Pentecost XXI - The houseguest
We continue our reading in Luke's Gospel with the beautiful - and strange - story of Jesus and another tax collector - this time one with a name: Zaccheus. He has longed to see Jesus, about whom he has heard something -- perhaps only that Jesus disregards certain social taboos, and eats with those whom the culture disregards, with sinners and those complicit and sullied, or just the weary and the poor.
He climbs that tree - he is short of stature, and aren't we all? - in order to see better.
"I am coming to your house," Jesus tells him, spying Zaccheus observing from a shy distance.
Goodness, thinks Zaccheus. I just wanted to watch. He's coming to my house? To stay? What are the wider implications of this? I just wanted to gaze, not encounter...
What will happen?
Reconciliation, not retribution. Zaccheus does make amends, of his own volition. He first acknowledges his ways and whom he has harmed. He makes no empty gesture.
This little story about a privileged outcast meeting Jesus is a deliberate allegory-of-the-soul (yours and mine) which is meant to indicate to us, dear Reader and seeker after wisdom, just what an encounter with Jesus might bring about in us.
In a society that thinks about retribution for past wrongs (then? now? prison reform?), Zaccheus 'meets Jesus' - who 'comes to stay at his house' - and a long process of reconciliation is prompted for Zaccheus and those whom his complicity in the structures of Empire (all those taxes!) has hurt. We don't see where this process is going, or the explicit list of what it will entail.
But, to encounter Jesus is to be prompted toward, or further along, this road of reconciliation.
The Book of Common Prayer, in its classic, old-school catechism, tells us the deep wisdom of the Christian tradition: the purpose and 'mission of the church' is the work of the reconciliation of all things in Christ, with another and with God who is present in all creation. No small task. We participate in this, we do not will or complete it. Call it the 'flow', or the economy of the household of God -- or, today, think of it as being host to a strange houseguest who upends, heals, and always works for the reconciling of all things.
In this is the healing of all things — 'abundant life for all,' in the words of the Christian tradition.
There is a famous poem some of you may know, by (13th century - same era as our dear Francis of Assisi) Persian Sufi mystic Rumi, referred to as 'The Guesthouse' (translated by Coleman Barks, of course!):
---
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
---
Jesus tells Zaccheus: you seek me out? I am coming to stay at your house. Get ready.