Let Jesus Transform You

Jesus Meets Zacchaeus

Sunday’s word of God brings us the book of Wisdom, a poetic and philosophical meditation about life, the quest for true wisdom, God’s grandeur and our insignificance, and God’s mercy and favor.

Here the author speaks about the all-mighty God of the universe, creator of billions of galaxies with millions of stars in each galaxy, an awesome creator God completely beyond us and yet utterly within us, a God who is a lover of souls. God, the author observes, can be found everywhere. The author's message is simple: Repent! Live a God-centered, other-centered life!

St. Paul in his letter prays that God will empower the Christian community to continue doing good for others and to stop worrying about tomorrow. Yes, we have today as a gift. Make the best of it.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus meets Zacchaeus in Jericho. This man’s job was to tax his fellow Jews and turn the money over to their occupiers, the Romans. Yet Jesus wants to stay at the house of Zacchaeus. His neighbors must have been shocked: Doesn’t Jesus know Zacchaeus works for the enemy?

But the call of Jesus became a transformative moment for Zacchaeus. From now on, Zacchaeus will be generous with what he has and honest in his business dealings.

Like Jesus, we too can help people transform into the best version of themselves. A good example, I think, is Dr. Karl Menninger, the renowned twentieth-century psychiatrist and guru in mental health. Meeting with a woman who had been depressed since her husband’s death many years before, Menninger noticed the beautiful violets she grew. So he wrote an unusual prescription: the widow was to read her local small town newspaper every day and send a violet to someone who experienced a significant life event—a birth, marriage, a death in the family.

Within a month, the widow called Menninger and said her life had changed dramatically. Every time she sent a violet, the receiver responded. The widow became known as the “violet lady” and began to live her life happily with new friends.  In short, she got out of herself by reaching out to others.

The point is simple. Jesus recognized the potential good in Zacchaeus that many failed to see. Christ calls us to transform others in a similar way by recognizing their gifts and abilities and asking them to use these gifts and abilities to bring joy and hope to others. Let the light of our faith in Jesus Christ shatter the darkness in other people.

Nelson Mandela said this clearly in his 1994 inaugural address as president of South Africa: “We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously encourage other people to let theirs shine.”

And so we might pray for the grace to be transformed, like Zacchaeus, so that we can reflect more transparently the presence or glory of God in our attitudes and behavior vis-a- vis our families, relatives, friends and colleagues. AMEN.

Seeking Forgiveness

Nelson Mandela sought forgiveness with one another

In today’s news, we sometimes hear of corruption: for example, funds sent for disaster relief, yet rebuilding seems mysteriously slow.

The word of God today takes us back to Abraham, who is talking/praying with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah: cities symbolizing corruption. Abraham engages in a spirited conversation with God about justice: why should the innocent suffer? Abraham’s openness indicates his close relationship with God.

We know the end of those two corrupt cities. Some scholars say they were destroyed in a catastrophe, probably an earthquake. Anyway, the story challenges us to ask ourselves about our relationship with God. How do we pray? As a close friend? A distant relative? A stranger?

Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Colossae, speaks of the new identity we have through baptism. We have become sons and daughters of God our Father, heirs to the kingdom of God, graced by God. Paul may be asking whether we live a life worthy of our calling.

In the Gospel of Luke, the disciples ask how Jesus talks to his heavenly Father. Jesus speaks to God like a trusting son or daughter with a parent, like a close friend. Jesus urges us to be persistent in prayer, to go on asking, seeking, knocking, even though our heavenly Father knows what we need. God likes to hear our voice.

There’s a pattern to prayer that Jesus taught us. Here’s a paraphrase:
Our Father, because we are family, heirs to God’s kingdom; Your name be honored and reverenced; May your kingdom of justice and peace and freedom permeate everyone; May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Satisfy our basic needs. Forgive us for the things we do wrong as we forgive those who wrong us. And protect us from evils that jeopardize our relationship with you.
This is the pattern Jesus gave us.

When I think of modern examples of forgiveness, I recall Nelson Mandela. For nineteen years as a political prisoner in South Africa, he was forced to do hard labor, ate little and slept in a six by five cell. That he overcame hardship, that he saw the glory of God in his fellow prisoners and in his jailers was remarkable. When Mandela was released, he asked all South Africans to seek not vengeance but to seek reconciliation and forgiveness with one another.

We are all sinners, Pope Francis reminds us. The third chapter from the book of Genesis, the so-called fall from grace, is a sketch about how we sin: through ingratitude, self-absorption/narcissism, the arrogance that believes that we can get along without God.

It’s interesting that the people who really upset Jesus were not sinners but hypocrites, those who refused to see anything wrong with their own prejudices, those who had no sense of a need for repentance, those who were smug.

But Jesus offered forgiveness aplenty to those who admitted they needed it. May that forgiving hand change us. And may our active forgiveness change our fellow human beings.