Jesus is only passing through Jericho. He doesn’t intend to stay. Zacchaeus only wants to get a look at the man everyone is making a fuss about. He doesn’t intend to have Jesus over for dinner. Beyond what either man intended though something new was created, a friendship. It came into being less from intention than from disposition. Both men had an apparently open disposition.
Jesus and Zacchaeus’ openness forged an odd friendship. Zacchaeus was man of wealth, at least an aspirant to the 1%. Though his wealth granted him status over the common people, Zacchaeus was open to the commoner Jesus, an itinerant preacher who acted on common people’s behalf. Jesus was very much a member of the 99%. As immersed as he was in the lives of common people, Jesus was open to a friendship with someone who acted against their interests. To put a percent on either man is not meant as judgment against them but rather as a description of truth relative to their wealth. To have an excessive amount of money is true of only 1% of the population. To have so much less is true of most people in the population, 99%. It is also true that people from both percents live very different lives that rarely intersect. In the Gospel case, when the lives of both men do intersect, they are open to an encounter with someone very different than themselves. That openness is its own grace. It moves Zacchaeus to conversion.
What if in Christ there is no 1% and no 99% but only a 100%? Full communion is not the result of naiveté. It is not an avoidance of the truth about money and how its excesses are gained for a few against the interests of the many. It is not another opportunity for the common people to be taken in by elitists. Rather, it is an opportunity for the common people to invite in a person of the 1% to experience their lives. The invitation is a communion that results in transformation; transformation of hearts and behaviors and worlds, as was Zacchaeus’ transformation.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, help me look upon every encounter as an opportunity for friendship.
Question: How can I create friendships not only with those on the margins but with those at the middle of the oppression system so as to bring about transformation?
November 3, 2013 – Gospel Luke 19:1-10 Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time