October 30, 2022 (31st Sunday in Ordinary Time)

by Fr. Bob Glynn, S.J.

[This text is an automatically generated transcript. Some names have been corrected.]

It was eight days ago. And I was minding my own business as always. I had just said Mass for the retired sisters at Oak Wood at Sacred Heart and Atherton. I was, and I was in between events. And I was supposed to hear confessions at St. Pius church in Redwood City for some marriage group that was there. And so I had time in between. Now, because I was worried about my getting confused, or well, not confused, but kind of wasting time with things I had dressed as I try not to do. Usually I wear the Jesuit disguise, which is a polo shirt and khakis or something like that. That way you can meld into a crowd and listen to what people are saying. But unfortunately, this day, I was stuck wearing this. Not that I don’t like wearing it. It’s not that comfortable. But yeah. It’s just that you are very public. So I thought to myself, Okay, now I’m done with the nuns. There’s a block of time I gotta kill in between. You would think well, what does father do? Oh, maybe I would sit down and pray. I did. I sat down and prayed what I would do next. So my prayer was responded that because I was in Atherton and I couldn’t really go home to Los Altos. It was a waste of gas, a waste of time and knowing me I would did they’re around and then be late for the thing in Redwood City. So I thought, okay, let’s stay in this territory and do something useful. You have that brilliant, brilliant Safeway on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. It’s much bigger than ours in Los Altos, although we have chic-er items at ours, but it is much bigger. So I thought, oh, it’s Father Tao’s birthday on Tuesday, and I’m the birthday czar in the community, which means I’m in charge of the cake—everything that can be screwed up, I’m in charge of for the birthday. So I had already gotten the cake, but I had forgotten the balloon, because he somehow thinks that we don’t care about him that much. So I thought, let’s get him a balloon to well, in Los Gatos, Los Altos. All we had were balloons for three year olds, so I thought no, this would send the wrong message. So I went into the store in Menlo Park, and they had the perfect adult looking balloon, which was not too expensive. The helium up and also, I had taken the trolley because I realized I am at the big Safeway, and and the big Safeway besides getting the correct balloon. I am also the snack shopper for the community. I have grown into many important positions in my time at life here. So I am the shot as the snack shopper and it is only at the Safeway in Menlo Park on El Camino Real that you can consistently buy Tim’s unsalted potato chips, which are the only potato chips that Father John will eat. So I thought, okay, we kill two birds with one stone. We’ll buy the damn Tim’s. And I’ve got the balloon. So had the balloon hooked to the cart. And I went looking, and lo and behold, there must have been just a shipment of Tim’s at that point. So I grabbed all seven bags before the greedy people could get them and put them in my cart. Now, because I was avoiding dealing with anyone if humanly possible, because in supermarkets, supermarkets are places that particularly people want to engage father in dialogue about the dangerous things you could imagine. It’s rarely religion. How do I know where pantyhose are in the store? I don’t know. Okay, so I thought okay, now we go to the self checkout, which I am very good at. And I was doing very well, I was on bad number three of Tim’s of the seven bags. When it I thought Oh, no. So then the light flashes wait for assistance. So then the cashier comes over the ones supervising all the idiots at the self checkout, and begins to critique the Tim’s potato chips. We don’t like these at home. I thought, Well, I’m not buying them for you. Thank God. All right, but so finally we get through these seven so then I have managed to dismiss her in a gentle way but firm. And I think okay, Grant, then I pay for that you think Okay, now we’re going to Redwood City go went to Redwood City. Don’t go home to Los Altos go to Redwood City, when you’re older, you have to keep telling yourself these things.

So I’m, I’m headed out. And then I had put on my headphones, because that also discourages conversation. So I had the headphones on, when I look around. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the safe way where every light on every till and everywhere is flashing. I thought, Oh, God, someone has stolen something. My assumption was someone had had stolen a six pack of beer. I don’t know why that had come into my mind. But I thought, I don’t think I’d tried to bolt out of the store with a six pack of beer, I think you’d probably get caught. And then I noticed as I was kind of looking around, everyone was looking around, everyone was looking at me. So you do what you need to do. You know, when people are looking at you. I looked around behind me, as to somewhere else, we’re there. And then I realized, in a bad moment when I looked and I saw Father Tao’s un-checked balloon sitting there that I had not paid for because I had been I had been the woman had distracted me with those potato chips. And I would have paid for the balloon. So then they thought now, should I pretend that I don’t know what’s going on, and bolt for the door with the potato chips and the balloon? Then I thought no, because at the door, there will be another one of those lights that goes on and probably an alarm that rings this will look very bad. So then with good conscience, I went back and I said to what I think I accidentally didn’t pay for this. Of course, everyone looked at father like I was 399 I’m going to rip off the Safeway for and ruined my life. No. But you know, all I tried to do in life is just slide under the radar. It’s all I tried to do. And every time I try, it’s disastrous.

So, and I was thinking of our man Zacchaeus today. He’s a very interesting character. And people kind of think He’s the funny and all of that, you know, finds a kid is very funny. I find this excuse very interesting, in a very different way. Like, let’s face reality, we’ve been told he’s a tax collector and a rich man. He’s sitting in the city of Jericho, collecting taxes at a table. It’s a relatively big city. And people know him and generally detest him. I would think brothers Xavier gave us a talk about this last week, I think what the tax collector, and this is a big chief tax collector, so they hated him. And so there there’s a crowd coming with Jesus. Now, to me this, the very interesting moment begins when the key is is interested at all in Jesus. Now, why might he be interested? I asked myself, well, probably the same reason that Herod was, you get to see some miracles, that’s fairly exciting stuff. And maybe Jesus will perform a miracle. He can’t just go along with the crowd. Because the crowd there Jesus came to people, and Jesus is kind of people are not the key is is kind of people is the key is if he has friends, has friends of his some social class and, you know, whatever kind of friendship they might have. So something tells him, I want to see this guy. If he’s going to see anything, it’s not going to be from running around on the sides of this, this thing with people who hate him. So we think, Okay, let me get somewhere where I can see, but not be seen. Now, at this moment, he reminds me greatly of the woman with the the hemorrhage earlier in the Gospel, remember her? She’s going to be in the crowd and she’s going to touch Jesus without anybody knowing it. And then we remember what happens there. I don’t have to tell that story again. I trust. Okay, so in this story, the key is is flying under the radar. He is clearly somebody who’s does not want to be spotted by this crowd. He gets into this tree.

What is he waiting for? Because Jesus is not going to do a miracle right then and there. Does he want to see what Jesus looks like? This seems to me much ado about very little to see what Jesus looks like. There must be something more to it and he gets up into this tree And he is I would think, hidden from view, so that he can see and not be seen. At length the woman earlier, he is a bystander to Jesus, he’s someone non of the crowd, not someone who has been caught up in the message, who has not seen the miracles. But something has happened. And the important thing for us to know is that it happened when he was sitting at the tax table, not when he was in the tree. Otherwise, he would not have gotten up from tax table and looked like an idiot, climbing in the tree, flying under the radar, wanting to see Jesus as though that was going to do something for him, and not to be seen. It’s that sense of will, I can just stay on the outside and not come very close. And that will be enough. And what happens in this wonderful, wonderful story is that when he gets to the tree, Jesus looks up. And Zacchaeus, who is very short, looks down. In that moment, we have grace coming to its fulfillment, because something different occurs, than the miracle for the woman, or for the other miracles that we have seen before. Zacchaeus sees Jesus and knows him. And Jesus sees Zacchaeus, and knows him. And in that moment, I believe that what happens is, it is almost as though there’s like this bubble that seals the two of them together in the magnificent context of God’s grace, and God’s love. And in that moment, the key is, knows what it is he’s looking for. He knows that he has hated. He knows that he is isolated. And just like every one of us, he wonders, can anyone really love me. And in the moment there, he experiences what all of us are called to do, and and should have the possibility of doing is knowing deeply and powerfully what God’s Love feels like when it is just God’s love. And then that moment, those shouts of he’s a sinner. That Zacchaeus—he’s a loser, who could like him? A he’s screwed everybody around that I know and loved. They disappear. Because God’s love has overwhelmed that whole context. And how do we know? Because just like the woman with the hemorrhage, Jesus does not let Zacchaeus get away with this. You cannot be a bystander for the gospel. Jesus says to him, I want to go to your house. Let me go where you dwell. And the key is responds in faith. What’s the response in faith? Yes, come. But it’s not enough to say come. But let’s take away the things that have kept me from you and others. Take my fortune. Let me be just and fair, because I want to be with you. And no matter what anyone says, they still hate Zacchaeus isn’t this is not like some super success story. Everybody now likes Zacchaeus and he’s a happy soul. And you know, he’s that everybody’s party. They still hate him. But he knows it doesn’t matter. Because the one whose love he has felt, no one else’s love can match it at all. And this is the great moment of Zacchaeus in our lives. If we are not Zacchaeus, it’d be good for us to pray to see how we are.