The Lord loves all things and all peoples that His hand created. This does not change, either in time or circumstance. As our first reading points out to us, God would not have created anything, or anyone that He did not care for. His will is for all to come to Him, and to know him, no matter who they are, or what they have done in the past, He will welcome them with open arms when they turn to Him with all their heart.
In our Gospel today, we hear the account of Zacchaeus who was the chief tax collector, and so a man of both position and wealth in that day and age. The thing is, the wealth came to him by what were likely somewhat less than honorable means. In those days, someone who collected taxes would also likely add a bit more to the bill to provide themselves with a bit more compensation than just their salaries. The practice was very common and pretty much everyone knew that it was taking place, and it certainly did nothing to further endear the tax collectors to the populace. It was bad enough that the tax collectors were viewed as collaborators with the Roman occupying force, against God’s own people. Yet even for someone involved in all this, there was still hope.
Zacchaeus knew well his guilt and did not try to hide what he had done when he encountered Jesus. There were no excuses, no attempts at justification, just a simple repentant statement that outlined what he planned to do to try to make amends for his actions. This is what our Lord is looking for from all of us. We are all His children, so we are already greatly valued by Him, yet there are times when we fall short in our thoughts, conduct, and inclinations of the heart. When this happens, our Lord who knows all, is simply looking for us to follow the same example. No excuses, no blathering on with attempts at justifying our actions, put away all pretense and instead cloth ourselves with humility. We need to seek to look beyond any crowd or obstacle that that obscures our view of the living Christ. If necessary, climb the Sycamore, do whatever it takes to be able to clearly focus on our Lord. He in turn will certainly notice us and ask us to come to Him and invite Him into our homes and our lives. Salvation can then come to our house as well, because like Zacchaeus, we too are descendants of Abraham whom our Lord seeks in order to save what was lost.
The Deacons Bench 