Reflection of the Week - 1st November 2022

By Rev Anne Hewitt

Posted in Faith

Psalm 119:137-144 / Luke 19:1-10

Wealthy, corrupt and unscrupulous. Shocking the gathered crowd and righteous folk. Unsettling Law, tradition and culture. Sharing food and wine as if friends or even family. Why would he do that? I mean Jesus.

As he journeys towards Jerusalem, Jesus befriends the ‘unacceptable’, is often criticised for being offensive or contradicting Jewish Law. He has the uncanny knack of seeking out the most unloved, unpopular and ‘sinful’ person, and befriending them. Luke 18: 9-14 tells of an anguished middle-man tax collector, seeking forgiveness. Zacchaeus may very well have been his ‘boss’.  Zaccheus must have felt SO honoured that this travelling charismatic preacher of Good News, sort him out particularly, invited himself to Zaccheus home, and expected to be fed and rested.

Perhaps, Jesus was doing something else entirely - noting the one on the edges of society, whose immoral way of living, warped sense of justice, greed, manipulation, coercion and disrespect for others was legendary. Perhaps, Jesus was demonstrating God’s Way - beyond custom, culture and Law, by loving his ‘neighbour’ and showing Zaccheus a better way to live in community through respect and honouring others; by demonstrating to the crowd how to approach even those who are despised. Forgiving the ‘least lovely’ does not mean accepting the way they live; though can open them to a new way of being in God…which is exactly what happened.

Source: © Rev Anne Hewitt 12/10/2022 churchestogethersa.org.au
 

 


More from Faith

Subscribe to receive Faith articles by email >

Faith

Stories of Life

Who doesn’t love a story? Hope, conflict, wonder, desperation, loneliness, surprise, love, a hero. Story seems to be wired into our DNA. We all tell them, and we find many ways to do them.

Faith

Reflection of the Week - 19th March 2024

The act of making a pilgrimage – traveling to a sacred place to encounter the divine – is ancient, probably as old as humanity itself. Perhaps the first Christian pilgrimage was that of the Wise Men, men who were not even believers in the Messiah, but who knew that “something” drew them from their homes and studies. Unsure as to what they sought, they found not a someTHING, but a someONE: Christ the Lord.

Faith

Reflection of the Week - 26th March 2024

Reflect, today, upon how willing you are to embrace sacrifice in your own life. No, your sacrifices are not able to save the world by their own merit, but if you face your crosses in life, be they big or small, and if you intentionally and wholeheartedly unite them to the actions of Jesus that first Holy Week, then you can be certain that you will suffer with our Lord. But you can also be certain that your suffering will be transformed by the power of this Holy Week and lead you to a glorious sharing in His triumph over all sin and suffering.


Comments

Comments (3)