(c) William Hole - Zacchaeus in the Sycamore Tree
I wonder if
you have ever done or been accused of doing something embarrassing? If you are
a parent, you will almost certainly have been accused of being embarrassing by
your child at some point! Fortunately I am not prone to being easily
embarrassed which was helpful earlier this year during the baptisms we held at
the Cheltenham Lido. After I had
baptised Charles and Sarah, I got out of the pool and tied my towel around my
waist. And then continued with leading the prayers. I was holding the microphone with one hand
and suddenly realised that my towel was unwrapping and rapidly descending, not
easy to catch and keep yourself decent with one hand. Anyway, I survived and most people were
gracious enough not to mention it afterwards!
In Luke 19.1-10 Zacchaeus puts himself in an embarrassing position. He has a
very responsible, if despised job as the chief tax collector in Jericho. It would have been a very privileged position
because it was a town close to Jerusalem on a major trade route. And so he
would have been a very wealthy man.
Wealthy people are used to having places of honour which makes this
story interesting. It might be normal when
important people came to town for Zacchaeus to be invited to dine with
them. But as we begin this story, not only is Zacchaeus not invited to meet Jesus, but with such a big crowd
gathering to see Jesus, Zacchaeus can't even see over the crowds and
capture a glimpse of Jesus because he is too short. But why does Zacchaeus
even want to see Jesus? He is clearly desperate
to see Jesus, because he decides it doesn’t matter what people think, he will
awkwardly clamber up a tree to try and get a chance of seeing this man.
Can you
imagine it? Zacchaeus wouldn’t be
wearing trousers or shorts, he would’ve been in a flowing robe, so he may even
have had to hitch his robes right up into his belt and show everyone his pants
as he scrambled from branch to branch.
How ungainly, and how people probably pointed and laughed at him making
a fool of himself. “Ha! Look up there!
It’s the tax collector, what on earth does he think he looks like, silly man!”
Perhaps his
cheeks are red, and he hopes people will stop noticing him, but no! Suddenly there’s
Jesus, and perhaps he sees people pointing and looking, and so he looks up too.
But he doesn’t make fun of Zacchaeus.
Far from it. Jesus is the one who
looks on the heart, who knows our motivations. And he sees something in
Zacchaeus that others have missed. And he says, probably with a smile: “Zacchaeus,
hurry up and come down from there, I want to hang out with you at your house
today.” I bet Zacchaeus swung down quickly, embarrassment forgotten, and with a broad
smile on his face. Everyone else though
was grumbling: “Jesus has gone to be the guest of a sinner, and a rich one at
that, just think about all the money Zacchaeus has cheated us out of, why does
someone like Jesus want to eat with him, eat food brought with dirty money.
Maybe Jesus isn’t who we thought he was…”
But the
effect on Zacchaeus is totally the opposite.
As Jesus sits down at his table, Zacchaeus discovers who he really
is. You see, the name Zacchaeus means righteous
one, or pure one. That is his true identity. And he suddenly realises that, and
realises that he can change from who he has become. The encounter with Jesus has opened the door
to repentance. And he says, "Lord I will
give away half my money and repay those I have cheated by giving them back four
times what I took." And Jesus tells him, truly you are a child of God, and are
saved, considered righteous by God.
In Psalm
11 we read that God is righteous and God’s eyes scan the earth as God tests our
hearts to see whether we are choosing wickedness or righteousness. To everyone
who saw him, Zacchaeus was wicked, but Zacchaeus was willing to humble himself,
to embarrass himself, by climbing a tree to find Jesus and to be restored to
the man he knew he was born to be.
Jesus was
passing through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem, where He would also humble
Himself and be nailed to a tree and be lifted up for all to mock. Zacchaeus has
shown us what it is like to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and as he did it he
found Jesus willing to accept his repentance and to offer him forgiveness. And
as a result he rediscovered who he truly was.
May we today be prepared to
die to ourselves, even to look foolish in the eyes of others, because we want
to follow our Saviour, and become all that we were made to be. Amen.
