31st Sunday of the Year C

One of the things people often say is that, although they speak to God in their prayer, he never seems to say anything in reply. The great German theologian Karl Rahner’s response to this is that we spend our lives talking and God’s reply comes in eternity, but, while there is truth in this, it’s only one way of looking at the issue. At another level, the God of that first reading is constantly communicating with us: the God who, as we heard, loves everything that exists, holds it in being and works tirelessly to draw every human being to himself. But how does God do this? How do we recognize his voice? How do we know what he is saying? Well, it isn’t always easy? There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks every thought he or she has is from God. The country’s psychiatric wards are filled with such individuals and they are the root of the religious fanaticism we see causing so much trouble all over the world. And yet, while every thought we have – no matter how holy or religious it might appear – is not from God, and while we have to be very careful about what we think God is saying to us, it’s also true that God is speaking to us all the time. Mind you, if you ever hear actual voices, contact your doctor immediately. The God who communicates with us is not a God out there who speaks the kind of words we hear with our ears. He’s a God who speaks deep within us and whose words are ‘heard’ in a different way altogether. So how do we hear at this deeper level of ourselves? Well, we can at least begin to answer that question by looking again at the Zacchaeus story.

I think we can safely say that what moved Zacchaeus to climb that tree was the same thing that drew so many others to Jesus. Fundamentally it was a sense of ‘dis-ease,’ the sense that something in himself or in his life was not right. For Zacchaeus it wasn’t physical illness, as was the case with many, but something was clearly wrong. Maybe he was no longer happy in his job, maybe it was just a vague sense of discontentment, but something in Zacchaeus’ life was not right and he could feel it. Now, of course, all kinds of things could have caused this. It could have been something as simple as his age. But there is something in the story which makes it absolutely clear that, whatever the immediate cause of his ‘dis-ease,’ God was speaking to him through it. And I wonder if you spotted what it was…Well, it’s simple really. There is something going on in Zacchaeus that makes him want to see Jesus and whatever else lay behind it all, only the Spirit of God can stir that desire. Deep down in Zacchaeus, in the midst of all that was going on in his life, God was at work, speaking to Zacchaeus’ heart and it’s into that same place in ourselves that we must go to hear what God is saying to us. So let’s go there.

The first thing to look out for is any sign of ‘dis-ease’ in ourselves. As with Zacchaeus, it can come in many shapes and forms. Maybe you are showing signs of stress. Maybe you are worried or anxious about your health. Maybe you are tired, needing a holiday, fed up with your job, bored, irritable, looking for a new challenge, anxious about growing old or feeling angry all the time. ‘Dis-ease’ comes in all shapes and forms, but at the root of it all is a discontent which, if properly understood, can be a positive force for change in our lives. Cows in a field do not feel this kind of ‘dis-ease.’ They are all the cow they will ever be. As human beings, however, we can never say that we are all we will ever be. We are always capable of more and therein lies the root of our discontent. Our ‘dis-ease,’ more often than not, is a desire for this ‘more,’ and so, far from seeing it as a problem, we should listen carefully to what it is telling us. In many ways it is our best friend.

But while this is true, in itself it does not tell us what God is saying. To discover that, we must be much more precise in out observation of what is going on inside ourselves and identify our own personal version of what made Zacchaeus want to see Jesus. And this, too, comes in many shapes and forms. For many today it starts with disappointment and disillusionment with the Church or the kind of faith they have grown up with.What in fact is happening is that God is inviting us to something deeper, questioning and an apparent loss of faith being among the first signs of this. For others of a different personality type it manifests itself in things like anger at injustice or, to quote Jesus himself in the Beatitudes, ‘a hunger and thirst for what is right.’ a hunger for something better. To want to know Jesus is to feel an attraction of some kind to the things of Jesus, a desire, at some deep level of ourselves to be like him. This, of course, is what happened to Zacchaeus. But there is another feeling, too, which gives us a clue to what God is doing in us, and it’s a feeling of resistance to that very attraction or that very desire. My friend who knew I was trying to take religion away from a Sunday into the rest of the week but ‘didnae want it’ – preferring still, all these years later, to cling on to a very narrow understanding of what it is to be a Catholic - is a classic example of this. But there are many others. Many of us know what God is saying to us. We know what the right thing to do is and just refuse to do it.

And there are external factors, too, which make it difficult. The voice of God is always gentle. It never forces itself on us. And so, unless we find time in the midst of the modern world to be silent and reflective, the voice of God will always be drowned out. Consumersim, too, is our enemy in this respect. Hearing the voice of God in ourselves involves being in touch with our deeper feelings, whereas consumersim panders all the time to our superficial ones. And that makes things more difficult too. But these things are all part of the challenge of living a discerning and faith-filled life in today’s world.

The question is; do we want to do it? Zacchaeus did and his whole life changed.



BIDDING PRAYERS


In the second reading today, St Paul prays that the people of Thessalonica will be worthy of their call and that God, by his power, will fulfil all their desires for goodness. What is good is of God and so when we long for what is good it is ultimately God we are longing for. And so we pray for the maturity we need to recognize the movement of God in our deepest desires and the insight to recognize what he is saying to us in that deepest part of ourselves………………….Lord hear us

In a consumer-driven society, people have little time or inclination to listen to their deepest desires. We are far too busy feeding our superficial ones in an ultimately futile attempt to keep at bay the deep ‘dis-ease’ which, if we took time to listen to it, would tell us so much about what is wrong with the way we are currently living our lives. And yet the very planet we live on cries out, urging to us to change before it is too late. And so we pray for the grace to hear this cry……………....Lord hear us

In order to see Jesus, Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree. Trees are living things and we can see in what Zacchaeus did a symbol of his willingness to leave behind a lifestyle that was dead to embrace a new one that was alive. He was willing to take a risk, do something different, and was rewarded when Jesus came into his home. And so we pray for the grace to be like him, whatever that means in the circumstances of our own lives……….…………………..Lord hear us

Once again in today’s Gospel, the people complain that Jesus has gone to the house of a sinner. It reminds us of the story we heard last week about the Pharisee and the Tax-collector. And so we ask God to open our hearts and minds today to hear, yet again, those words of Jesus from the Zacchaeus story. “The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost”……Lord hear us

The first reading this week tells us that God, little by little, corrects those who offend so that they can abstain from evil and put their trust in him. And so we pray for the grace to become more and more aware of our faults and of the areas in our lives where God is calling us to change and conversion so that. like Zacchaeus after his encounter with Jesus, we can live more full and more just lives……...….Lord hear us

The book of Wisdom also spoke of a God who loves everything that exists and holds nothing of what he has made in abhorrence. And so we ask God to stir in us through the power of the same Spirit through whom he brought everything into existence, a deep appreciation of the gifts of creation and a deep respect for everything that lives and moves on the face of the earth……………………………………..…Lord hear us