I have
on occasion been know to overlook things.
My brothers in community with whom I live will probably be able to tell
you that I sometimes overlook turning a light off when I leave a room. (Sorry, father!). In school, I was terrible at team sports
because I would overlook where the ball was, only finding my athletic home in
swimming, as the large expanse of water and solid wall at the other end of it
were pretty hard for me to overlook. For
a couple of years as a young adult, I overlooked that smoking kills. Haven’t touched a cigarette in over ten
years, praise be to God. At times, I’ve
overlooked dealing with a bill that needed to be taken care of. Sometimes, I’ve overlooked a friend who
needed reaching out to, or I’ve overlooked the humanity of a beggar who it was
more convenient to ignore, or I’ve overlooked the sorrow and repentance in the
person I wanted to hold a grudge against, or the good heart in the person I was
sure was misguided, or the still-hurting wound that someone was acting out of
when they flared up at me. I’m guessing
I’m not alone here. I’m guessing we all
overlook things. Whether out of
inattentiveness, or sloth, or fear, or stubbornness… we overlook things.
God
never tires of being attentive. God counts
every hair on our heads and cares for every sparrow of the sky. But, our first reading tells us: God
overlooks sins. And it’s not the
accidental overlooking of completely missing that ball whizzing past me that I
was meant to catch. And it’s not the
deluded overlooking of missing that warning on the cigarette packet. Wisdom tells us the only thing that could move
God to overlook anything: love. God
loves all that He has created. Now, note
that you can’t overlook something that doesn’t exist – for God to overlook sin,
sin must be real… and it is. Sin is all
too real. But God can overlook it, God
can look over it. God can see that the
sins we accrue, that drag behind us, slowing our every step… can see that these
are not all there is to us. God can look
over all the base refuge that collects on us and see what’s higher than
that. He can see His likeness. The book of Wisdom delights in this,
exclaiming: “Your imperishable spirit is in all things!” He sees His children: beloved, o so loved,
even though disobedient. Loved so much,
that He would send His only Son to die for us, to bring us back to the fullness
of His embrace. Overlooking sins isn’t
cheap. Love never is. God, Wisdom assures us, can do all things. He can overlook our sins and see us as we
truly are, as beloved, needy, daughters and sons.
When
you look at Zacchaeus, what do you see?
We know what the crowd saw. They
saw a short man, collaborating with Roman occupiers, a man they disdained and
feared in equal measure. They saw
someone who they presumed was an extortioner, and I’m sure tale upon tale of
how wicked this bogeyman was spread, picking up embellishments like ships
collecting barnacles. We don’t know
whether this was true. We don’t know
whether his extravagant gift to the poor was a one-off, spontaneous gesture
occasioned by meeting Jesus, or his habitual practice that he just now makes
public. We don’t know if he extorted
anything, or if his promise to pay back four times as much was a cheap one to
make because he had only ever made the costly decision to never act
dishonestly. All we know was that he
wanted to see Jesus, and he would go to any lengths necessary to make that
happen. This well-to-do well-feared man,
would publically humiliate himself by shimmying up a tree: All to see Jesus.
We don’t
know much else about Zacchaeus, because Luke didn’t write his gospel to give us
surety about Zacchaeus. He wrote it for
the sake of our faith in Christ. We
learn far more about Jesus than about Zacchaeus in this reading. We don’t learn much at all about everything
God would overlook: we don’t see Zacchaeus’ sin; we see his longing for Jesus. We don’t see his financial ledger; we see the
image of God in Him. We see that image
express itself in Zacchaeus’ willingness to be a seeker: to seek fervently to
fulfill his longing for Christ, just as God seeks us, and sent His Son “to seek
and to save what is lost.” Zacchaeus
seeks the seeking God, and finds the God who finds. We see the image of God express itself when
Zacchaeus overlooks. The crowd, which
rejects him, is an obstacle. It’s what
stands in the way, quite literally, of him seeing Jesus. So Zacchaeus climbs. He puts aside all self-serving concern for
his image, his social dignity, and acts with the reckless abandon of a seeker
and climbs that tree. He overlooks the
crowd, and he sees Jesus. And Jesus
overlooks the crowd, and sees Zacchaeus.
Jesus does not dwell on his sins, he doesn’t even mention them. Jesus overlooks Zacchaeus’ sins and dwells
with him, dines with him.
And here
we are, about to dine with Jesus. What’s
obscuring our view? What do we need to look
over to catch a glimpse of God looking lovingly at us? Where’s the tree we need to swallow our pride
and climb? The service of the poor of
all kinds, the sacrament of reconciliation, the letting go of grudges, the
recommitment to prayer… God gives us so many trees, trees of life, and invites
us. We can climb! We can be elevated above
the dross of sin, and come face to face with the Love from which and for which
we were made.
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