31ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C
SINNER YES, CORRUPT
NO!
I do not know how many saints
there are in the world today.
The true saint does not know he
is one; and if he has a hint, he will try to conceal it.
But I am sure there are many
sinners around me; the first one being… (tada!) inside me!
There are two types of sinners in
the world today – the corrupt sinner and the simple sinner.
The corrupt sinner knows that he
is a sinner...and he stops there. He has no plans to change.
He has no desire to be another
thing because he thinks there is no hope at all for him.
Even with God, the corrupt
believes that no power, even divine can help him.
So he turns from sinful to
rotten; from destroyed to decaying; from smelly to stinky.
The simple sinner also knows he
is a sinner, like Zacchaeus in today’s Gospel (Lk 19).
He could not hide this from
others who also know how bad he was.
But the simple sinner also has an
open heart to any chance, however little, that he can still change.
That is why Zacchaeus waited for Jesus
on top of a tree. That is why he
joyfully flung open his doors when Jesus came to visit his home.
That is why he decided to abandon
his riches in order to follow the Lord.
The simple sinner falls many
times a day… but also stands up just as many.
He is a sinner, yes… but in his
heart there is faith that God will rescue him.
He has hope that the Lord will
soon heal him.
He feels loved by God and he
wants to love him back – slowly, gradually, one day at a time.
The simple sinner has the
possibility to become a saint. Why?
Because he is in good company.
Zacchaeus started like that. St. Peter was just the same. St. Augustine too,
and so many others we know who started from the bottom up.
Sometimes we are afraid to
consider ourselves sinners.
We refuse to look at our weak and
flawed situations because we think God rejects us if we do something bad.
We cannot accept ourselves.
But there is no danger in
becoming a simple sinner. What is dangerous is becoming a corrupt sinner.
Which one do you prefer to
become?
