God's Holy Temple

Gospel: Luke 19: 1-10

Today we celebrate the dedication of a church building, and by this feast we are supposed to see in the world the true temple where God dwells: in the heart and soul of every human being.  That we care more about the desecration of a building than we do to the many ways we human beings have developed to violate the dignity of other human beings suggests our feast is not accomplishing its intended outcome.  Today's Gospel reading may provide us a clue as to why that is the case.

Jesus comes to the house of Zacchaeus.  After doing so, Zacchaeus is changed entirely by the encounter that Jesus initiated.  Zacchaeus repents of his misdeeds, gives to the poor, and resolves to live a better life.  But notice the order of events: Jesus first comes to him (in spite of the fact that others do not want him to do so!), and then Zacchaeus is changed and transformed.  This encounter is the entire drama of the Incarnation in miniature: God came to an undeserving world and changed us.

And yet what we do in our church practice is the entire opposite of what Jesu does here. We insist others pass through our purity tests and integrity machines before encountering God. We create a Pelagian structure of our action determining God's action, our worth dependent on our deed and not God's.  We, in short, are the disciples and the crowd who would rather Jesus not visit Zacchaeus, are scandalized by such an encounter at all and Jesus' initiative.  When we follow the pattern of the Gospel we will see in all people God's dwelling place and respect their dignity and worth.