Every generation has their pariahs. Consider, if you will, how you would react if your bishop or parish priest was reported to have dined with a local drug baron or was reaching out to ex-prisoners, especially those convicted of sexual crimes. We would be scandalized! We might not like to think so, but we would find it hard to stomach or understand. We might find ourselves grumbling, rather as they did in Jesus’ day, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner’
This encounter between Jesus of Nazareth and the chief tax collector Zacchaeus highlights perfectly the ‘scandal of grace.’ It brings to the fore this very important biblical teaching that where sin abounds, grace super-abounds. It shows us that sin, darkness, moral confusion and ignorance attract rather than repel God – because God loves the sinner but hates the sin. It is the sin that is the enemy, not the person caught up in it.
Zacchaeus’ experience of God’s mercy and compassion touched and healed him, and led him to repentance and conversion. No one is beyond God’s grace and mercy; no one is beyond redemption; no one is outside of God’s kindness and compassion. We are to be a living expression, a sign, a sacrament, of this same mercy, kindness and forgiveness. We start first of all in our own lives. A resentful, angry Christian, who holds on to hurts and offences, is a contradiction in terms. In learning to forgive others, to hold out the hand of friendship and brotherhood/sisterhood to those we find difficult, we become this living sign, this sacrament of God’s mercy and forgiveness.