Sermon
Do you folks know the Sunday School song about “Wee Zacchaeus…?1 ”
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he….
Well I had never heard that song. So when the commentators I was listening too began to sing it, it was kind of sweet. Sweet, but really? Is that what we want to know Zacchaeus for, that he was short? Noooo. But if we start with a simple song, we can fill in the blanks as we grow older.
One of the interesting blanks, is that the word “short” used to describe Zacchaeus in this text, also could refer to social stature – i.e. not liked, not respected, hated, not welcome; more like lacking (in social stature). And from what we know about him, he was this kind of short. It cannot be overstated how hated tax collectors were. Zacchaeus was a Jew, and yet as tax collector he was collaborating with the Roman Empire in order to maintain the Empire's military and maintain the noblemen in Rome. He would have been a traitor to that very crowd. Zacchaeus was a tax collector (boo-hiss!), a chief tax collector! (boo-hiss!!) and as if it needed spelling out, the text throws in one last description – he's rich (BOO-HISS!). Whether in social standing or in his physical height, Zacchaeus was certainly short, and that would be an understatement.
If we had read the gospel of Luke up to this point in chapter 19, we could probably predict what we would read next.
Luke is full of places where lovers of money are chastised. The rich man appears in parables always as an example of rich power with no care for the average person. In Luke we find lines like, “There was a rich man who had a manager…” and “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen…” or about the rich young ruler who could not follow Jesus by giving away all that he had. Then there was the tax collector who appeared last week, who was judged by a bad guy, to be an even worse bad guy! Tax collectors don't look too good in the gospel of Luke because they weren't good in Jewish society. What comes after the description of Zacchaeus should be bad news for him.
In addition to the baggage that comes with being a tax collector, Zacchaeus also had to overcome two other social barriers in this story. As a man in his society, he should never be seen running. As a grown man in his society, he should never be seen climbing a tree. And yet, this rich chief tax collector ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a tree, just so he could see Jesus. Maybe he was cutting in line, maybe he was trying to get ahead of the threat Jesus could pose to his livelihood. We will never know his heart. It's kind of romantic to think that someone at the height of power having figured out how to beat the system and associate with the Roman's and get rich, even though he's a Jew would actually think to himself, “hey maybe this Jesus guy has something better to offer me than this good life that I have. Maybe I'll turn over a new leaf and stop being a part of this racket.” It's romantic to think that he would have the courage to do things like run and climb in front of other members of society, just so that he could go turn over this new leaf. The cynical 21st century person just scoffs at that. It's not just romantic, it's naïve.
Isn't that the Christian's dilemma in a nutshell.
Here we are in the text, one story away from Jesus' final arrival in Jerusalem. Indeed, at the end of chapter 19 that we are reading today, Jesus asks his disciples to go ahead into Jerusalem and untie the colt there that has never been ridden. This part of Luke comes at the end of Jesus' travels. Next step, suffering, denial, torture and finally death – only to rise again to life. Isn't that just a pie in the sky romantic crazy thing to believe that all of that is true? Isn't that naïve?
Here we are in real life, a few months away from celebrating the birth of this same Jesus, who came to turn everything on it's head; who was born of a virgin; who came to bring hope to the hopeless, food to the hungry, and life to those without life; Isn't that just a romantic notion, that all of that is true? Isn't that naïve to believe these things?
Yes it is! May lightning strike me! Our two biggest Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter are the product of events and stories that just seem too outrageous to be true. This is what Paul means when he says he is a “fool for Christ.” This is what people mean when they talk about the “scandal” of the Gospel. In worldly terms following Christ might seem naïve, we might seem like fools and the message to the world is scandalous. And yet…
The Bible and Christianity are not supposed to be scientific manuals and events full of truths like E=Mc2 They are full of truths like love above all else; hope beyond your imagination; grace as excessive and overflowing as anyone can experience; truths like miracles; the truth that God is bigger than our descriptions; truths like prayer works; truths like a real life man named Jesus who was human, had family, lived in a society with certain expectations and certain rules and certain flaws; truths that historians and linguists and archaeologists and theologians have studied all of the things that were factual about Jesus' lifetime.
The truth of our text for today is that Zacchaeus may have been a wee little man. He may have also been a horrible traitor to other Jews. There's some argument linguistically about whether Zacchaeus was responding to Jesus' coming to his home by finally being seen and only then promising to give half of his belongings to the poor and to re-pay anyone he defrauded four times as much. The other argument is that Zacchaeus only says this in response to the crowd grumbling as a defense of himself to them – these are things he has already been doing. Maybe this story is about being a rich complicit tax collector who still does good things. The truth of our text for today is that transformation happened. To Zacchaeus who will now change his ways. Or to the crowd who will now understand that people are more than they seem.
We have a few choices. Maybe they're all true. Zacchaeus responds to the presence of Christ by changing his ways. Or, the crowd witnesses Jesus being present even for those people who we don't think deserve it and is transformed into being less judgmental. Or, we who read this text are transformed by realizing that when Jesus sits with outcasts, we might be surprised to find who exactly is outcast. Rather than choosing who in the text is transformed, I suggest we ask ourselves if we are transformed.
When one is touched by Jesus, the unexpected happens. People run, people climb trees, people eat with strangers. We discover that people we least expect, are also children of Abraham.
Let's pray….
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1 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 when the Savior passed that way he looked up in the tree
And 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; And a very happy man was he!