I Must Stay at Your House Today

What made Zacchaeus so eager to see Jesus? In his world, he was perhaps the least likely person to be eager to see an itinerant rabbi? The evangelist tells us that he was the chief tax collector. That means that he was not only an agent of the hated Roman government in Jericho, the city that was the entry point for goods coming into Israel from the east, but he was no doubt also a supervisor of other tax collectors. Which means that he was able to not only extract from the people the taxes that the Romans demanded, he was able to skim off a portion of what those under him could extort from the merchants and petty farmers who were forced to pay the Roman taxes.

Zacchaeus was obviously good at what he did, since he was not only a supervisor but also rich. And he was also deeply hated by the entire community of pious Jews. He was not welcome in the synagogue, and he was probably also intentionally blocked by the crowds who had come out to welcome Jesus to Jericho.

Since he was s a rich man, in Luke’s account Zacchaeus was also not likely to be someone curious about Jesus. If you read the gospel straight through, you would notice that rich men resist Jesus’ call to acknowledge the nearness of God’s reign and change their lives accordingly. In fact, Jesus begins his preaching in Luke with the sermon on the plain, in which he shouts, “… woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Then Jesus tells two stories about rich men. One is about the rich farmer who built bigger barns to house his abundant crop, but as the barns are finished God demands his soul. The other, we just heard a few weeks ago, the story of the rich man who dressed in fine purple clothes and Lazarus, who lay outside his gate, starving and so ill that the dogs licked his wounds. And in the chapter just before this one, we hear of the pious young ruler who is so attached to his wealth that he sadly leaves when Jesus suggests he give his money to the poor. In fact, after the rich young ruler leaves, the disciples ask Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” Perhaps the story of Zacchaeus is the evangelist’s answer to that question. Yet, we might also wonder, is Zacchaeus’s response to Jesus likely to be different from that of rich young ruler?

And, more important, after all this, what does the evangelist suggest about what really made Zacchaeus so eager to see Jesus? What made him race ahead of the crowds that blocked him and do something he probably had not done since he was eight years old, something that was so unseemly and incongruous for a man in his position? Was he moved by mere curiosity? Did he perhaps want to see if he might gain some business advantage from seeing this rabbi? Or maybe, just maybe, something was stirring inside Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, God’s Holy Spirit had already begun to work in Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, God seized the initiative and started a process that would radically transform Zacchaeus.

And us? Why are you here? Just as was the case for Zacchaeus, there is no earthly social or economic reason for you to be here this morning. To be sure, if this were the Middle Ages or Puritan New England, you would be punished or fined for not showing up to church on Sunday. Even as recently as the 1950s in the U.S., there was strong social pressure to participate in some faith community. Now, we have come a full 180 degrees from those earlier eras. Church support and attendance have declined precipitously. The majority of Americans, especially those under thirty, identify themselves as “nones,” i.e., having no religious affiliation, or as “spiritual but not religious.”

So why are you here? Are you just curious? What will the preacher say today? Is coming to church “icing on the cake” of the good life for you? Are you afraid of God’s wrath if you don’t come? Or did something stir within you and push you, pull you, or bring you here?

Or take my own experience with my first week-long silent retreat four years ago. The longest silent retreat I had done before that was for two and half days. What impelled me to sign up for a retreat directed by the Spirituality Network, drive four hours on a Sunday afternoon, and stick it out for a whole week? Maybe, just maybe, God had taken the initiative, stirred something within me, and pushed me, pulled me, sent me to a retreat center in Fremont, Ohio for a week.

So there is Zacchaeus incongruously perched in a tree when he finally gets a glimpse of Jesus. Then the unthinkable happens. The rabbi stops, looks up, and addresses Zacchaeus by name. Even more unthinkable, he tells Zacchaeus to hurry down from the tree, and he invites himself to dinner. Wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall during that dinner conversation? While the respectable, pious people wondered if this rabbi were ignorant of his host’s way of life, or naïve, or worse, clearly something was happening to Zacchaeus. Once face to face with Jesus, something life-changing was happening to Zacchaeus. We might say that he had a conversion experience, from which he gained a new understanding of who God is, and, more important, a new understanding of how he needed to change his life.

For, as Luke makes abundantly clear throughout his gospel, repentance and faith do not mean belief in a set of statements about God. Repentance and faith do not mean acknowledging that Jesus is God’s anointed one. Rather, repentance and faith always have an ethical dimension. A deep experience of the reality of God must always produce a changed life. Having faith always means being transformed by God to live a life closer to God’s expectations, a life modeled for us by Jesus. So, unlike the rich young ruler, when Zacchaeus experiences the reality of God in his encounter with Jesus, he is led to giving up his previous way of life and offering recompense to those he has wronged, far above what the Law of Moses required. And maybe, as Zacchaeus stood there and said all this to Jesus, maybe his joy was so deep that he was the happiest man that day on the Jericho road. Perhaps he was finally free of his sin and isolation. Perhaps indeed health and wholeness, salvation, had come to his house.

In seeking out Zacchaeus, Jesus demonstrates God’s relentless desire to bring us back into community with Godself and with each other, to be in relationship with us, and enable us to be in relationship with each other, to transform us into the people we were created to be. So why are you here? Did you come seeking the transformation that Zacchaeus experienced? We don’t have to climb a tree to see Jesus. As we come to the altar he calls us by name, invites himself into our lives, strengthens our bond with him, and continues that same transformative process that he initiated in Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, that experience of Jesus’ bond with us enables us to see our lives differently, to know our connection with God, with each other, with all creation. Maybe, just maybe, when Jesus dines with us, he enables us to deepen our commitment to treating all with justice, compassion, and love. Perhaps he enables us to better work to bring nearer the reign of God. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus’ food and drink strengthen us to do the work that only we can do.

And maybe, just maybe, when Jesus calls us out of our hiding places, as he called to Zacchaeus, perhaps he also calls us to examine our use of our God-given resources. As Zacchaeus did, are we called to examine our use of our money? Are we called to share our resources more generously with the rest of God’s people? Are we serving God’s people in ways that use our gifts of time, of memory, reason, and skill? Are we called to change our lives in a way that might astonish those around us?

My sisters and brothers, the truth is that God, through God’s Holy Spirit, relentlessly pursues us. God stirs in us a desire to seek God. When we respond to God’s stirring, when we climb a tree to better see Jesus, when we sit in God’s presence silently listening for God’s voice, when we come to church to be nourished by Word and Sacrament, God delivers on God’s promises. God nourishes us, and enables us to become the loving people we have been created to be. But, watch out! You and everyone around you might be surprised by what happens next!