The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Glory to you,
O Lord.
Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town when a man named Zacchaeus made his appearance.
He was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man.
He was anxious to see what kind of man Jesus was,
But he was too short and could not see him for the crowd.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus,
Who was to pass that way.
When Jesus reached the spot,
He looked up and spoke to him,
Zacchaeus,
Come down,
Hurry,
Because I must stay at your house today.
And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.
They all complained when they saw what was happening.
He has gone to stay at a sinner's house,
They said.
But Zacchaeus stood his ground and said to the Lord,
Look,
Sir,
I am going to give half my property to the poor,
And if I have cheated anybody,
I will pay him back four times the amount.
And Jesus said to him,
Today salvation has come to this house,
Because this man too is a son of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.
The Gospel of the Lord,
Praise to you,
Lord Jesus Christ.
Who am I that God will love me?
I have done so much wrong.
I have inflicted so much pain.
Who am I that God will think me worthy of love,
Will think me worthy of compassion,
Will think me worthy of saving?
I don't know if those words ring true for anybody,
But that is a very honest thought pattern that I sit with.
I don't live a holy life.
I try,
But I don't.
I often fall.
I often make mistakes.
I often forget to love and to show compassion.
It's much easier to fall back onto journeys and patterns of having little patience and manipulating others to think the way that I think and to get my own way.
It's lovely.
It's powerful.
But then that undercurrent is always there.
How can God then love me?
How can God love this person,
This example of unholiness that is me?
Even though I wear a chasuble,
Even though I wear whatever,
A clerical collar,
I,
In my mind,
See myself as a very good example of unholiness.
And then we get these readings,
And it is as if God almost takes you by the shoulders and shakes you and says,
Wake up.
I didn't come to save those who live perfect lives,
Whoever they may be.
I did not come for them.
I came for you.
I came for you,
Sinner,
You person who chooses the lesser good over the greater good,
Person who does not always recognize me in somebody else.
I came for you,
And I love you,
And I want to come into your house.
No matter what other people say,
No matter the crowds murmuring and saying,
Oh,
Yeah,
There they go.
He's a good actor,
Isn't he?
Pretending to be holy,
Yet we know things.
We know things.
How dare God love such a person?
And they go to God.
We saw in a previous reading,
Saying,
Thank you,
God,
That I am not that sinner.
Who am I that God would love me?
But here we see an opportunity given.
Here we see that if we can recognize that,
If we can recognize that God loves us,
That we have an opportunity to be in communion with the Lord,
With God,
With however we express our religion,
That we have this opportunity to connect with divinity on a very deep,
Practical level,
Then we will see that somewhere there in the distance is a tree.
This is important to me,
That we recognize that there is an opportunity,
That we do something that we would not necessarily do,
That we do something to connect with God,
That we take a chance.
Many people complain that God is not there for them.
Many people pray to win the lottery,
And yet they don't go out and buy the ticket.
And this is where our responsibility comes in.
God is coming.
God is here.
Christ,
The bringer of love unconditional,
Is here.
What are we going to do to reach out?
What are we going to do to make up for the fact that we are so short that we will not see the Christ when He walks past us?
Do we have the drive and the yearning that is deep enough to climb that tree,
To do something and say,
Here I am,
Lord,
I just want to see you,
Just want to see you?
And then we will get this beautiful opportunity that God will come into our houses,
Into our hearts,
That Christ will say,
I am going with you.
No matter what anybody else says,
You are the one that I choose.
As God and as Christ gives every single one of us that opportunity,
We will,
Each of us,
Get a tree.
How do we climb that?
What do we do?
Because it's a beautiful theoretical exercise up to now,
Isn't it?
It sounds beautiful.
Climb the tree,
Spiritual tree,
And see the Christ.
What do we do?
We see here a beautiful,
Beautiful example.
And I'm not saying go and sell half of what you own and give that away if you can,
Beautiful.
But this is not the deeper lesson.
But the lesson in this to me is,
Let us go out.
Let us go out and become aware of the fact that we are sinners,
That we do not always recognize the space of the ego,
That we put the ego first and we allow our ego to run our lives.
It has a holy function.
Yes,
The ego is there for a very specific reason,
And the ego is holy.
It is to keep this expression of God alive.
But let us start recognizing when the ego overrides the spiritual,
Where we can then go out and we can show compassion to each other.
Just a smile,
Just a smile to somebody who needs it.
Just a wave.
What is wrong with driving past a traffic officer who is standing with a camera hoping to catch you and to wave at them and to really mean it,
But to share in the joy of Christ that resides within us?
I think that I think that is one of the big lessons.
Christ is within us.
He lives inside of us through the Holy Spirit.
Let us keep that divinity.
Let us keep whole and keep the awareness of the divinity inside us,
Connecting with the divinity in each one of us,
Because then we make Jesus welcome into our lives and into our homes.
And then we also become part of this beautiful sentence where Jesus says,
For the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost,
And then we can count ourselves as found.
Amen.
