CHAPTER 1 Addressing Zacchaeus It was early morning and fresh snow lay in the streets of Prague. Everything was fairly fresh in those days--the mid-1990s. A few years earlier, the Communist regime had fallen in the course of the "Velvet Revolution," along with its monopoly of political and police power, and for the first time in decades genuine parliamentary democracy was restored. The church and the university once more enjoyed freedom. That turn of events wrought enormous changes in my life: during the 1970s, I had been secretly ordained abroad at a time of religious repression at home that had already lasted decades. Not even my mother, with whom I lived, was allowed to know I was a priest. For eleven years, I performed my priestly duties clandestinely in an "underground church." Now I was able to function openly, freely, as a priest, without any risk of repression, in the newly created university parish in the heart of Old Prague.

After years during which I had to give lectures on philosophy solely as part of clandestine courses in private homes organized by the "flying university," could only publish in samizdat, I was able to return to the university, write for the newspapers, and publish books. But on that particular winter morning I was headed, not for the church or the university, but for the parliament building. Among the novelties of those days was the custom, established a few years earlier, of inviting a member of the clergy to the parliament once a year, just before Christmas, to deliver a brief meditation to the assembled members of parliament and senators prior to the last sitting before the Christmas vacation. Yes, everything was still fairly fresh and retained a whiff of newly won freedom. Yet a few years had passed since the "Velvet Revolution," and the first waves of euphoria and its heady confrontation with open spaces were things of the past. The initial illusions had evaporated, and many previously unsuspected problems and complications were appearing in public life. Gradually, something that psychiatrists call "agoraphobia" was creeping into society: a dread of open spaces, literally a fear of the marketplace. Almost everything imaginable was suddenly available on the market in goods and ideas--but many people were confused and puzzled by the enormous diversity of what was on offer and the necessity of making choices.

Some of them got a headache from the sudden, blinding profusion of color, and now and then they even began to miss the black-and-white world of yesteryear--although in fact it had been tediously and boringly gray. I concluded my words to the members of parliament and senators--most of whom had probably never held a Bible in their hands--with a reference to the scene from Luke''s Gospel in which Jesus moves through the crowds in Jericho and unexpectedly addresses a chief tax collector who is secretly observing him from the branches of a fig tree. I compared the story with the behavior of Christians in our country. When, after the fall of Communism, Christ''s followers came out freely into the open after so many years, they noticed many people who applauded them and maybe a few who had previously shaken their fists at them. What they didn''t notice, however, was that the trees all around them were full of Zacchaeuses--those who were unwilling or unable to join the throng of old or brand-new believers, but were neither indifferent nor hostile to them. Those Zacchaeuses were curious seekers, but at the same time they wanted to maintain a certain distance. That odd combination of inquisitiveness and expectation, interest and shyness, and sometimes, maybe, even a feeling of guilt and "inadequacy," kept them hidden in their fig trees. By addressing Zacchaeus by name, Jesus emboldened him to come down from his hiding place.

He surprised him by wanting to stay in his house even though He risked immediate slander and criticism: "He''s accepted the hospitality of a sinner!" There is no written account of Zacchaeus''s ever having joined Jesus''s disciples, nor of his having followed Jesus on His travels like the chosen twelve or the throng of other men and women. What we do know, however, is that he decided to change his life, and salvation came to his house. In our times, the church has been incapable of addressing its Zacchaeuses in like manner. I warned the politicians against something similar happening at the civic and political levels. While it was true that many people were still observing the new beginning of democracy in our country--maybe after a certain period of initial general euphoria--with curiosity and some eagerness, for various reasons they also had misgivings and a certain diffidence. But maybe many of them were subconsciously waiting for the moment when they would be addressed or invited directly by someone or something. How many politicians, who spent their time organizing their supporters and contending with opponents, were prepared to understand those Zacchaeuses, to take a sincere and respectful interest in them and "address them by name," talk to them, make their acquaintance? Maybe on account of that failure, many "tax collectors" didn''t change their lives, many wrongs were not righted, and many hopes were dashed. Zacchaeus may appear to some to be an incorrigible individualist, an "outsider"; where people are only too ready to line up in enthusiastic or angry ranks, he instinctively seeks a hiding place in the branches of a fig tree.

He doesn''t do so out of pride, as it might appear; after all, he is well aware of his "small stature" and his great failings, of his shortcomings vis-Æ-vis absolute postulates and challenges. Yet he is able and willing to abandon his privacy and his detachment if "addressed by name"--then, all of a sudden, he just might accept those absolute challenges and change his life. The only person capable of addressing Zacchaeus, however, is someone for whom those people hidden in the branches of a fig tree are not strangers or aliens--someone who doesn''t disdain them, who has concern for them, someone who can respond to what happens in their hearts and minds. There are plenty of Zacchaeuses in our midst. The fate of our world, our church, and society depends more than we are willing to admit on the extent to which these Zacchaeuses will be won over or not. I finished my meditation, but the story of Zacchaeus was still on my mind. I walked here and there through pre-Christmas Prague and strove to identify why it was that this particular passage had caught my imagination so strongly. And then I realized that this very story could help to achieve a clearer and deeper understanding of what I had long regarded subconsciously as my own particular mission and vocation.

In my pastoral work as a priest, but also in all my other fields of activity--my books and articles, university teaching, and the media--my aim has always been neither "converting the converted," nor caring for the orderly sheep of the flock, nor even engaging in never-ending polemics and disputes with opponents. I don''t think my chief vocation ought to be "mission" in the classical sense, if by that one means winning over as many people as possible to one''s own church flock or political persuasion. I feel that my chief purpose is to be an understanding neighbor for those who find it impossible to join the exultant crowds beneath the unfurled flags of whatever color, for those who keep their distance. I like Zacchaeuses. I think I have been given the gift of understanding them. People often construe the distance that Zacchaeuses maintain as an expression of their "superiority," but I don''t think they are right--things aren''t that simple. In my experience, it is more the result of shyness. In some cases, the reason for their aversion to crowds, particularly ones with slogans and banners, is that they suspect that the truth is too fragile to be chanted on the street.

Most of those people did not choose their place "on the margins" voluntarily. It could well be that some of them are also reticent because--like Zacchaeus--they are all too aware that their own house is not in order, and they realize, or at least suspect, that changes need to be made in their own lives. Maybe, unlike the unfortunate person in one of Jesus''s parables, they realize they are not properly attired for the wedding and therefore cannot take a seat among the guests of honor at the wedding feast.2 They are still on the journey, dusty and far from the goal. They are not yet "ready" to display themselves to others in the full light of day, maybe because they find themselves in a blind alley on their life''s journey. And yet they sense the urgent moment when something of importance passes by them. It has a force of attraction, as it had for Zacchaeus, who longed to set eyes on Jesus. But sometimes, as in Zacchaeus''s case, they hide their spiritual yearning with fig leaves--from others and sometimes from themselves too.

The only person capable of addressing Zacchaeus is someone who "knows his name" and knows his secret. Someone for whom this human type is not alien, who is capable of empathizing with the complex reasons for his reticence. It would seem that the only person truly capable of empathizing with the Zacchaeuses of our days is someone who once was, and to a certain extent still is, a Zacchaeus. People who feel most at home within the exultant crowds will probably find it hard to understand such a type. I once saw on the wall of a Prague subway station the inscription "Jesus is the answer," probably written by someone on the way back from some high-spirited evangelistic gathering. Yet someone else had aptly added the words: "But what was the question?" It reminded me of the comment made by the philosopher Eric Voegelin that the biggest problem for.