Today we see in the Gospel a story of conversion. Zacchaeus changes from living a sinful, money centered life to one that seeks to do the right thing. There is an important part of this story and if we miss it, we will do everything else people do in evangelization that turns the world off. We will focus on what he was doing and not how he changed.
What was he doing? He was extorting people, he was a miser and he made his god the money he gained by underhanded practices as a tax collector for the Roman Empire. I am sure the Romans would make it quite advantageous to be a tax collector. You realize it was an unpopular position within the Jewish community, especially if someone was Jewish. So, if the Romans wanted their taxes they would have to keep their tax collectors happy. What would make them happy? Make them rich.
Now, all of a sudden, Zacchaeus stops being the money hungry tax collector and instead becomes one who follows tax law and Jewish law and does what he is legally required to do. Notice by the way, he does not stop being a tax collector.
What brought this change of heart?
If you do not get this, and you want to evangelize others, you will only succeed in angering them. Ready???
He encountered Jesus.
The best way to evangelize is to lead people to encounter Christ personally and intimately. That means to teach people to pray. Let Jesus do the conversion as He does here.
Cardinal Sarah in his latest book, which I highly recommend to you—I cannot emphasize how important that book is for our time—reminds us that we do not follow a system we follow a person and that person is Jesus Christ.
We encounter Him in prayer and understanding the Bible and in seeking Him in all we do. Once we encounter him, it is then we conform our lives, as Zacchaeus does because through Him, we begin to see ourselves and others differently and we change are way of living. Jesus, however, changes our self-understanding as we come to a deeper way of knowing Him.
Going back to the Gospel story, when Jesus encountered Zacchaeus, he was a crooked tax collector. We do not know what Jesus said to change his way at his dinner, but I am sure it was something that led him to understand himself in a new way. It was the encounter with Jesus that changes him.
St. John Chrysostom taught that it is through obedience to God a soul becomes filled with grace. A soul will obey God when it understands God is the source of its being. When it realizes God is leading the soul to the fullness of what He seeks it to be and that happens when the soul begins to know God.
I read a lot of material from secular sources of people who feel hated and despised by Christians including Catholics. What causes this, I realize is they learn that in order to know Christ they must live a moral life.
This is not what happens here. Zacchaeus encounters Christ and then He changes because his heart changed first.
You will find the same message written in a kind of code in the story of the Magi.
Once they encounter Christ they end up going home a different route. Matthew is teaching this is what happens. When we encounter Christ our life changes for good or for ill. Whose life changes for the bad? We may find that contradictory, however, the pharisees would not. They would say instead, this principle is true for they would be doing great until the Jesus came on the scene and tipped their applecart, literally in the terms of what He did outside the temple.
Many of us may remember the song Signs from our time growing up. It is not a Christian song at all. It is about a man who encounters one sign after another telling people things like if they trespass they will be shot, if they had long hair they would not be hired, etc., The song ends with the man fighting against all these signs and just sits down and prays. “Thank you Lord for thinking about me I am a alive and doing fine.”
If you want to evangelize you need to lead people to come to know Christ personally. Teach them to come to the Church and pray before the Blessed Sacrament and to believe in Christ.
You need to do this before you teach them any rules, because if they do this, they will ask you how to follow the rules. That is because the rules help us to deepen our relationship with Christ. If you teach them the rules first, what do they learn about Christ: rules.
It is kind of like when you go to a Catholic parish, not this one, you park your car and what do you see first? The beautiful architecture praising God and proclaiming his name? No. What you see first is:
No ballplaying
No skateboarding
No bike riding,
No overnight parking
No public parking
Why is that there? Because their insurance company is not in the evangelizing business.
The very reason for Jesus’ coming on the scene is for people to meet God face to face, to encounter Him.
Even if we tell people they are not ready to receive communion or not properly disposed. What we really say is when you come to communion encounter Christ on His terms and you will know him more. Do not encounter him on your terms or you will never understand your encounter. Again, it is not about rules first but about encountering Christ first.
That brings us to the rules.
The rules lead people to the path to encounter Christ more deeply. But if we teach them the rules first then they will not encounter him at all.
Let us teach people to encounter Christ taking Zacchaeus as our model and you will evangelize correctly because you will be taking Christ as your model.
Questions for discussion
at home or work:
- Are there rules of the Church that you do not like?
- What would you ask to Jesus about those specific rules? What would he respond? (Assume telling you not to obey them is not an option.)
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