Zacchaeus was a wee little man...

Luke 19:1-10

Is anyone else singing “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he!”? 

This is a well known text; one many of us heard and sung as young children.  It is so well known that there is a story circulating around Columbia Theological Seminary that Tom Long taught preaching at CTS in Atlanta, he began his class by asking students to prepare a sermon on Zacchaeus because it was so familiar and he thought it would be an easy place for new preaching students to start. Many of the students over the years served the same rural churches.  One day Columbia Seminary received a letter from one of the churches saying. "We really do appreciate your service to us in providing preachers, but is there anyone there who can preach on anything other than Zacchaeus?”

I don’t know if it’s because of the silly song or if it’s because it’s such a funny image to think of Zacchaeus climbing a sycamore tree to see Jesus, but it is definitely one of those Bible stories that people seem to remember.  But Luke didn’t just write it because it was a funny sweet story, he wrote it because it epitomized what he felt the purpose of Jesus’ ministry was:  Seeking out and finding the lost – no matter who or where they are.

To set the context, Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem.  The journey to the cross had begun.  From city to city they walked.  As they walked through the dusty streets of Jericho they began to attract a large crowd.  Among the crowd was Zacchaeus – chief tax collector – not just a tax collector but head of the tax collectors, boss of all the tax collectors, someone who had made his living taking money from his fellow Jews, keeping some for himself, and handing the rest over to the despised Roman government.  And not only had he taken money from his fellow Jews, his own people but he also took money from the other tax collectors.  My bet is that there was not one Jewish person who was happy to see Zacchaeus.  But like everyone else, Zacchaeus had heard about Jesus and like everyone else in the city good old Zach wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  The text doesn’t say or even allude to the idea that Zacchaeus wanted to be transformed or saved by Jesus.  It doesn’t say that Zach, like many others, wanted Jesus to heal him.  He certainly wasn’t thinking Jesus would invite himself to his house!  If anything, I’d think Zacchaeus, because of all the trouble he’s caused for the Jewish people, wanted to avoid being seen by Jesus.  If anything, he simply wanted to see who this Jesus was so that HE could stay out of Jesus’ way and avoid being accused of being greedy and stealing from Jesus’ people.  

So, Zacchaeus avoids the crowd running ahead and climbs a sycamore tree.  This way, not only will he be able to see Jesus as he passes by but Zacchaeus will also be hidden – out of the sight of Jesus and all the people he has spent his career stealing from.   

But things don’t pan out exactly as Zacchaeus planned.  When Jesus gets to the tree he stops and calls out to him.  “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house tonight!”  And this is where for me, the story gets really baffling.

What baffles me is Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus inviting himself over!  The text says that Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him.  I don’t get that.  Here was a man who had made his fortune stealing from his own Jewish brothers and sisters and yet, for some reason, when Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, tells him to come down from the tree because he’s planning on hanging out with him that night Zach just scurries down that tree welcoming him!   I mean, there is no suspicion, no questioning, no arguing, no “I didn’t do it!  I didn’t steal their money!  I earned it fair and square!”  There’s nothing on Zacchaeus’ part – simply an “Okay, great!  Come on over!”

I don’t get it.  In fact, if I’m honest, it’s a little too “fairy-tale ending” for me.  Like Luke was just trying to make up a nice story.  And it gets worse.  Not only is Zacchaeus totally fine with Jesus inviting himself over to his house, but in the next breath something happens to Zach and he pledges to give half his possessions to the poor and to pay back anyone he has defrauded 4x’s as much as he originally stole from them – even when Roman law said he only had to pay back 3x’s as much.  

Could it really have happened this way?  Was Luke exaggerating when he wrote this story?  Could Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector, a greedy man, a man who had reached the top of his profession by working for the enemy, who had everything money could buy, really be this receptive to Jesus?  Something happened when Jesus called his name.  

Sometimes it’s surprising who is receptive to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

In verse 10 Jesus makes a statement in which he pretty much sums up the entire Gospel of Luke, expressing the heart of his ministry in this one statement.  Talking to Zacchaeus and the crowd, he says, “Today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.  Zacchaeus, despised, greedy, dishonest Zacchaeus, is a son of Abraham too, he is a child of the covenant, included in God’s grace, a beloved member of God’s family.  Jesus is for everyone – and Jesus is not content waiting for people to come to him.  He came to SEEK OUT and save the lost.

I think the last time I was here I read a quote from one of author, Anne Lamott’s books.  Well, today I have another story from good ol’ Annie.  In Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies  she tells the story about her encounter with Jesus.  Anne was someone who, like Zacchaeus, was not looking for an encounter with Jesus – at least she was not aware that she was looking for an encounter with Jesus.  In the days leading up to this account in Traveling Mercies she had been finding herself drawn to a church – almost like Zacchaeus was drawn to catching a glimpse of Jesus - but only for the music.  Not the sermon.  She didn’t want to hear anything about Jesus.  And she definitely didn’t want to be seen in this church.  Like Zacchaeus, she really wanted nothing to do with Jesus – and she was quite vocal about this.  Yet Jesus sought her out.  At the point Jesus seeks Annie out she is at the lowest point of her life.  She has just had an abortion and spends the week afterwards in her houseboat on a solitary drinking and drugging binge.  She starts to bleed heavily and is too disgusted with herself to seek help.  She writes:

After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my [dead] father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there--of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed utterly an impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die."

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with.

Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then, everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling--and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there for a minute, and then I hung my head and said, "I quit." I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in."

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.

This is the Gospel.  This is the Good News.  Jesus, sitting in the dark corner of our room when we are at our lowest, when we are so disgusted with ourselves we can’t pray, we can’t even think.  And then continuing to pursue us – seeking us out – no matter how lost we are, and no matter how hard we think we want to stay lost.  This is Gospel.  This is Good News.  Jesus stopping beneath the tree in which we have hidden ourselves and calling our name.  

See something happened when Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house.  Perhaps it was that someone finally showed interest in Zacchaeus – not interest in his money, but interest in him.  Perhaps it was because Zacchaeus finally felt that he was loved – even though he had done all these horrible things in his life.  Something happened in that conversation when Jesus sought out Zacchaeus and met him face to face – Zach was changed.  The prodigal son was home, he had been found.

Churches today – our church, the PC(USA) included, tend to have a “come to us” approach.  We are really good at putting “Everyone Welcome” signs outside the church.  “Visitors Wecome!” thousands of advertisements proclaim.  And we’re really good at welcoming people once they walk through our doors.  As soon as they walk through our doors we’ll go right up and greet them, show them around, invite them back.  

But Jesus doesn’t wait for people to walk through the doors.  Jesus is about SEEKING people out.   Jesus meets people where they are in their daily activities, going about their daily business – most of the time when they least expect it.  Matthew was sitting at his tax collector office.  Peter was out fishing.  The woman at the well was drawing the daily water for her family.  Paul was on his way to a meeting in Damascus.  Jesus doesn’t just stay in one place, doesn’t build himself a temple or a synagogue, or a church, and say, “Come to me.”  Jesus travels.  He goes to people.  Sure, he invites people to come to him, to follow him.  But first he seeks those people out – as he sought out Zacchaeus all the way up in that tree – and they are transformed by knowing him.

My question is, do we do this?  Do we actively seek people out?  Our church is very active in reaching out to those who are obviously in need, those who go through the proper venues of receiving help.  Volunteer Ministries, KARM, Living Waters for the World, etc…but what about those people who may not look like they are in need?  Do we meet people where they are – and I don’t mean meet them by way of a billboard – but do we meet them where they are, in the bars, in the restaurants, clubs, workplace, gym, in the house right next door to our own, on the college campus?  

I hear more people bemoaning the fact that the PC(USA) membership is declining.  I have to wonder though what would happen if we could put aside all our traditions, rituals, our churchy code words and doctrines and meet people where they are.  This might mean we have to hang out in some places we’d rather not hang out.  This might mean we have to learn to speak another language and even perhaps do church another way.  

Many people did not grow up going to church, and even if they did, they are no longer as tied to a particular denomination as they once might have been.  That means that we can’t count on people recognizing the Presbyterian cross (you know, the one with the flames) and thinking, “Oh yeah, that’s the Presbyterian Church, I should go there!”    So what are we, as followers of The Ultimate Seeker going to do about it?  Will we put out our “Welcome Visitors” sign and hope that they’ll enter our doors?  Pray that they’ll come in so that they can experience the same warmth and love, the same sense of community, the same love of God in Jesus Christ, we’ve experienced here?

If we are going to follow the example of Jesus Christ we have to be seekers – that is we have to get out from behind the walls of this church building, outside even the programs the church has set up to do ministry and meet people in their daily lives and activities.  We need to invite them to our homes (or if we want to do what Jesus did…invite ourselves to their homes!).  We need to go where they go, speak the language they speak, be seeking out the lost!  That’s what Jesus did.  And the good news?  That’s what Jesus still does.