31st SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

One of the things I often hear people say is that, although they speak to God, God 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 is only one way of looking it. At another level, the God of that first reading is speaking to us all the time: the God who, as we heard, loves everything that exists, holds it in being and works tirelessly to draw every person 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, as we see today in the kind of religious fundamentalism which causes so much trouble in 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 in case what we are hearing is our own voice echoing back 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. Maybe he was no longer happy in his job, maybe it was his age, maybe it was just a vague sense of discontentment, but something in Zacchaeus’ life was not right and he could feel it. It could have been anything, but, whatever was causing the dis-ease, God was speaking to him through it. Zachaeus wanted to see Jesus and only God could have stirred this desire in him. Deep down in all that was going on in his life, God was at work, speaking to his heart and it’s into that same place we must go to hear what God is saying to us.

And the first thing to look for there 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, unhappy in your marriage, looking for a new challenge, anxious about growing old or feeling angry at someone or something. ‘Dis-ease’ comes in all shapes and forms, but at the root of it 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.

But while this is true, it does not in itself tell us what God is saying. To discover that, we must be much more precise about what is going on in ourselves and identify our own personal version of what made Zacchaeus want to see Jesus. 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 often is that God is inviting us to something deeper, questioning and an apparent loss of faith in many being among the first signs of this. In the area of prayer, for example, the statement ‘I don’t seem to able to pray the way I used to,’ is often the surest sign that God is calling a person to new and deeper ways of praying. For others the movement of God manifests itself in things like anger at injustice or, to quote 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 to the things of Jesus and to the values of the kingdom, and that is what happened to Zachaeus.

But there is another feeling, too, which can often give us a clue to where God is calling us, and it’s a feeling of resistance in ourselves. Throughout the Gospels, there are examples of situations where it is the unclean spirits who recognize Jesus before anyone else does. They cry out to him to leave them alone, not to disturb them, and it is this same resistance to something which deep in ourselves we know is right that is the first sign of where God is moving in us. And so if we find ourselves getting angry at something or not wanting to hear it, then it may well be a clue to where God is leading. What we do not want to hear may be the very thing God wants to say to us.

But there are external factors, too, which make it difficult to know what God is saying. The voice of God is always gentle. And so, unless we find time in the midst of the modern world to be silent and reflective, the voice of God will often be drowned out by louder and more strident voices. Consumerism, too, is our enemy in this respect. Hearing the voice of God in ourselves involves being in touch with our deeper feelings, whereas consumerism, the advertising that goes with it and the huge amount of rubbish that fills our TV screens every day pander all the time to our more superficial feelings and desires. And that makes things more difficult too. But this is the world we live in and 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 wanted it enough to climb that sycamore tree and it changed his whole life.


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 longings and desires and the insight to recognize what he is saying to us through them in the deepest parts of ourselves..........Lord hear us

In a consumer-driven society, we often have little time or inclination to listen to our deepest desires. We are far too busy feeding our superficial ones in an ultimately futile attempt to keep at bay the deep sense of ‘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

Once again in today’s Gospel, the people complain that Jesus has gone to the house of a sinner, reminding us of last week’s parable of 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” so that we can open up our hearts to human weakness in all its shapes and forms wherever and whenever we meet it either in ourselves or others......Lord hear us

The first reading this week tells us that God, little by little, corrects those who offend and reminds them of how they have sinned, 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 conversion and change so that. like Zacchaeus after his deep, personal encounter with Jesus, we can learn to 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. But we pray in particular for a deep sense of the dignity and worth of every single human being…….Lord hear us

This weekend, along with every parish throughout the world, we celebrate Mission Sunday. Our mission is to share with the people around us the good news of God’s love for the world and, by the way we live, show them that this love is a power for change in our lives. But for this to happen, we ourselves must experience that love ourselves, so that, when we speak to others, we speak with authority. And so we ask God to bring us to a place where we can be genuine missionaries for others.....Lord hear us