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In the face of the Church’s call to mission and evangelism, what do you think is the most effective way for Christians to spread their faith among others? Should we use all the techniques of advertising to persuade people that what we believe is worth sharing? Advertising is useful, but the problem is that the world is tired of hearing more and more words which often seem to have nothing behind them. When a group of very enthusiastic and wealthy Christian industrialists asked an expert on evangelisation what was the most effective evangelical strategy today, he gave a disconcerting answer. He said that empirical research showed the answer is martyrdom. After a long pause, one of the industrialists finally asked, “Can you tell us what the second most effective strategy might be?” It is not surprising that we look for an easier answer when the first answer may involve dying for our faith. We play down a central teaching of Christianity, which is the need to back up our words with actions – this is what Jesus means when He tells us to take up His cross and follow Him.

Today Jesus is dealing with another central teaching of the Gospel, which always appears in the readings as we come to the end of the liturgical year. It is about the end of the world. The scriptures teach that just as God created the world in the beginning, so God will bring it to its final consummation when Jesus returns in glory. The old order will give way to the new, but there will be upheavals and catastrophes before this takes place. This is what people fear; and so they play it down and put it at the back of their minds. Jesus does not give a date for the destruction of Jerusalem and the old Temple, but we know that it was indeed destroyed by Romans in AD 70. Yet that destruction did not trigger off the events of the end of the world as some feared. Jesus tells us that many other events will have to take place in the course of history before the end. We may find His talk of wars and revolutions, famines and plagues rather difficult, but in fact if we look round our own world such apocalyptic events abound. Jesus tells us not to be frightened by these events but rather to have confidence that in the end God will bring us through them and be victorious. He tells: “Your endurance will win you your lives.”

In the history of the Church, Christians have drawn strength from these words of Jesus. From St. Stephen onwards men and women have given the witness of their lives as martyrs. And persecution contuniues today. In many countries around the world, especially in parts of Africa, Asia and in the Middle East, Christians are not free to worship without harrasment. Since the turn of the millennium about 200 milion Christians are now under threat. Even in countries where Christianity is not persecuted there are opportunities to give witness when Gospel values are questioned. It may be on questions of marriage, respect for life, or justice and peace, but it takes courage to take a stand against the prevailing consensus. Jesus reminds us this Sunday that as we wait for the end in the midst of natural and social disasters we are called to have confidence in His final victory.

Zacchaeus’ great gift is not that he has led a disciplined life of prayer and goodness; he has become thoroughly sucked in to a life of wealth and position, even at the cost of marginalizing himself from his own people. His great gift is simply the desire he has to see Jesus. Not only does he want to see Jesus, but he is prepared to do whatever it takes to see Him – to find a space above the crowd, whatever the indignity of his action. Through hospitality with the Lord, Zacchaeus is changed – and his life emptied of some of what was holding him back from God’s love for him.

We live in a world that is not only unprecedentedly busy and filled with activity, but one that also prizes these things. Multitasking, working long hours, filling our schedules with activities – all these things are not only normal for many people, but things that are aspired to. The challenge is whether we can stop what we’re doing long enough to find a way of putting ourselves in a more spacious place, a place where we can see the Lord and He can look directly at us.

In today’s Gospel, two men go up to the Temple. One asks for something, the other doesn’t ask for anything. If you look at what the Pharisee is actually saying, he isn’t asking for anything, he is just telling God what God already knows. His description of himself is very superficial. Firstly he describes himself in terms what he is not: “I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind.” When he does speak about himself, it is about what he does – fasting, tithing – not about what he is. In both ways, he fails to touch his own reality. He is not in fact praying to God but to himself, as Jesus says. The tax collector is the one who is praying to God, and because he is in the presence of God, he asks for something. He asks for mercy. Strangely he is more self-absorbed that the Pharisee. The Pharisee is distracted from thinking about himself, being too busy noticing everybody else’s sin. The tax collector simply talks about his own sinfulness.

We are called to prayer, then, and prayer is not difficult. It is not difficult; but it may be impossible. The Pharisee does not pray because he does not consider himself. This is why mediaval writers often spoke of prayer in terms of a mirror. We see something of ourselves in prayer. We see our sins, in part, but we also see the mercy of God, which is always greater than our sins. This is more than a matter of feelings. It is not a feeling but a conviction. A conviction that whatever sins we commit, God is never short of mercy, and God’s mercy not only forgives our sins, but gathers them into God’s purpose in founding the kingdom.