31st Sunday

31st Sunday Ordinary
October 31, 2004

"Before the LORD the whole universe is as...a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth...and you overlook people's sins... For you love all things that are...and how could a thing remain, unless you willed it... oh Lord and lover of souls" (Wisdom 11:22-12:2). "Zachaeus... today I must stay at your house" (Luke 19:1-10)
Wisdom acknowledges God's supremacy over the entire universe. The most recent science on the universe reveals it as vastly more immense than we could have even imagined a few years ago, when we thought that our own galaxy was the center of it. There are millions of galaxies the size of ours, each containing billions of stars in all stages of birth and death, some so distant that their light will never reach us, hurtling away from us at incredible speeds. And in spite of the unimaginable size of the universe, most of it is empty, dark, cold space with nothing in it. Yet to the Lord and creator of this universe, it is as "a drop of morning dew". Wisdom reveals and praises a being of unimaginable power and presence.
Our tiny solar system and even tinier earth are not even, as we thought very recently, at the center of our own galaxy. In reality we are not the center of anything in the universe. We are an isolated, remote outpost of an enormous cosmos. It is not all about us. Nevertheless the mighty and all present Lord of the universe has found us. The real miracle is that God pays any attention to us at all, that we are in the heart and mind of the Most High day and night. It is miraculous that we are not simply left to our own incompetence, selfishness and malice, but are loved and kept in existence in spite of that. God has decided to take up residence within and among us. How is it that we can contain this presence at all? And how can we continue to be so oblivious of it?
The story of Zachaeus can be seen as a metaphor of our life with God. Here is another outcast tax collector, trying to get a glimpse of Jesus by climbing a tree because he is too short to see over the crowd. Jesus, to the dismay of onlookers, chooses his home to visit. Zachaeus is us. Jesus "found" him just as the Most High has "found" tiny little earth in the cosmic sea, and honored our home with his presence. Perhaps soon we will figure out how to honor each other similarly and stop destroying each other with words and weapons in the name of religion and "right".
It is interesting that Jesus invited himself, not the other way around as we usually expect. Zachaeus, at first only curious, changes his way of living only after Jesus' visit. God works within us in a similar way, responding to our slightest interest, whatever the motivation. Before we know it we realize the divine spirit has been within us from the beginning. "Today salvation has come to this house..." We are all descendents of Abraham, worthy of divine presence and blessing.