Some people get called down from a tree. Others get invited off their high horse. Whatever it takes. (sermon from Sun, Oct 30, 2022)

Opening Thought:

Yesterday, like every Saturday, I was at a coffee shop to finish up work on the sermon.  I was at my usual table in a corner where I can work in relative peace. 

Yesterday, though, a half-dozen people moved in at a cluster of tables near me, and within minutes I didn’t like them.  Their loud voices (they seemed loud to me), their expensive work-out outfits, their air of self-confidence, their talk about investments and property and capital and control, told me everything I needed to know about them.

I didn’t like them.  I felt put upon.  Maybe I was a little bit jealous of them – of what they had, that I didn’t.  And I wanted them to leave.

 

How much of life these days – on both big and little scale – from coffee shops to national politics, shapes up that way?  With group after group quickly and even angrily defining themselves and others as enemies, as good guys and bad guys, as totally right and totally wrong.  Group after group climbing up on their high horse to set the world -- and set others, right.  

 

And when we do that, who’s right?  Is anyone?

Reading:  Luke 19:1-10 

In the reading today, Jesus and his disciples are drawing near to Jerusalem.  They are attracting crowds along the way.  Many expect Jesus, once he reaches the Holy City, to establish the kingdom of God on earth.  Soon, they believe, the sinners in charge of the world will be thrown down, and the saints who suffer oppression will finally be able to enjoy all the good that God intends for them.

In the reading, mention is made of a chief tax collector whom Jesus meets along the way.  A tax collector was typically a Jewish citizen who chose to work for the Empire.  He collected the heavy taxes imposed by Rome to maintain its hold over the people, and Rome was happy enough to let the tax collectors add their own percentage as well on top of the tax, to line their own pockets.  No wonder the collectors were despised as betrayers of their own people.

And someone so good at it that he became a chief tax collector, would be the first one the people would like to see done away with in the kingdom of God.

[As Jesus drew near Jerusalem] he entered Jericho and was passing through town.  There was a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but, being a short man, he couldn’t because of the crowd.  So, he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. 

When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down at once.  I must stay in your home today.” So, Zacchaeus came down at once, happy to welcome Jesus.

Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor.  And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”

Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham.  And the Son of Man – the Truly Human One, came to seek and save the lost.”

Reflection 

It’s such a simple story.

Jesus is coming to town.  A crowd of followers starts to gather along the route.  A crooked, little cheat of a man tries to join them and get close to the front, but they turn him away.   Zacchaeus runs on ahead, climbs into a tree overlooking the road.  And when Jesus gets there he looks up at the despised little man, and says, “Zacchaeus, come down.  I want to have lunch today at your place.”

People start grumbling.  But as Zacchaeus comes down, he tells Jesus he repents of his crookedness, that he will pay back what he’s stolen from people, and he will be a different man.  Jesus embraces him as a brother in the faith.  Zacchaeus is now in.  And the lesson is that the worst of sinners can be saved, and when they repent and become good like us, it’s up to us to welcome them into our circle.

Not a bad lesson, as far as it goes.

But there are three little details in the way the story is written, that suggest the point of the story may go even farther than that. 

One, which I learned only this week but which has been there all along to be known and taken note of, is that the name “Zacchaeus” means “pure” or “innocent.”

Really?  He’s a tax collector!  And throughout the Gospel the tax collector is presented as a stereotypical bad guy – a crook and a cheat – a willing agent of the empire in Rome – a colluder with the enemy and a betrayer of his own people – lowest of the low.  How can such a man be called Pure or Innocent?  Especially by Jesus, who’s supposed to be able to see not just the external appearance, but into the heart of each person?

Is Jesus using his name sarcastically, as a way of catching Zacchaeus’ attention, and goading him a little bit to consider how wrongly he’s living his life?  Or does he know something about Zacchaeus – does he see something in him, that others don’t? 

A second detail in the story maybe helps answer that question.  It’s a grammatical point, easily overlooked but critical.  I’m indebted to Rev. Anneke Oppewal, a minister in the Australian Uniting Church, and a more diligent Greek scholar than me, for this, and also for the third detail that follows. 

This second point has to do with what’s called the future present tense of a verb that when used of some action, suggests that the action is already happening in the present moment, and will continue to happen indefinitely into the future. 

It’s a very special use of a verb. It’s used in the story of Zacchaeus, and used only once – when Zacchaeus tells Jesus that half of his possessions he will give to the poor, and when he has defrauded anyone of anything, he will pay back four times as much.  A way of acting referred to in the future present tense. 

Which means, in response to the crowd grumbling about Jesus wanting to spend time with such a bad guy as they think Zacchaeus is, he may be saying, “Lord, look … I don’t know if you know this or not … I know they don’t … but half of my possessions I’ve begun giving to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much.  I’ve been doing this for a while … and plan to keep on.”

Now, the way the story is written, Zacchaeus may already have known a bit about Jesus before he arrived in town, and wanted to take this opportunity to see him in real life.  Had he maybe heard of the way Jesus was changing people’s lives all around the province, and from the way it struck him he had begun to change his ways as well?  And was his desire to see Jesus as he passed through town, a desire to put a face to the name, and to find out more about the way of life he was already starting to act out without fanfare and under the radar of the townspeople around him?

And had Jesus maybe already heard about this tax collector in Jericho named Zacchaeus, who was starting to show signs of being changed in some way?  Who was helping out some of the poor in the town, and actually giving money back to people he had defrauded?  In other Gospel stories – like the ones about Jesus making arrangements with folks ahead of time for a donkey he could use to ride into Jerusalem, and a quiet, secret place to share the Passover, it seems there’s a pretty good network of contacts and a grapevine of underground kingdom-of-God info that Jesus has at his disposal.  So is it possible that he already had in his mind that while he was in Jericho, he wanted to meet this Zacchaeus, and help him grow – and maybe grow more open and public, in the new way of living he seemed to be embarked on?

Which brings me to the third point in the way the story is told.  In the Greek, Zacchaeus is described as “diminished in stature.”  We assume this means he was short.  Which explains why he had to climb the tree to see over other peoples’ heads.

But the word can also mean diminished in other ways – in reputation, in social standing, in public acceptance.  Does the word refer also to the way Zacchaeus was judged and ostracized, put down and kept out, a victim of prejudice and false assumptions based on his job – guilty by association and public image?

And that because Jesus knew something else and something deeper about him – about Zacchaeus’ deep-down, hidden heart, and about the pure desire and innocent longings he was starting to feel about doing the right and good thing for others, that Jesus was able to reach out to him as a beloved child of God, a faithful son of Abraham, and a dear and valued servant of the kingdom of God on earth?

And … and maybe this is the point of the story, to suddenly turn the tables on the supposedly and apparently good people crowded all round him?  To challenge them – in a way they never expected, to see things differently and see themselves differently, as they come to see Zacchaeus and their judgement of him, differently?

Which brings me to me.

Do you remember the group of people I mentioned before the reading of the Zacchaeus story?  The ones who moved into my space yesterday at the coffee whop, and who I wished weren’t there?  The easy judgement I formed of them?  How I so quickly saw them and me as living in different worlds?

The way things played out, as I couldn’t help but overhear bits and pieces of their conversation, is that I realized I was hearing them talking about preparing to run next Sunday in the Marathon of Hope.  That’s why they were in their work-out outfits.  And that's why they were at the coffee shop.  They had all come back from separate training runs.  And now they were talking about meeting and helping each other in the run next week.  Because, it turns out, they like to run for, and give to charities and causes that help make the world a better place, that do something good for others, that help raise the lot of the poor and the needy. 

\Which raises a few questions for me. 

One, is how (and how much) am I like the crowd around Jesus, judging others by appearance and how different they are from what I expect faithful living to look like?  Judging people guilty by association and stereotype and first impression, rather than really getting to know them.  Knowing their heart.  Knowing them as God does. 

Two, is whether – and how (and how much), I myself am like Zacchaeus?  A person with a heart that at its inner core is pure and innocent in its desire to be good and do good for others, but which is overlain with other stuff.  A person who is on the way – who has made a start towards living out the pure and innocent desire within, but still is only on the way.  Who really needs to see Jesus to put a face to the idea.  Who needs to welcome Jesus into his home to be helped to grow in the good way.  And who needs to be part – and be willing to take part in, a wider family of faith than I have known and taken a place in so far, to be encouraged and helped to grow more openly and publicly into the kind of person I can be, and most deeply want to be.

It's really quite amazing how tending to, and following up on the little details of the story – someone else’s as well as my own, and especially where I really am in any story that involves Jesus, can make all the difference in the world.