Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Of all the statements that are made about God, all the truths revealed about Him in the Scripture, there seems to be one which over the centuries has been the most difficult for human beings to accept. And that is the simple truth, certainly revealed, that God loves us. That He loves us all, and always, faithfully, unchangingly. Somehow, more than the cosmic mysteries of creation, or the appearances and visions of the Old Testament, or the miracles of the New Testament, human beings have had difficulty accepting and rejoicing in this simple truth. It is a difficulty that began as far back as the first contact between God and humankind. Even in the story of Adam and Eve, human beings are pictured as unwilling to believe that God had done good things for them, that God was not trying to deceive, or cover up, or trick them into a subservient role by forbidding the fruit of one tree. And from then on, really, the writings of the Old Testament authors reflect this kind of a built in split in their understanding of God's relationship to His people. Insofar as the authors were the mouthpieces of God, they very clearly and unmistakably spoke of God's love for His people, and the great lengths to which He went to demonstrate that love. But insofar as they reflect their own human understanding and mentality, their writings consistently show a resistance to the idea, an unwillingness to wholeheartedly accept and affirm it. And really, the whole of Scripture is a sort of unfolding of humankind's gradual, step by step growth in understanding and acceptance of God's love.

One of the reasons for this difficulty, I suppose, would be the fact that the idea of a God Who loves His people was a totally new one. The Hebrews were by no means the first people in history to practice religion. They were surrounded by nations with very highly developed religions, some of which produced complex and sophisticated theologies. But in none of these could the relationship between god and people be characterized as love... fear, power, respect, and even gratitude, but not love. The people were not expected to love their god, just worship and obey him. And the god was certainly not expected to love the people, or sacrifice anything of himself for their sake. Apparently, human beings themselves could never conclude to such an idea. An understanding of that sort must depend on God's initiative. It demands revelation.

And so that revelation was given. Again and again in the Old Testament, in vision after vision, covenant after covenant, with Abraham, with Moses, with David, God pledges His love for His people. And slowly, the notion began to be accepted. Old Testament authors began to base their moral teaching on the notion of a loving God. One of the first signs of this is seen in the Old Testament moral principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". The idea was that if someone harmed you, you would be justified in God's eyes, in paying back exactly in kind. No more and no less. If someone burned your house, you could burn theirs. If someone shot you, you could shoot them, and so on. Now that may not sound much like a moral law that springs from a sense of mercy and compassion, but for its time, it was a real step forward. Prior to that, conventional morality held that if someone stole, your cow, you would be perfectly justified in killing that person, and all his family, and livestock, and burning all his property.

So even that early on in our spiritual history, a morality based purely on power began to be tempered by the notion of a loving God, and began to evolve into a morality of kindness. The next big step came with the development of the Mosaic Law, the first five books of the Old Testament... a very complicated and even austere body of law that for centuries has been the heart of Hebrew and to some extent even Christian morality. But the big difference between this and other bodies of law, the thing that eased its austerity, was the underlying theme that Israel's adherence to the law was based not on fear of God, but on a love of God. And that was progress indeed. Scripture, teaching that God's people should do what He asks of them, not because they are afraid of punishment if they disobey, but rather because they don't want to offend and reject a God Who loves them.

But even this was only partial progress. There was a definite limit to God's love. And that limit was sin. God was understood, if not revealed, as loving those who obeyed the law, but as having considerably less affection, perhaps none at all, for those who consistently ignored it. Well, Scripture carries us through a number more stages, really up to the kind of reading that is the first for today, from the Book of Wisdom. This is one of the latest books of the Old Testament, written only some fifty years before the birth of Christ, and it really begins to prepare the way for the New Testament. Especially in passages such as this reading today, where the author actually rejoices in God's love for a sinner. Not even breaking the law, not even sin, can alter the faithfulness, the insistence of God's love for His people.

And that is a very Christian insight. In its fullness, it is a uniquely Christian insight. God loves us. All of us, all the time, without exception, without fail. It was Christ's demonstration of this in His personal life that really began to insure His execution. Christ not only spoke of God's love for sinners, He gave it flesh and blood. He associated with them, He liked them, He enjoyed their company. And that image, Christ enjoying the company of prostitutes, thieves, and even worse, tax collectors, that image was more than the righteous of the time could stomach. So through Christ, humankind's unwillingness to accept the love of God, became most painfully clear. This Gospel reading is as good an illustration of that as can be found. It is difficult for us to imagine today just how despised a person Zacchaeus really was. Israel was an occupied country, occupied by Rome. And as a conquered people, the Jews had a heavy burden of tax to carry. It was Roman policy to directly interfere in the internal affairs of their conquered lands as little as possible, but rather to place the administration of those countries into the hands of local people. And so in Israel there was a select group of Jewish citizens who were given the job of collecting taxes for the Romans. They were usually greedy and dishonest people, with plenty of opportunity to be so, since the Romans provided practically no direct supervision as long as the assessed amounts were collected. The tax collectors were free to bleed their own people dry, with impunity, even with protection.

Well, they did so, and that made them the most hated people in the country. They were considered traitors to their country, and to their religion. Even lepers were better company than tax collectors. And yet that was the company that Christ chose to keep when He visited Jericho. Even worse, Christ selected one of these despised tax collectors, Matthew, as one of His Apostles. And as the Gospel indicates, the people reacted with shock, and anger. Christ was outraging public decency by associating with someone like that. And Christ's reply to this charge begins with the last few lines of this passage, and continues on through the rest of the Gospel. "God sees goodness in this person, in every person, and He responds to that goodness with love. That is reason enough for you to do the same."

So. For many centuries, part of the challenge of faith has simply been accepting that fact of God's love for all of His people, all of the time. Accepting it joyfully, without resentment, when we are told that that love is given as well to those whom we ourselves do not love. Our growth in this acceptance has been real, but it has been slow, and surely it is far from complete. How many things we do, still today, that underline our resistance to this revelation. If we were truly accepting of God's love, we would never do to ourselves and to others the million and one foolish and destructive things we do. Things that deny, or ignore human dignity and, value. We would never despair of God's goodness. We would never blame Him for misfortune, or even worse, expect Him, ask Him, to be the cause of other's misfortune, no matter how offensive those others maybe to us. We would never expect God, ask God, to take sides in all of the vain and petty little power struggles that take up so much of our time and energy. That is perhaps the single most ethically challenging insight of Christianity. God infinitely loves and approves of people who disapprove of me.

The people of Jericho would have been satisfied, they would have been edified, if Christ had sent a lightning bolt to knock Zacchaeus out of the tree he had climbed. They would have considered it a just and righteous thing to do. But He didn't. And He never will. Our challenge today is really the same as theirs, to see goodness in everyone in whom God sees goodness, and to respond to that, as does He, with love.

Readings: Wisdom 11:22-12:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10