Well it may come as a surprise to  find we have a tax collector more or less centre stage in the gospel reading for today rather as we did last Sunday but for a rather different reason.   More later.

Our reading from the Old Testament from the Book of Wisdom reflects the glory and mercy of God when the passage from chapter 11 begins:  In your sight, Lord, the whole world is like a grain of dust that tips the scales, like a drop of morning dew falling on the ground – as nothing but yet vital!   The passage goes on “Yet you are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook humanity`s sins so that they can repent.   Yes, you love all that exists, you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence, for had you hated anything, you would not have formed it.   The book may well have originated in Alexandria since it has greek influence but a firm recognition of the One-ness of God as the God known to the Hebrews and dates from about a couple of centuries before Christ.   However, its message is that God hates nothing that he has made and desires eternal life for all.   Its outlook is generous and positive.

St. Paul, at the beginning of his letter to the Christians at Thessalonica, expands this theme as he declares that he and his brethren pray continually that God will make those early converts that became the Church in what is now North-west Greece,  worthy of his call to the point of fulfilling their desire for goodness and for the completion of the work that Paul had begun in them.

So there is a unity of those words written not long before Our Lord`s time on earth and St. Paul`s ministry which was not long after our Lord`s return to the Father.   Indeed the letter to the Thessalonians dates from about AD 51 so very much in the early expansion of Christianity and is by way of an encouragement to persistence in the Faith.   Notice how St. Paul prays for the Thessalonian Christians – and by implication us too – to persevere in good deeds and faith in Christ as he warns us too not to be carried away by false rumours of the Lord`s imminent return.

It is no wonder, then, that the Church over the years has chosen these reading from before and after Christ to give emphasis to today`s gospel reading.

Last week, we remember, Jesus told a parable about a tax-collector who in his humility would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but in awareness of his own sinfulness, with eyes downcast, prayed, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” In contrast to the puffed-up, judgmental attitude and self-righteousness of the Pharisee who was more concerned with himself than with Almighty God.   Today we have a tax-collector yet again!   This one is not the subject of a story told by Jesus but rather someone looking to discover Jesus.

As we look at this man, Zacchaeus, we notice that he is a man searching – a bit of a squirt – a tiny man trying to discover something of Jesus and also discovering who he really was himself.   He would have been well-known and despised in the region around him for he was a servant of the occupying Roman power, presumably living as most of such people did, by cheating the tax-payers by over-charging in order to earn a living.   We are told he was a senior tax-collector and was wealthy but yet he was determined to find out what kind of person Jesus was.   So he climbed the sycamore tree to get a view and must have been utterly astounded when, Jesus, seeing him, spoke to him:  `Zacchaeus, come down.   Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.`   St. Luke records that Zacchaeus was delighted and welcomed Jesus to his home which, clearly, was at no distance from the sycamore tree.   What do we find with the crowd round about ?   Wingeing, self-righteousness and judgment!.   But Zacchaeus discovered that he wasn`t the mean person that he had been showing all his life but in meeting Jesus found acceptance that enabled him to change.   By restoring ill-gotten gains to those he had cheated, with promises to help others he found he could go public in his change of direction because he had discovered that he was made for community – belonging and sharing rather than isolation, loneliness and greed.   He discovered that he was made, as indeed we all are, for love and finding himself loved by God in Jesus he changed.

Enter not stage-left or stage right but all round the tax-collector were accusations and the wagging tongues of the self-righteous!   Not only having a go at Zacchaeus but picking on Jesus Himself.   They blamed Jesus for going into the house of a gross sinner – a tax-collector.   The Lord here was far from popular.   It is a lesson for each one of us.   It is often like that;   if we are honest with ourselves there are times when we would like Jesus to look down on the ones we look down on.   The only time that Jesus looks down on us, and indeed everyone, is from His cross – to raise us up to the heights of love.

Zacchaeus was rewarded for his perseverance when he climbed that sycamore tree to see Jesus, for no sooner had he set his eyes on the Lord than the Lord told him to  hurry down for he the Lord needed to stay with him that day.

Being little of stature, regarded as a traitor and being despised by his own people were obstacles that Zacchaeus had to overcome but for Zacchaeus having made that effort  he received the reward of the Lord`s loving mercy.

Just as Jesus said to Zacchaeus, `Hurry, because I must stay at your house today` so he says those words to each of us – yes, each and every day.   We are, after all, bound to Jesus by our baptism and each of us, with our failures and our strengths, is an essential part of His Body which is the Church.   This is why we come to mass to feed on his Body and Blood to receive the eternal nourishment that only Christ can give.   But Jesus cones to us daily in a myriad of ways:  through family members, through our friends, through neighbours, through the sacraments, in prayer and, indeed the whole of creation.   Do we see or recognise Him.    How much effort do we make to have a glimpse of Him ?   Do we see and recognise Jesus in other people.    And another question, “Do others see something of Jesus in us ?”

Amen.