THE STORY OF ZACCHAEUS LUKE 19:1-10

Our Wednesday morning Bible study held at Magruder Hospital café is one
of the most interesting and enjoyable that I have ever participated in. It is
very much unlike our recently completed Bible Blitz, in which I lectured for
an hour-and-a-half straight, with no break and very little time for
discussions or questions. That’s not the way I like to teach, but there was
so much material to cover in such a short period of time that we just had to
get it out there. I much prefer what happens on Wednesday mornings,
when we have free-wheeling discussions that probably will take us in
directions I never expect at all when I pull into the hospital parking lot. I
may have some general idea of how the discussions will go, or at least
what they will be about, but I think it is fair to say they are far more
participant-driven than me-driven so, honestly, I never know what is going
to happen, and I am more than fine with that. Occasionally, often, actually, I
take in copies of the weekly lectionary assignment that I expect to use as
the basis for my upcoming Sunday sermon. If all goes well we will talk
about the passage and I leave the discussion with greater understanding of
it, which will help me when I write the sermon, and the participants will
come in on Sunday morning having put in some thought on the sermon
topic. There are times when I’ll introduce the topic and tell the group, “Look,
you have to help me out there. There is nothing in this passage I find
compelling enough to build a sermon around.”
That happened this past Wednesday. I went into the class and we read the
story of Zacchaeus and I said something like, “OK, this is a nice, cute story,
but is there anything here a contemporary congregation might find
interesting? What do you see here?”

Those of us who grew up attending Sunday School classes, when we hear

about Zacchaeus, can’t help hearing in our heads the little song they taught
us in those classes. I could ask us to sing it and we could and we would,
but I have my reasons for not doing it. It goes like this:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

And a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree

For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way

He looked up in the tree and he said,

'Zacchaeus you come down, For I'm going to your house today!'

For I'm going to your house today!

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

But a happy man was he,

For he had seen the Lord that day

And a happy man was he;

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 And a very happy man was he.

That’s pretty much the whole story The song repeats what Luke told us
about Zacchaeus. What else is there to say? That and the fact that
whoever wrote that song turned something that was actually quite powerful
and significant into something cute, and I hatecute. When I see something
like a drawing of a fuzzy little kitten with eyes about eight times bigger than
any real kitten would ever have, with a look on its face that is saying
something like, “Pick me up and give me a hug and I’ll purr for you,” I feel
like somebody, somewhere, is trying to manipulate me, for some reason,
and it makes me want to throw up a little bit. And, I’m offended by the idea
that if a little critter is cute it’s somehow not as acceptable to throw it to
alligators as it would be if it were not cute. I’m talking about the little critter,
not the alligators. They most certainly are not cute and it would be perfectly
fine to throw them to something, but there is nothing to throw them to. And,
personally, I don’t even want to try. The point is that most of the time un-
cute is not as valuable as cute, and I think if we’re going to see cuteness in
anything we ought to see cuteness in everything. So, there.

Do you know what I’m saying? If you grew up singing about a wee little
man climbing a tree to get a better look at Jesus, then that’s the only image
you are ever going to have of this story, and after last Wednesday I now
see that this story is not cute. It is far more than a story of a wee little man,
climbing up in a sycamore tree, la-dee-da. Doing that with it is sort of like

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turning the story of Noah and his ark into a cute story of a man who looks
suspiciously like Santa Clause getting all those cute animals into his boat,
when in fact it is a horrendous story of massive death of everybody and
everything not on that ark. So, let’s be on the lookout for cute and let’s
crush it, especially if we find it in the Bible. If we find something in the Bible
and we think something cute is going on, we have probably missed the
whole point.

The story of Zacchaeus is decidedly not cute. The Wednesday morning

Bible study awakened me to that truth. We need to take a closer look at
what happened in this story. Let’s begin with a little geography lesson. The
land where Jesus lived and ministered was essentially divided into two
parts, Judea down south, where Jesus was born, and Galilee up north,
where he grew up. Those two areas were divided by Samaria, a land which
was once called the nation Israel which had been destroyed by the
Assyrians, who then carried most of the people away to be dispersed in
other lands. The land that had been Israel was then resettled by people
from other lands conquered by Assyria. The result was that the people in
Samaria were at best of mixed Jewish blood and held to a Judaism
compromised by other religions. The Jews, north and south, hated the
Samaritans, and when they had to travel one way or the other they would
actually walk around Samaria rather than through it, even though it added
two extra days of walking to the trip that would normally take three days if

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they went through Samaria. Sometimes Jesus walked directly through
Samaria, but this time apparently he did not.

Walking around Samaria involved walking on a road to the east of the

Jordan river, then into Jericho. It was a toll road. The toll takers were tax
collectors for the Roman empire. Rome’s tax collectors were Jewish, and
the deal was that Rome wanted a certain amount to be collected, and if the
collectors managed to collect more than what Rome expected, well, they
could consider it a commission and keep. The tax collectors, the toll takers,
were essentially thieves who ripped off the citizens of the land and could
become wealthy doing so. Since they were ripping off other Jews, they
were hated and despised. Zacchaeus was one of those. In fact, he was a
chief tax collector, and he was, indeed, rich. And he was despised. When
the people saw that Jesus was going to his house, they called Zacchaeus a
sinner, the worst thing they could think of to call him. Add to that the fact
that he was of short stature, whatever that might precisely mean. Maybe he
was very, very short, and perhaps had spent his whole life being ridiculed
for it, kids being as they are, and maybe that’s why he was willing to take a
job stealing from them. Maybe before they started hating him he hated
them. And, there he was, climbing a tree to get a better look. That’s
something kids might do, but not a grown man. Men only climb trees if
you’re going to pay them to lop off some limbs or if they’re hoping to kill a
deer. Still, there he was, a little man climbing a tree. I don’t know. Maybe it
is kind of cute.

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I understand the temptation Zacchaeus faced. A couple of years ago Jill
and I were in London. As you know, one of the things you’re supposed to
do while you’re there is go watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham
Palace. So, as people who always do what we’re supposed to do, we went
over there. It’s a nice house. I’m sure the changing of the guard was an
incredible sight, but all I saw was a big group of people crammed together
trying to see through a gate. I couldn’t see a thing that might be happening
beyond that. As it happened there were trees there around where I was
and, if you can believe it, they were sycamore trees. I thought, “If ever,
here’s my chance to do my Zacchaeus impression,” but I didn’t do it.
Zacchaeus was willing to risk the ridicule. I wasn’t. I could just imagine
people saying, “Hey look! There’s some old dude over there climbing a
tree!” And everybody would be laughing, taking pictures. Even the guards
might have even stopped whatever it was they were doing over there and
walked over to get a look.

The rabbi who was creating such a stir in those days was in the area, doing
and saying all kinds of amazing things, was about to pass by. From the
ground level Zacchaeus would never be able to see anything, with all those
big people standing in front of him. So, climb a tree, Zacchaeus. He had
nothing to lose at that point. They already hated him and had been
laughing at him all his life. (By the way, in case you’re interested, there is a
big, old sycamore tree in Jericho they call the “Zacchaeus tree,” and tests

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say it is about 2,000 years old, so maybe it is. Who really knows? If only he
had carved his name on the tree. “Zacchaeus loves Rachel,” that kind of
thing.” That would have been helpful. But it apparently didn’t happen.)

So, there he was, perched on his tree limb. His ploy had worked. He could
see the exact route Jesus would follow. He had the best seat in the house.
And then, there was Jesus, headed right towards his tree. He then walked
right under Zacchaeus’s limb. And he stopped. And looked up. Right at
Zacchaeus. Did he think this was a pretty funny scene, a wee little man
perched up in a sycamore tree? Did Jesus think this was cute?

Jesus called him out by name. “Zacchaeus! Come down. I’m going to stay
at your house today.” How did Jesus know his name? Was it supernatural
knowledge? Did Jesus automatically know everyone’s name? Had he been
through there before and had met Zacchaeus, maybe even stayed at his
house before? Jesus did have a habit of hanging out with the less
desirables, like Zaccheaus. Or did someone warn Jesus, “Listen, when you
get to Jericho watch out for this weasely little guy named Zacchaeus. Wow,
what a snake.” However it happened, it was an amazing moment for
Zacchaeus. He was, no doubt, as the saying goes, gobsmacked. (I don’t
get to use that word often enough.)

What is really going on here? What is the backstory? First, maybe, we

need to ask why it was so important for Zacchaeus to see Jesus. Was it

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just a celebrity sighting, or was it something more? It couldn’t have been
religious hunger on Zacchaeus’ part. He had turned his back on his people
and their religion years ago. Or, maybe the isolation, the hatred, the ridicule
had begun to wear him down. Maybe even the wealth was no longer
satisfying. Maybe he had found himself saying to himself, “I would give
everything I own if only I could go back, make things up with my people, be
part of the community again. If only I could…go home!”

Jesus not only knew his name, he knew who he was. He understood his
struggle, he knew his deepest longing. He recognized him, he singled him
out, he offered him special treatment – Zacchaeus, the richest and the
neediest person in Jericho. Jesus said, “I must stay at your house today.
Not at the houses of the scribes and the teachers, or the righteous citizens
of this place. Your house.” Something immediately happened within
Zacchaeus. Maybe he saw for the first time just how in such vile fashion he
had lived his life, stealing from his own people at the behest of a hated
foreign invader. Maybe he understood how many lives he had damaged by
taking money from them they could ill-afford. How many houses had been
foreclosed because of him, how my college educations by-passed? Maybe
his guilt had become burdensome and maybe he saw this as the only
chance he might ever have to make up for it all. “Look,” he said, “half of my
possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of
anything, I will pay back four times as much.” I don’t know how rich he was,
I don’t know just how much he had stolen from his people, but that sounds

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like a lot of money to me. It sounded like a lot to Jesus, too. It must have,
for Jesus said an amazing thing. He said, “Today salvation has come to
this house.”

Salvation! Was Jesus saying that because Zacchaeus had given away a lot
of his money that suddenly he was not going to hell, but could from then on
look forward to heaven? That’s what I was taught growing up that salvation
meant. Jesus was the Savior. Through him you could “get saved,” which
only meant one thing – escaping the devil’s fiery hell so you could go to
heaven and be with Jesus behind the pearly gates on streets of gold.
That’s what it was all about. It was the only thing that mattered. But is that
all this life is about, preparing for what comes next? Did salvation not mean
anything for the here and now? It took me a long time to find an answer. I
was a student at a theological seminary when somebody explained to me
what salvation actually meant – which is probably the best reason I can
think of for actually being in a theological seminary, to learn that. I
remember the moment when a professor told me that salvation was not
simply an eternal fire insurance policy. Salvation meant completeness,
wholeness, health. That’s what Jesus said had come to Zacchaeus –
completeness, wholeness. He had become the complete person he had
been created to be, the person God had in mind for Zacchaeus to be. No
doubt all that has implications for whatever is to come, but it certainly has
implications for this life here and now as well. We’re not told what
happened to Zacchaeus after that encounter with Jesus, but, even if it
didn’t happen immediately, it must have had impact on his standing in the

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community. He had made restitution. He had helped the poor. He had
made restitution to those he had defrauded, with big interest. More
importantly, he had become a better man. Maybe he became a fair tax
collector. Maybe he had even put tax collecting behind him altogether.
Maybe he was no longer hated, no longer ridiculed. Maybe, maybe, after all
those years he had truly come home.

That is the salvation that Jesus still offers us. It is fullness of life, life as God
intends us to live it. It will not mean life will become perfect and easy, with
us enjoying the goodies on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We will still have
struggles and trials and difficulties. Jesus himself said, “In this world you
will have tribulations.” But in the midst of them all we can have the
assurance that, like Zacchaeus, we are known, we are living the best life
we can live in the midst of our trials, and that we have, finally, indeed,
arrived at home.

I think when all is said and done, that is the invitation Jesus extended to
Zacchaeus and still extends to us: “Come home…come home.”