For many people in Jericho, Zacchaeus was a write-off, a selfish waste of space. He was beyond the pale and beyond redemption. Many people in the world believe this to be true of others. The selfish behavior of human beings can lead us to conclude that this world is beyond saving. Certainly the extremes of violence that we see and hear of every day tend to make us feel somewhat hopeless about the prospects for a brighter future. Recent scientific studies by the Common Cause Foundation have turned up surprisingly positive results about human beings. The first says that we are far more unselfish than we are given credit for. The second conclusion is that others are thought to be more selfish than in fact they are. Science is coming to the same conviction that our faith already teaches us. Human kindness is greater than human wickedness. Salvation can come to this house. Followers of the Lord live by this conviction.

In Gospel according to St. Luke Jesus teaches us about prayer. First we learn to pray with Jesus to the Father in what we called “Lord’s Prayer”. We learn that we must remember to give thanks and praise to God, and that we must persevere in our petitions to God. God favors prayer which is humble. Such is the lesson within the parable of the 2 men who went up to the temple to pray. God wasn’t pleased with the prayer of the proud Pharisee. Actually it was no prayer but only a list of self-congratulations. But God was pleased with the humble tax collector. His was a sincere prayer of mercy. Jesus took delight in making the least likely candidate for imitation the hero of His stories. Everybody despised tax collectors, the ancient version of IRS, but this man acknowledged his sins and begged God for mercy.

The tax collector made the right choice. He went to the right person for the repairs he needed. He made no excuses. He diagnosed his own problem and asked God for the grace he needed in his simple prayer, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

The tax collector’s prayer was one of to God. Authentic petitions, a plea for help, the type of prayer we often offer to God. We asked God favors because we know He is the right person to turn to, that He has the power to help us. That is half of humility: to acknowledge God’s power which is greater than any power in the universe. The second half of humility is to admit that we need God, that we cannot go it alone, that we depend on God’s love as well as on His power. Humble prayer expresses God’s power and our need. Our humble prayer goes right to heaven because the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds and does not rest until reaches its goal.

In today’s Gospel we hear the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith. It looks as though faith was their top priority too. This is one of only two occasions in the Gospel of St. Luke where the apostles make a precise request of Jesus. Real faith means committing oneself to a person and putting all one’s trust in him. And for the Christians that person is Jesus Christ. He is not expecting us to litter the sea with uprooted trees. It’s just a bold way of saying that faith can do the impossible. At the same time, trusting in the Lord is not the same thing as meekly accepting whatever happens in our world, without so much as a word of complaint. Just look at today’s first reading, where Habakkuk the prophet rebukes the Lord because a fearful enemy is approaching and it looks as though violence and power are going to win the day. Our Lord is big enough to accept our anger and our cries of indignation, provided only that we do not lose hold of our faith in God.

In our heart of hearts we all know that faith is a gift to be cherished as a top priority. Faith is the basis of our relationship with the Lord; without it, we can have no friendship with Him; without it, the reception of the sacraments would be worthless; without it, the words of the Bible would lose their power for us; without it, coming to Mass would be pointless; without it, we’d never understand, as today’s Gospel tells us, that even when we’ve done all that the Lord requires of us, we are doing no more than our duty. If faith is as vital to us as that, then we want not simply to hold on to it but to cultivate it, to encourage its growth. Apostles asked Jesus “Lord, teach us to pray.” Faith and prayer go together. If we pray, our faith grows; if our faith grows, we are drawn to prayer. Of course, “Lord, teach us to pray” is itself a prayer. It’s a prayer we could make especially our own today; perhaps we could repeat it time and time again throughout this day.

We are tempted to say that this kind of reflection is political and not religious; the Church’s job is to deal with worship, we say. But the Bible says something else. Amos is not a professional prophet – he doesn’t earn his living by uttering prophecies at shrines and sanctuaries. He is an outsider, since his real job is as a shepherd and agriculturalist: people do not expect him to speak in God’s name. The Holy Land is split in two after the reign of King Solomon, and Amos belongs to the southern section, to Jerusalem and its hinterland, which is called Judah. But God sends him to the northern kingdom of Israel, precisely to preach justice. He addresses the people of both kingdoms. His description of the rich is bitterly sarcastic: ivory beds, luscious meals, drinking, self-indulgent entertainment. “Watch out,” he says: exile and deportation are just around the corner. Why? Because you have lived unjustly, because you have been corrupt, because you have appropriated the land of those who are poor, and reduced them to slavery. The well-being of the country as a whole is forgotten, because you, the rich, are selfish beyond words. St. Luke reminds us that Jesus was equally concerned with social justice. The story of the rich man and Lazarus seems to be about two individuals. The rich man dresses in purple and feasts magnificently, while at the the gate is Lazarus, starving and covered with sores. Jesus underlines sadly the inability of those who are rich to change their ways: “They will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.”

Respect for every human person, human solidarity that is stronger that the urge to feather one’s own nest, these are central to the Church’s teaching. The Church offers the world her teaching on the Eucharist, her explanation of the Bible, directives on sexual morality, the beauty of pilgrimage, the rosary, lovely music. Catholic social teaching is not an optional add-on to these. It is an integral part of the same message. We can thank God that so many Christians have taken this to heart.