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 Luke 19:1-10 

 

Jesus and Zacchaeus 

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, 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.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” 

 
 

Sermon

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Today’s Gospel story stars a very familiar tax collector, especially if you grew up singing church songs. He has a delightful one of his very own: 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man 

A wee little man was he 

And he climbed to the top of the sycamore tree 

To see what he could see 

And as our 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! 

I’m going to your house today! 

 

A jaunty little tune for sure, you’ll remember it, and you’ll remember the details of the story—most of them, anyway. It’s not entirely accurate, though. 

 

If we grew up hearing this story in Sunday school, we were taught this interpretation of that detail about our buddy Zacchaeus—that he was a Short King. If this story were turned into a feature length film, we’d see Danny DeVito hugging a tree branch. But, not so fast. 

 

The text tells us that Zacchaeus couldn’t see Jesus over the crowd because he was “short in stature”. This leads him to go climb the tree. But, wait a minute, even if Zacchaeus wasn’t exactly the Andre the Giant of his day, surely there were other short people in the crowd that day, maybe some petite women or young children? And yet, Zacchaeus is the only person who climbs a tree to “get a better look”. And I’m guessing the tree doesn’t so much give him a boost as it allows him to see what he wants while obscuring himself from view behind branches and leaves. Maybe Zacchaeus was one of us, The Vertically Challenged, but I’m guessing Luke meant more that Zacchaeus had been so weighed down by the shame of his life that he felt very small, like his past crushed his spine and turned him into something you’d step right over and move on. His status was short. 

 

He was a very unpopular man, and you can understand why he thought he’d be better off cradling some sycamore than facing his neighbors. He was a tax collector by profession. We talked about those dudes last week, but these guys, by and large, were Palestinian by birth, knew and resented the Roman occupation of their land, but decided getting in bed with the enemy would be worth it if they could get rich. Whatever they could scare their neighbors into paying for taxes beyond what they actually owed was theirs to keep. So they defrauded those who knew and loved them, paid the principle to an army that would surely crush them in due time, and then sat alone in their nice homes, surrounded by money but hating themselves. They were their society’s payday loan sharks, their slumlords, their bail bounty hunters, their ambulance-chasing lawyers, their NRA lobbyists. 

 

Jesus was Zacchaeus’ neighbor, separated by only a few towns. He may not have heard the name before today, but he knew exactly what he was dealing with. He was also a poor guy. He was uniquely suited to understand suffering. But while he was down on the ground talking to all the people Zacchaeus ripped off, he had the compassion and heart to look up, and see Zacchaeus. And not just to notice there was a grown man climbing a tree and walk away, but to quickly figure out exactly what forces chased Zacchaeus up there. If you live in abject poverty, as Jesus’ closest friends and neighbors did, and so did your parents, and their parents before them, would you pass the same fate to your children, or, if desperation and temptation hit you at the same time like two waves in the ocean, would you justify hurting your neighbors because it might feed your babies? Zacchaeus is human, too, and has every potential to be saved from this living hell.  

 

Zacchaeus, loathed by his neighbors as a con artist and ridiculed as a sinner, was small. His neighbors were no better off, sick, injured, widowed, orphaned, homeless, starving, cast out of their temples as impure, and without hope. That last point is a force that can find us anywhere and squish us like grapes. No matter who you are—poor as a church mouse or top 1%, any race, any gender identity, any occupation, any past, any amount of social support—if you lose hope, nothing will make you feel smaller. Jesus meets us, wherever we are, whether we’re curled up in the dust on the ground or fighting with a family of robins for branch space, and he gives us hope. 

 

The first step to having that hope, the hope that makes you feel big again, in connection. Jesus calls out Zacchaeus in front of everyone and forces him out of the tree. Down on the ground, Zacchaeus has to come face to face with his neighbors, and his past. Down on the ground, Zacchaeus’ neighbors can neither ignore him nor yell insults at a distance. They have to confront him and work out their anger. This is very painful for everyone involved, but until you have brutal honesty you can’t have a relationship. Jesus facilitates reconciliation. Zacchaeus is so shocked and moved that Jesus would even talk to him that he immediately figures out what he must do—he has to donate his excess wealth and make reparations. Jesus, so eager to become his closest friend, is also “that friend” who invites themselves over to your house, so get that pull out sofa ready, Zacchaeus. And just like that, in one short conversation, the distribution of wealth in this community is balanced, painful conversations have paved the way for regained trust, Jesus has softened hardened hearts, and the Short Kings feel tall. 

 

We will all have days that make us feel small. And today may be that kind of day for you. When you find yourself feeling small, do what Zacchaeus did: talk to Jesus, and if you’re really bad off let him couch surf at your place. Apologize to those you’ve hurt, make amends and reparations in all ways you can, and forgive yourself. You have abundant worth in the Sacred. 

 

On the days that you need a little more than that, I’m going to share with you a quote that you’ll also find in this month’s newsletter article, from 14th Century Christian mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich: 

 

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.” 

 

Even when we feel as small as hazelnuts, God makes, loves, and keeps us, and always will. 

 

Amen.