Sunday, October 09, 2011

Gossip: salvation

Sunday, October 9, 2011
    Commemoration of Denys, Bishop of Paris, & his Companions, Martyrs, 258
    Commemoration of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Philosopher, Scientist, 1253
Meditation:
    A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.
    So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
    When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
    All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”
    But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
    Jesus said to him! , “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
    —Luke 19:2-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ did not throw about that great word Salvation. But once, in the heart of an angry crowd, their enthusiasm soured suddenly into a growling muttering. He applied it confidently to a man who, under the inspiration of His friendship, had broken with his sorry past and his old selfish, unclean ways, and was doing what he could to put things right. Now that, He said, is what I call a saved man. Very solemnly He tells us that on the Day of Judgment we shall not be asked the questions we are expecting, but others that will puzzle and startle us. Those folk on the left hand were, as far as we hear, respectable folk; their business books were straight, their home life was kindly, they themselves were clean-living men and women: nothing whatever is laid to their charge excepting this, that they lived in a world needing their help and were too absorbed in something—what it was, we are not told; it may have been their souls—to give what aid ! they could.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 23-24 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to true repentance.
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