31st Sunday Appearances can be deceiving.

People’s perceptions can be funny. Many years ago, while in Ohio visiting family, I was with my young nephew. We were fishing. I asked him if he would want to come to Nevada and we could fish there. He responded kind of quickly, “No, there is too much sand.” Now, it took me a second, I am like what? He knew that Nevada was a desert, and he had in his mind the Sahara??? Or he was looking for an easy way out to not come visit with me. My ego wants him to have perceived Nevada wrong.

Other perceptions about Nevada… early on my family would ask how often I would go to Las Vegas. I am like never. Why? How far away is it…Once they learned the distance, they learned to stop asking. Or it must be hot there all the time… I reminded them summer can be, but snow and cold in the winter.

We all have our perceptions, if not prejudices. It is part of how we are conditioned, and how we internally prepare ourselves. The difficult part is those mis-perceptions and prejudices can keep us from seeing something, or someone wonderful; or experiencing fishing with a loving uncle.

If we need an example of this, look at the political rhetoric that is ongoing right now. Democrats paint Republicans in a certain way and Republicans paint Democrats in a certain way. Most of it, based on scaring others and winning votes; and with less on truth, We end up with divisions; we lose out on building community.

We also see our prejudices, our preconceived ideas in our interactions with others, especially those of different cultures, skin color, genders, orientation. We will all have them, but… our will, our choice remains..do we give control to those prejudices, or do we overcome them and work for goodness.

There are several different translations of the Bible that we Catholics can use. The version we use for our Lectionary is the New American Bible Revised. Another translation offers a slightly different approach to this story of Zaccheus. It says that as Zaccheus stands there in front of the crowd, accusing him of being sinful, he declares to Jesus, NOT that “I shall give half of my income…” rather, that He already has been doing this. And the following sentence, “If I have cheated, I will repay…” implying that he is not conscious of any cheating. When we hear it this way…Zaccheus is not necessarily that bad man after all?

This adds to the story simply that because he worked for the Romans, because we was a tax collector, he MUST be a sinful man. That was the perception of the Crowds.

Jesus saw through that all; saw the good man there and celebrated him.

Why would the crowd, the religious leaders think this? Maybe their guilty feelings were being triggered by Zaccheus, so they went on the attack; rather than be changed themselves.

The Good News…God has no prejudices, no perceptions, no misperceptions. God sees the children of God, and desires nothing but us, those children, to live up to our potential.

The Good News, nothing can take that away.

How do we know… the Death and Resurrection of the Son of God. Humanity did that, and yet God still offered the Son back to us, as a sign of love and fidelity; a sign of mercy and forgiveness. God does not see weak, power-hungry, small violent, people…God sees beyond.

We all have a will. We have the ability to choose to act, not simply react. We all have the choice to transcend our prejudices, our perceptions, our prejudices.

Grace enhances that power to choose.

As Catholics we celebrate that grace coming to us always, and in those special moments of the Sacraments. Grace does not make us super humans, but makes us fully human. With the mighty power to choose to love, to see goodness in others, to not let fear or anger or sadness dominate our choices; to not box others into small, meaningless categories. To NOT condemn people to a certain way of existence…

It can be disheartening to see Catholics do this. I have witnessed this first hand. And of course, we see this in ads, on social media… Sad that these Catholics, probably receiving the very body and blood of Christ, choose to act in a way so contrary to the person they receive.

This is why in our prayer, we must open ourselves to grace, to wisdom… to see ourselves and our way of seeing the world. We must read and sit with Scripture, let it open our minds to being honest with ourselves. It also can mean as disciples, in a community of faith, we nicely point out some inconsistencies.

This is why in the Eucharist, our conscience needs to be activated and inspire us to make changes.

The more we engage in our spiritual work, the more we open ourselves to God’s infinite grace and mercy, love; the more we are transformed, to see as God and be as God.

The more we open ourselves to Grace, the more clear we can see.