October 30, 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Luke 19:1-10

As a Jew who works for Rome, Zacchaeus lives at the intersection of riches and loneliness.

Tax collectors were good at doing bad. Every man in the empire had to pay taxes, and someone had to do the dirty work. The great wealth that tax collectors accrued, however, was through corruption and the exploitation of others. They lived and thrived at the expense of their own people, and this arrangement existed within a social context: an imperial occupation that preyed on Hebrew identity and prosperity.

Sometimes the victims of such a context can create victims of their own, victims of their victimization. “What happens to you won’t destroy you,” said Howard Thurman, “unless you allow it to get in you.” When what transpires around us takes root within us, it can give birth to the worst of our practices. The world can program us to unsee the value in ourselves and others.