his wealth, had any special claim that would gain him an audience with him. Would Zacchaeus go away sad, holding tight to the prerogatives of his station as wealthy and important? Or would he instead humble himself, doing something that must have seemed ridiculous to many onlookers, all the more so because of his wealth and status? He chose to climb. In doing so he was implicitly treating his wealth and status with disdain compared to the greater good of knowing Jesus Christ himself, just as Paul counted as loss all that he once regarded as gain (see Philippians 3:7).

When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, 

“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,

for today I must stay at your house.” 

Curiously, when Jesus did pass by, a reversal took place. Zacchaeus thought he had been seeking Jesus. But it turned out that Jesus himself was first seeking Zacchaeus. He needed him to come down quickly because he said that he must stay at his house on that very day. The draw in the heart of Zacchaeus that motivated him to climb that tree was not mere curiosity like that of Herod Antipas. It was the Father himself drawing Zacchaeus to Jesus, placing him in just the right position for Jesus to seek and to save this descendant of Abraham. Until that moment when Jesus looked up at him he had been a lost and wandering sheep. But now he had been found. When Jesus found him he found his own true place in the story of salvation history. He was no longer defined as only and exclusively sinner and tax collector. As part of the flock of the Good Shepherd, as one to whose house Jesus himself was willing to come and stay, he found a new and higher identity, which we see from the genuine joy with which he received Jesus.

And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 

What happened to Zacchaeus was no merely subjective encounter, it transformed him from the inside out, and drastically redefined all of his previous priorities. 

“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,

and if I have extorted anything from anyone

I shall repay it four times over.”

Zacchaeus was not lukewarm, and for that reason climbed the tree to see Jesus. Sometimes we are asked to climb a tree to experience more of Jesus, or to encounter him in others, especially the poor. But often we are too lukewarm, too content with things as they are and willing to let Jesus pass by at a distance, where he cannot have such a dramatic and dangerous impact on our lives as he did on Zacchaeus. We appear to be living the Christian life, but when it comes time to show forth the love that is supposed to mark us as Christians we prove more dead then alive, more like the Pharisees, and less like Zacchaeus. What then? We need what Zacchaeus seemed to have, that being a better understanding of our need for Jesus. We too are "pitiable, poor, blind, and naked". We too need to be "watchful and strengthen what is left, which is going to die". But this invitation is not all about us any more than it was necessary for Zacchaeus to first clean up his behavior, his house, or his social circles before Jesus came to stay. It's all about opening the door to the one who is already knocking.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,

then I will enter his house and dine with him,

and he with me.

Newsboys - Entertaining Angels