(Thirty-first Sunday of the Year
(C): This homily was given on November 3, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly,
R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Luke
19: 1-10.)
Zacchaeus was “a 12 Step guy.” You’ve probably never heard that before, but
it’s true nonetheless.
Many of us (probably most of us)
are familiar with the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. For the past several decades, these steps
have helped many men and women (including, I’m sure, some people in this church
right now) to deal, successfully, with their addiction to alcohol.
These 12 Steps have also been
modified, in recent years, to help other people who have addictions unrelated
to alcohol. And so we have in our
country right now groups like Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Smokers
Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
On a personal level, we may not
be plagued by any of these addictive behaviors (and that’s great if it’s the
case for us), but there is one addiction that all of us do have (whether we want to admit it or not)—and that’s our addiction to sin! You have it; I have it; Zacchaeus had it; every
man and woman in human history has had it —with the exception of Jesus and our
Blessed Mother.
And, as is the case with those
who are addicted to alcohol or gambling or any of those other things I just
mentioned, some people choose to deal
with their addiction to sin, and some do not. And dealing with it is a lifelong
process. (That’s the way it is with
every addictive behavior.) You’ll notice
that people in AA will not refer
to themselves as “Recovered
Alcoholics”; rather, they will call themselves, “Recovering Alcoholics”—indicating that the process of recovering
and staying sober is ongoing.
Which is where the 12 Steps come
into the picture. The 12 Steps provide
the guidelines and principles that need to be followed by a person, if that
individual wants to deal with and overcome the temptation to drink.
And they work!—as people in AA
and other 12 Step groups will happily tell you.
But they also work on the
spiritual level in helping us deal with our sins, which is what I want to focus
on in my homily this morning. In fact,
the 12 Steps are really very “Catholic”—in the sense that they quite naturally
point us to many Catholic beliefs and Catholic practices.
The experience of Zacchaeus (even
though he was not Catholic!) can help us to see that. So without further adieu let me now briefly
review the 12 Steps with you as they
relate to sin, using Zacchaeus as an example—because his recovery from sin 2,000
years ago can help us to see what we need to do to further our recovery from
sin as practicing Catholics in 2013.
The first 3 steps of AA read as
follows: 1) We admitted we were powerless
over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable; 2) We came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity; and 3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of
God as we understood him.
We all have sins that we struggle
with. It might be anger; it might be
gossip; it might be lying; it might be a bad temper—it might be a number of
different things. We cannot overcome
these tendencies on our own, without God’s grace—and we need to recognize that
fact (as an alcoholic needs to recognize the fact that he can’t overcome his
drinking problem on his own).
But we also need to believe that
a power greater than ourselves—namely, the
power of God’s grace—can help
us deal with our temptations and weaknesses; and we need to reach out to Jesus
for that power every day (this is why daily prayer is so important), as
Zacchaeus reached out to Jesus from that sycamore tree in Jericho.
In this regard, we know beyond
any reasonable doubt that Zacchaeus needed a great deal of help with at least
one capital sin in his life, and that was the sin of greed! Notice that two
details are mentioned about him at the beginning of this story: we are told
that he was a tax collector, and that he was wealthy. In other words, he was a Jew who worked for
the Roman government, who made his living by ripping off his own people! Jewish tax collectors in first century
Palestine were hated by their fellow Jews because, when they collected money
for the Romans, they usually overcharged their people big time, and then pocketed
the difference!
Yes, they were even worse than
the IRS!
Which brings us to steps 4-7 of
AA. Number 4) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We Catholics would call that “an examination
of conscience”. Here we are reminded of
the fact that if we want to deal successfully with our addiction to sin, we
need to take a hard and honest look at our lives—and we need to do that often!
Zacchaeus certainly did that on the day he met Jesus. It’s very clear from his conversation with our
Lord that he had reflected on his life, and had come to the realization that he
had been guilty of stealing and selfishness and materialism—all of which were
rooted in greed!
And he verbalized that—which is
step 5. Step 5 of AA is: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to
another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. That, of course, is what we call “confession”! (Do you see how “Catholic” the 12 Steps are?) This means that to actively engage in the
process of recovering from sin, we need to make sacramental confession a
priority!
And we need to go to confession
with a firm purpose of amendment! That
is to say, we need to go with the intention of trying to avoid sin—and the
occasion of sin—in the future. This idea
is found in step 6 of the 12 Steps, which reads: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of
character.
I think it’s pretty clear from
the tone of this gospel story that Zacchaeus did not intend to go back to his
old sinful practices and way of life. He
wanted to change in a positive way, and he wanted that change to be permanent!
He had a firm purpose of
amendment.
But he knew that he also needed
to make reparation for the evil
things he had done! In other words, he
knew that he needed to make amends even after
he had been forgiven by our Lord. Listen
again to what he said to Jesus: “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall
give to the poor; and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it
four times over.”
This is why a penance is given to
us in confession: through prayers and/or good works, we are to make amends to
those we’ve hurt by the evil we’ve done or by the good we have failed to do.
And, of course, if we don’t make
reparation for our forgiven sins in this life, we will make reparation for them
in the next—in that place we call “purgatory”.
This idea is present in the 9th
step of AA, which says, Made direct
amends to [the persons we had harmed] whenever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.
Now steps 7, 10 and 11 of the 12
Steps are very important because they make clear that all of this has got to be
an ongoing process. I mentioned that a
little earlier. Step 7 is: Humbly asked [God] to remove our
shortcomings. Step 10 is: We continued to take personal inventory and
when we were wrong we promptly admitted it.
Step 11 is: We sought through
prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we
understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to
carry it out.
With respect to sin, this means
that if we want to stay in recovery (i.e., in the state of grace) we need to
examine our consciences often, and then repent and confess and make amends on a regular basis—not just once a year
or so!
Remember, just as people in AA
are recovering alcoholics, not recovered alcoholics, so too we are recovering sinners—who will only be
fully “recovered” when (and if) we arrive at the pearly gates of heaven.
That brings us to the last of the
12 Steps: Having had a spiritual
awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to
others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
If you are an alcoholic, and you
really believe in the effectiveness of the 12 Steps of AA, you will certainly
do your best to reach out to other alcoholics, and bring them into the
program. And by the same token, if you
believe in the Catholic Church’s program for recovering from sin, you will do
your best—your absolute best—to evangelize your family and friends and
co-workers and others, so that they will become “recovering sinners”
themselves. On that note, I’m sure that
Zacchaeus did not keep the news of his conversion to himself! He probably told everybody he knew, as well
as a lot of people he didn’t know!
Through his encounter with Jesus
that day in Jericho, Zacchaeus had become a recovering sinner who was filled
with peace and joy—and he wanted everyone else in the world to share the
experience.
We should have that very same
desire for all the people whom the Lord has placed in our lives. And we will, if
we allow the 12 Steps to guide us each and every day in our personal recovery
from sin.
