| July 15, 2007
You are welcome to reflect on this message
Our text today is a story told only by Luke, about Jesus and a misfit, who in income was well above normal, but in stature was far below it. In few other biblical stories are we able to see sin, repentance, and redemption captured so memorably. This is the last narrative before Luke’s passion story begins, featuring his theme of hospitality and table fellowship.
Jericho is the world's oldest city, famous for it's walls. It’s an oasis with green palm trees surrounded by brown desert just north of the Dead Sea. It's easy to imagine Jesus and his disciples pausing there to rest before trekking up the steep, windy road to Jerusalem. Near the marketplace stands an old sycamore tree. Under its shade a tax collector works at his money-changing booth. As Jesus approaches, a crowd gathers. So for safety's sake, and perhaps novelty, the shrewd bureaucrat shinnies up the tree, dangling his feet above the street below. Zacchaeus had to make certain he didn't get caught in the crowd, for fear that he wouldn't come out alive, given his lack of popularity among the locals. Jericho was no “Garden of Eden” for him. Yeah, he got rich there. But it didn't make him happy. We have to learn the hard way that money doesn’t guarantee happiness. There's too many things money can't buy.
But because Zacchaeus signed-on to a lousy business, he was estranged and shunned by his neighbors. You can buy power but not friendship. You can get sex with money. But not love. You can live in a nice house, but that doesn’t make it a home. You can make a living but not really live. So Zacchaeus had it all, except that which he desired most. Because of his hunger for self-respect and appreciation, Zacchaeus “sought to see Jesus,” and climbed up a sycamore to get above the crowd. We aren't told why, other than being “short.” But I'm guessing something beyond his physical stature caused Zacchaeus to climb. Maybe it was curiosity. He'd heard stories about how this guy was different: “He received sinners and ate with them.” And he noticed that his fellow-tax collector, Levi, had become on of his followers. So a man with a lot of money but no friends was eager to see Jesus. Verse 3 is awkward, “For he sought to see who Jesus was.” How can you see who somebody is? You can see them. But to see who they are takes more than physical eyes.
That's the dialogue. In it we see restitution. But more importantly, what the story says about conversion. I think I know why Zacchaeus climbed up the tree. He needed somebody to look up to. I don’t know anybody who doesn't need somebody to look up to. But Luke throws a curve and has Jesus is looking up to Zacchaeus! “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said, `Zacchaeus, come down!'” Jesus couldn’t have found anybody lower on the totem pole to look up to! But he wasn't too good to elevate a sinner. Zacchaeus’ name means “pure,” but he'd lived too long for innocence. He made a living ripping-off his neighbors by over-taxing them, raking a little off the top for himself, collaborating with the hated Romans. He was considered to be a traitor and not a “true son of Abraham.” Yeah, he’s the lowest of the low. But that’s right where Luke wants us; the most difficult case you can imagine. Jesus is even up to changing a guy like Zacchaeus. All because he looked up to one that everybody else looked down on, called him by name and invited himself to lunch.
Look closely at what Jesus did here, because it paved the way for a bad person to turn out good. Isn't that what church is about? This is evangelism at its best, as demonstrated by the world's greatest Evangelist. Luke is telling us this is how people are converted. And it all began with some decent acceptance of a man nobody but Jesus would accept. Well the Jerichites were shocked at this turn of events. Try to understand how odious it felt to Jesus’ contemporaries, to see a religious teacher share a table with a despised agent of foreign oppression. His openness to Zacchaeus stunned them; angered them! Instead of Jesus’ unpredictable grace leading to applause, they “murmured.” They thought God was on their side, not those we don't approve of. But I don’t know why they’re whining, they got a tax refund!
Sooner or later everybody has to settle this issue of what others think of us. Being other-directed takes a toll. It’ll have you dancing to all kinds of jigs. And nobody can say that it doesn't matter. It can cost your job; it can ruin a president or a principal or a preacher. But according to Jesus, of all the factors which determine what matters in life, the least important is what people say about us. Jesus was not just self-directed, but God-centered. So he just let the religious gossip roll off his back and welcomed the company of Zacchaeus anyway. I want you to see these two guys looking up to each other. Zacchaeus' conversion started when Jesus dared to look up to him. But it continued when Zacchaeus began to look up to Jesus. “Lord, I'm throwing a garage sale today full of bargains. Everything’s half price and anybody who was over-charged gets a refund – four times over!”
This is Luke’s story of “the rich man and Lazarus” retold, with a different ending. Does it not also suggest that the closer people feel to God, the better they feel about themselves? And it appears that an active faith in Christ can even repair the damage done to us by others?
I’m sure you’re aware of all the people around us in Zacchaeus' shoes? They may not be perched up one of our elm trees, but they're every bit as alienated. People everywhere are longing for a little respect. Some are growing older and feel neglected. Others are excluded because they’re poor or different. The young mostly feel out of touch, as they always have. Women are second class in some circles. Countless people are “harassed and tossed about, like sheep without a shepherd; the fields are ripe for the harvest, but the laborers are few.” Some try to divide the world into “saved” and “lost.” But aren't we all in some state of lostness; or incompleteness; in need of being whole?
That being the case, it seems to me the most genuine way to evangelize is not to go up to somebody like Zacchaeus and say, “Brother, are you saved?” Or leave them with a cheap tract. Jesus didn't do that. To me it’s far more appealing to act in the tradition of the Jericho story and show a little hospitality and acceptance of the misfits; who need somebody to look up to. But churches are so accustomed to looking down on folks, that it's unnatural when you find one that looks up to them. Jesus said, “the fields are white unto harvest.” Teeming with thousands in sight of our steeple, who never darken the church’s door. Could it be because they instinctively feel church is not their kind of place? But we're never so far from salvation as when we deceive ourselves into thinking we don’t need it. That we’re above folks like Zacchaeus? In this story about a man regaining his self-respect, we see what a Christian is: one who looks up to Jesus. There’s something about Jesus that made those closest to him look up to him. I’m betting, it’s because he first looked up to them.
Wouldn’t you like to see the “Church Growth” crowd with all of the religious gimmicks and hi-pressure tactics, interview Jesus? “What's your method of evangelism, Lord?” “Oh nothing much, I just look up to people!” “Is that all?” they respond in disappointment. Nothing about hell or a rapture to scare ‘em into it? “Nah I have no system; no magic other than accepting the unacceptable.”
The Religious Right smugly boasts of how they've found God. But the truth’s the other way around. The Gospel according to Luke teaches that in Christ, God finds us! In all kinds of places too: like up a sycamore tree, in an upper room, at a graveyard. Places where God finds us. But the story concludes with Jesus “seeking and finding the lost.” Let’s be clear about who’s doing the finding. Biblical lostness doesn't mean somebody’s damned, doomed, or unsaved. Just that they're alienated and unhappy. Or it could just mean that they're out of place or rejected.
And notice that Jesus didn't atone for Zacchaeus' sin in this account. He couldn't, ‘cause he hadn't died yet! On that day, Jesus accepted a sinner and Zacchaeus atoned (made up for) his own sins. Evidently that’s good enough for God, because “that day, salvation came to his house!” I don’t know what you do with that. But all I gotta say is, Jesus is always doing for people what he did for Zacchaeus, who is a microcosm of what can happen to anyone.
Even on his dying day, Jesus had people looking up to him. Three men were crucified in Jerusalem. One on Jesus’ right looked up to him and wanted to be remembered. Jesus said, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise!” That’s what made Jesus so great: his acceptance of outcasts. And that's what makes a church great too. Knowing that there’s a Baptist church that won’t give up on us moves people. Enough to bring a tax collector out of a sycamore tree and rejoin the human race. And for the second time in biblical history the walls of Jericho came tumbling down!
That day Jesus had dinner with the sinner, we know neither the menu nor the conversation. All we know is that Zacchaeus came away an elevated man. That's what always happens anytime you muster the courage to take an honest look at yourself and quit yes-butting your sins or blaming others. How liberating to say goodbye to our denials!
Zacchaeus' life would never be the same after Jesus treated him like somebody and said, “Today, salvation has come to this house!” Today can be just such a day for any of God’s daughters and sons, who on this secular hillside, continue to look up to Jesus. If I've helped you to look up to Jesus, even a little bit in our worship, then I've accomplished my purpose. |
