Do you remember
when your classmate or workmate became your best friend?
when your date blossomed into the friend you married for life?
when someone everybody disliked reached out and you responded in friendship?
Perhaps, that moment happened over a meal:
Mom’s packed lunch in the canteen;
that first dinner with the in-laws;
a doughnut and coffee at Starbucks.
As you ate together, you probably let down your guard,
became comfortable being yourselves,
sharing more and more
who you each really are, what you truly think and feel.
Honestly. Acceptingly. Joyfully.
Indeed, inviting someone to the table to eat with you
can be that defining moment when
a stranger becomes a friend,
a face in the crowd becomes a name on our lips,
a nobody becomes somebody we cherish.
What we see here with eyes of faith is transformation:
ordinary interaction becomes relationships that matter,
friendships that love.
This is the image Luke invites you and me to reflect on in today’s gospel.
Jesus and Zacchaeus feasting together.
They feast together
not as rabbi and tax collector,
not as holy and sinful,
but as friends,
as the Son of God in friendship with a son of man and woman.
How does their friendship come to be?
In Jesus inviting and Zacchaeus accepting.
Jesus enters Jericho, into Zachaeus’everyday life.
And meeting Zacchaeus there, Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ home
Zacchaeus accepts, and Jesus comes and stays with him.
Jesus enters; Jesus comes; Jesus stays.
Isn’t this how Jesus also meets us in friendship?
Entering into our lives
into our laughter to laugh with us
and into our grief to grieve with us?
Coming into our lives
to heal us in our suffering with life-giving words?
to teach us when we are lost with his Godly life?
Why does Jesus come in friendship
to someone like Zacchaeus, much despised by the Jews for being a tax collector?
to some like you and me who strive to be God’s holy people,
yet disappoint God and ourselves with our less than holy human lives?
Perhaps, he comes because he hears the truth
of who God really is in his life and for our lives.
We hear this same truth in the Book of Wisdom we read earlier:
For you, God, love all things that are and loathe nothing you have made (Wisdom 11: 24).
I believe this is the reason Jesus reaches out in friendship:
to remind us that God made us good and to help us live the good life with God.
This is the reason Jesus enters and comes,
but, more importantly, the reason he stays with us.
Jesus stays with us in God’s love…
in God’s love that seeks us out in our sinfulness
that embraces back us, again and again, into in his forgiving love,
that brings us home into his divine life.
Here, we are at home:
we have entered into God’s home; we have come into God’s presence.
As we enter and come to Mass today,
we too are taking those steps Jesus makes in forging friendship.
With our steps, we enter into God’s friendship through Jesus;
we come to God in Jesus’ Spirit.
Zaccaheus took these steps too.
Hearing Jesus’ invitation, he welcomed Jesus’ friendship.
Jesus with him; Jesus transforming him; Jesus helping him to repent and save his life.
This is the Good News we hear today.
But the real miracle Luke wants us to focus on is:
Zacchaeus staying in Jesus’ company, as Jesus stayed with him.
In a few moments, we will gather around the altar.
Jesus invites us to this altar, his table of plenty,
to this our Eucharist together.
Like Zachaeus, we come, saint and sinner alike.
We come because we believe Jesus will feed us who hunger and thirst with his friendship
We come because we hear Jesus say:
I have entered your life, called you by name for you are mine;
I have come so you might have life and have it to the full;
be not afraid, I am with you always, staying close beside you.
And today, we might also hear him say, But, you, will you stay with me too?
This is a Sunday homily I delivered as a requirement for my class in liturgical preaching.
artwork: zacchaeus being called down from the tree by william hole
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