Meeting of the Lord 2025

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today, because of the

liturgical calendar, we have the coincidence

of the feast day of the entrance of the Lord

in the temple, and then also the Sunday of Zacchaeus,

which is a signal that Lent is approaching. feast

day of the presentation of the Lord in the temple

is an important one because as the liturgical

texts emphasize so beautifully, the maker of

the law who gave on Mount Sinai the law to Moses

now comes to the temple as a little child of

40 days in fulfillment. of the law. As beautiful

as this feast is, I want to focus our attention

this morning on Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus Sunday.

I have always enjoyed reading the story about

Zacchaeus. His conversion experience is exemplary

for all of us. He was a tax collector, short

in stature. He climbed up into a tree to see

who this Jesus was, this important person. And

Jesus acknowledges his presence and says, today

I will dine with you. Zacchaeus comes down and

throws a dinner at which our Lord is present.

I always found it somewhat humorous that Zacchaeus,

who was a tax collector, when this Sunday comes

around, is when people normally start fretting

about their income tax and paying IRS. It's sort

of maybe a reminder to us that this world is

not as important as we might think it is. But

his conversion experience, as I said at the beginning,

was exemplary. He stood up this person who was

despised because the Jewish people did not like

tax collectors, especially those who were themselves

Jewish, because they had a reputation for defrauding

others. And of course, that's... We always think

in one way or another that the impersonal IRS

takes too much of a bite out of our wallet anyway.

So tax collectors have never been very popular.

But Zacchaeus stands up and he says, if I've

cheated, I'll give half of my goods to the poor.

If I've cheated anyone or defrauded everyone,

I pay it back four times over. Now, we can look

back in our lives, and I'm sure that each and

every one of us have had some type of a conversion

experience. Maybe it's not as dramatic as Zacchaeus',

but a conversion experience nevertheless. Those

of us who were born and brought up Orthodox,

in the teens, or in early adulthood, when our

faith in one way or another is challenged. And

at that point, we either decide, yeah, I'm going

to take my faith seriously. I'm going to go to

church. I'm going to say my prayers. I'm going

to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Sometimes,

After many years, this same person baptized as

a Christian will come back and resume the practice

of taking Christianity seriously. Clerical commentators

on this type of event call these folks not converts,

but reverts. because they've come back to the

church. I always found that a little amusing

myself too. Then those of us later on who probably

as adults have either turned our faith and taken

it seriously or we were raised perhaps in another

Christian church. And we started investigating

the Orthodox Church. And that, our conviction

came that in the Orthodox Church, that is where

the fullness of the Christian faith resides.

So look for a moment into your own heart and

see what was the conversion. that took place

in your life. How did you come to take Jesus

Christ and his church seriously? That varies,

as I said, for many of us. But we made that commitment.

And as Christians, we have to follow upon our

commitment. This is done, of course, by being

faithful as possible, in church attendance, in

receiving the sacraments, confession and holy

communion, and particularly also preparing appropriately

by fasting and saying those prayers before communion,

by being faithful in our daily prayers. Sometimes

that isn't easy. I think for older folks like

myself who are retired, and don't have business

and family obligations, it's a little bit easier.

But many of you have to pack off the kids to

school, jump in the car, and go to work, or work

from home nowadays. But one way or another, we

have to take time out to be faithful in our daily

prayers. And also, in reading the scriptures.

You could go on the OCA website and find the

epistle and the gospel for each and every day.

I would suggest also, as I've suggested many

times, to divide up the Psalter so that you say

some Psalms in the morning and some in the evening.

Because the Psalms express all possible human

emotions and needs to pray with the Psalms and

reading the scriptures and then saying our own

prayers. So Zacchaeus' conversion experience

today reminds us that not only of our own personal

conversion experience, but reminds us also that

each and every week, each and every day, we have

a recommitment, a return to that commitment that

we made to Jesus Christ at the moment of our

conversion. So let us ask our Lord today to give

us the grace to be faithful to our commitment

and to love him with our whole heart and soul

and body and strength and express this in our

love for one another. Amen.