Come Down And Stay

November 18: Tuesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22; Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 5; Luke 19:1-10

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Thoughts to help us take responsibility as stewards of the kingship of Christ.

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five )

Come Down And Stay

“Remember then what you received and keep it” (Revelation 3:3).

When Jesus tells Zacchaeus, “Come down (katabeino) for I must stay (abide, meno) at your house today,” he is echoing words usually used of himself: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven…I am the bread that came down from heaven… Abide in me as I abide in you… Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit… If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish… If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (John 3:13; 6:41; 15:4, 7; Matthew 27:40).

Paradoxically, “being with” God depends on humans “coming down” from an unexamined “upper class” lifestyle and mentality. Wealth and prestige bear the deadly fruit of pride, and close our minds to the Gospel. Zacchaeus “came down” from more than the sycamore tree: “Half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, I will pay back four times as much.”

If Zacchaeus was a “good manager” (steward) of the grace he received, his response was more than a superficial, passing gesture: he “remembered what he accepted and kept it.” Those whose conversion “goes down” to the roots of their attitudes and values, Jesus, lifts up “to sit with me on my throne.”

PRAY: “Lord, come down. Live in me.”

PRACTICE: “Walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).