Proper 26: Isaiah 1: 10 – 20, Psalm 32, II Thessalonians 1: 1 – 12, Luke 19: 1 – 10
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Climbed any trees lately?
It’s risky business, climbing trees…..a person could fall.
A person could lose their dignity, climbing trees….After all, when was the last time you saw a grown person climbing a tree (unless their line of work demanded it?)
Not much has changed since Biblical times: for a grown person to climb a tree was risky from the standpoint of their honor, and we should remember that the very traditional society that existed 2,000 years ago was all about honor-and-shame.
So the chief tax collector Zacchaeus took a risk, climbing that sycamore tree that day in Jericho, for grown men didn’t do such things.
Neither did grown men of that age run anywhere, not unless their life depended on it.
Wait a minute? Did Zacchaeus’ life depend on running to see Jesus?
Yes, it did, spiritually….
For Zacchaeus was dead, spiritually….the victim of his own career choice (tax collecting), the victim of the attitudes of the Jewish society of his day, Zacchaeus was stuck, stuck in being an outsider, for devout Jews of Jesus’ day did not associate with tax collectors, those Jews who collaborated with the occupying Romans in extorting tax monies out of Jews for the purpose of perpetuating the Roman occupation.
No, tax collectors were lumped with the sinners…How often have we heard that phrase in Luke’s Gospel account, “Tax collectors and sinners”? The two terms are almost synonymous.
Zacchaeus was the last outsider that Jesus would encounter on His trip from Galilee to Jerusalem….And as He met lepers, the blind, the lame on His journey, all along the way, Jesus’ purpose has been twofold:
- To fold the outsiders into the Kingdom of God
- To upset the status quo
It met change for Zacchaeus, and the change that came into Zacchaeus’ life also meant change for the society in which he lived.
Let’s look at the status quo that confronted Zacchaeus, Jesus’ challenge to that status quo, and those unchangeable things that Jesus challenges in our own lives and times.
The status quo is “the way things are”, and it is this seemingly unchangeable reality that Jesus comes to challenge.
We begin with the status quo of Zacchaeus’ day, and we have already alluded to it in the remarks made above:
- Devout Jews did not associate with “tax collectors and sinners”. These were the outcasts of society, unable (unless they repented) of being folded into the worshipping community (and even then, the Bible seems to describe a hard-hearted attitude which might well have prevented their inclusion even after repentence). Notice how the onlookers say, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”[1]
- Perhaps Zacchaeus’ neighbors simply accepted the fact that Zacchaeus was rich, and that Zacchaeus would always be rich, extorting tax monies out of them.
- Maybe Zacchaeus himself thought that he could never be included in the community of the faithful, or into the society of his city. Perhaps he accepted his lot: rich, but an outcast, as an unchangeable reality.
- But Jesus challenges the status quo, and He does so in today’s account, as He has done consistently as He makes His way toward Jerusalem. Challenging the status quo involves taking risks (after all, that’s what led to His crucifixion – for He challenged the religious status quo of 2,000 years ago). But, as we look at the text, we can see that both Jesus and Zacchaeus took risks, as follows:
- Zacchaeus runs and climbs the tree: We’ve mentioned this a short time ago….Grown men simply didn’t do either one, not unless their lives depended on it!
- Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus by name (I think that’s significant), and tells Zacchaeus that He will be staying with him that day (remember, devout Jews do not associate with “tax collectors and sinners”).
And yet, I suspect it’s Jesus holiness that causes Zacchaeus to repent of his past behavior.
We aren’t ever told much about Zacchaeus’ motivations for wanting to see Jesus….we only know from the text that he wanted to get a better look, so he climbed the tree since he was so short. But why did Zacchaeus climb the tree? Was he simply curious? Had he heard about Jesus’ healing of the blind man on the edge of Jericho?[2]
Did he think Jesus could help end his isolation, burying the status quo of his life forever?
We simply don’t know.
But whatever the reasons for Zacchaeus’ risk-taking that day in climbing the sycamore tree[3], unexpected change breaks into his life as Jesus says, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
How about the unchangeable things in our own lives?
Maybe we have many of those:
- The person who will never change
- The situation that will never get better
- The problems that will never go away
By way of illustration, let me show you what I mean….
You see, my father was a Zacchaeus….Plagued by situations and problems that seemed to have no solution, my father – who was a very talented and hard-working man, was an alcoholic. Alcohol was his way of coping with the situations in his life, the unmet dreams, the insecurities, the running away from God.
Then, one night in a hospital in Eugene, Oregon, God called to my father, Jess Tucker, lying on a hospital gurney, as a team of doctors and nurses struggled for over three hours to get his heart started again so that it would continue beating.
Finally, they succeeded.
But, you see, my father was in a risky situation, like Zacchaeus, for that gurney was his tree…My father would never have wound up in a shameful place like a hospital gurney if it weren’t for the fact that he had “bottomed out”….Sometimes, I wonder if Zacchaeus hadn’t “bottomed out”, and figured he hadn’t much more to lose by climbing the sycamore tree.
At any rate, that gurney was the place where God came calling to my father, saying, “I want to live with you today”.
And my father accepted the offer….Like Zacchaeus, there were no professions of faith (my father was a very private and introverted man), but, like Zacchaeus, my father’s actions proved that he had found God, and had been found by God. “Salvation had come” to my father.
For the rest of the family, we didn’t think there was any way that the awful reality of the status quo in my father’s life would ever change. However, my mother never gave up hope, and never gave up praying for him…she did so for nearly 35 years before God intervened.
For, you see, no person, no situation, and no problem is beyond God’s ability to change.
Climbed any trees lately?
AMEN.
[1] Verse 7
[2] See the passage immediately preceding today’s reading, Luke 18: 35 – 43.
[3] The commentaries point out that the sycamore tree in this account is different from the sycamores we would know in North America. It was most likely an evergreen tree with many lower branches, which would have made it ideal for Zacchaeus’ purposes.
