Thirty-First Sunday In Ordinary Time, C- What Is Our Sycamore Tree?

The Guinness Book of World Records keeps track of some very unusual records. The 1999 edition contains one entry titled, “The longest time living in a tree.” It seems a man in Indonesia named Bungkas went up a tree in 1970 and has been up there ever since. He lives in a crude tree house made branches and leaves from the tree. No one knows exactly why he took up residence in a tree, but 29 years later he was still there. Neighbors, friends and family probably threw food and other basic necessities up to him even though they have repeatedly tried to get him to come down, but he won’t.

1. Zacchaeus sure did come down quickly when Jesus asked him to because Jesus said, “for today I must stay at your house."

"House" may also be taken in the spiritual sense for our souls, our "spiritual house" as it were. In the "today" of salvation, Jesus seeks to enter this "house" to be the guest of honor, to transform our lives, every time we receive Holy Communion with the proper dispositions.

2. Zacchaeus went up that tree to see Jesus because he was short in stature and could not see Jesus otherwise.

Examination of first-century burial remains in Galilee indicate that the average adult Jewish man was five feet five inches. Zacchaeus was probably just under five feet tall.

But he was the tallest one up there in that Sycamore Tree.

If it had not been for that other Tree at Calvary – Where would we be?

3. What is our Sycamore Tree that we have to climb?

For me it’s time in Church before the Blessed Sacrament. Like Zacchaeus, I just got to put myself in God’s path.

The message is to put ourselves where God is. It might be your Wednesday Bible Study. We are so blessed to have Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament in Eucharistic Adoration Chapels, or inside a tabernacle in our churches. We have this accessibility to put ourselves kneeling on a pew or in our room to where He will see us.

If he did not climb that tree, Zacchaeus would have been lost in the crowd and so are we if believe that adoration of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist is a dispensable exercise or that the only reason the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle is to provide Holy Communion for those who are sick or unable to receive by coming personally to Church.

In this Gospel the crowd functions as a blocking force. This is clearest in v. 7 when "all" grumble at Jesus' decision to stay with Zacchaeus, because he is a "sinner. Don’t let that bad theology and a misrepresentation of Church teaching prevent you from coming in contact with Jesus.

4. Notice that Zacchaeus did not quit his job as chief tax collector, but he started to do his job honestly. It is not like he worked in the abortion industry or was a drug dealer or who worked in an immortal industry.

He said, “Half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over."

When we reform our life we can face the crowd and maintain ourselves against the opposition; so he denied being an extortioner and unjust.

Although Zacchaeus knew he would never be popular as a tax collector, especially being the chief tax collector, he did not have quit his job.

Luke 3:12-13 says, “Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to [John the Baptist], “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”

Zacchaeus stood his ground in working in his occupation, which critics say was devoid of any judicial basis.

But, apparently Zacchaeus never quit his job as a tax collector; he did not have to.

So verse 8 says that Zacchaeus stood his ground. (Luke 19:8).

Salvation is not saying to oneself, “Oh I’m a sinner, I’m so awful.” It is Zacchaeus’s recognition of what he is as a tax collector and what he owes to make amends and what he might contribute to the flourishing of his community. You have a part to play in this too, Jesus tells us.

But you’re going to need to let go of that story you told yourself so you can recognize what you can do to make thing right.

Zacchaeus probably thought, rightly:

“It isn’t necessary for [others] to like me to save my life, and I don’t need to like them for me to be saving their lives.”

Zacchaeus needs them to make his financial restitution.

And the poor needed him because Zacchaeus said, “Behold, half my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor.”