He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And 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.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
(Luke 19:1-10 ESV)
This morning’s Gospel is a pretty familiar story. It’s a memorable one, and it was always one of my favorites as a kid in Sunday school. I think it’s so memorable, because its actually kind of funny. Honestly, the first part of it is a not very subtle short joke. Zacchaeus is too short to see over the heads of the crowd around him, so after hopping up and down hoping to see over all the tall people, he finally gets frustrated and climbs a tree, just so he can get a glimpse of Jesus.
Zacchaeus probably hoped no one would spot him. He expected Jesus would walk on past, and he would get a chance to see what was so special about this Rabbi, and then Zacchaeus would go on with his life. But when Jesus got to the tree where Zacchaeus was hiding, he looked straight up at him, and called his name. We don’t know how Jesus recognized Zacchaeus, maybe someone pointed to the tree and said, “Hey look, there’s Zacchaeus.” It must have taken Zacchaeus by surprise. And any chance of going unnoticed was completely shot. The whole crowd was staring.
But Any embarrassment that Zacchaeus felt must have disappeared pretty quickly when he realized what Jesus was saying. Jesus tells him “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
(Luke 19:5 ESV) Zacchaeus doesn’t hesitate - in fact, he’s overjoyed that Jesus has invited himself for dinner. He climbs down as quickly as he had climbed up.
The crowd wasn’t so thrilled though. “When they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” (Luke 19:7 ESV) Zacchaeus, after all, was a tax collector, and in the first century Jewish world that meant a sinner. Tax collectors were on about the same social level as thieves and prostitutes.
There were good reasons why tax collectors were disliked. Most of the local tax collectors were Jewish, but their job was to collect the taxes levied by Rome. Effectively they were collaborators with an occupying government. And the work that tax collectors did required them to associate with Gentiles, making them ritually unclean, and unable to participate in temple worship. Devout Jews would avoid tax collectors as much as possible to avoid being “contaminated” themselves Also, one of the main ways tax collectors made their money was through extortion. They would charge more than the actual required taxes, and pocket the difference. Luke tells us that Zacchaeus was rich, which means he was a successful extortionist; He was also chief tax collector, in charge of a whole gang of crooks just like him.
I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say that Zacchaeus would have been viewed almost like a mob boss. He was rich a rich, successful crook, with political protection from the Roman authorities, and not the sort of man any respectable person would associate with. Certainly no Rabbi would honor a tax collector with a visit to his home.
But Jesus did.
The crowd was shocked - and we should be too. Zacchaeus was a terrible person.
And Jesus doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t even wait for Zacchaeus to repent, before treating Zacchaeus as a friend. It’s as if Jesus is letting him off the hook.
Jesus disciples must have been confused, too. They remembered that not long before Jesus had met another rich man and treated him very differently.
If you’ll put up with a slight digression, I want to look at that story, because I think it’s important for understanding what Jesus was doing when he met Zacchaeus.
If you have a Bible in your pew, take it out, and open it to Luke 18:18, the chapter right before this morning’s reading, to the story of the rich ruler. If you don’t have a Bible in front of you, that’s okay too, because we’re not going to read the whole thing, I just want to hit some highlights.
It’s no accident that this story comes right before the story of Zacchaeus. The two stories are like mirror images. In the story of the rich ruler, a rich man, probably a young one, comes to Jesus and asks him “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus is surprisingly short with him. He tells him “You know the commandments, Do not commit adultery, do not murder, etc.”
And without hesitation, the rich man tells Jesus that he’s done all these things. He is sure he is righteous; he has kept all the commandments. Jesus does not argue with him, but he tells him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.”
The rich man becomes, as the ESV puts it, “Very Sad.” Then, Jesus tells the disciples how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. In other words, it’s impossible.
So one rich man comes to Jesus, addresses him as teacher, asks his advice, is told to sell everything, and hears that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom. When Zacchaeus is just curious to see the new Rabbi in town, Jesus makes no demand on him at all - Jesus even does him the honor of staying at his house.
So what’s the difference between these two rich men? The Rich Ruler probably was a good person, and he probably did keep the commandments. But he had missed the point. He thought that there was something he could do that would be enough to let him inherit eternal life. He trusted in his own ability, and not in God. As it turned out, he did not trust God enough to let go of the safety net that was his wealth.
Zacchaeus did not have the luxury of trusting in himself. He knew he was had no hope of getting eternal life by his good deeds, because he didn’t have that many good deeds. So when God came to him in the person of Jesus, when Jesus offered him forgiveness and showed him love, he could only respond with gratitude.
And the amazing thing is that because Zacchaeus had the experience of forgiveness and of grace, he was actually able to do what the other rich man couldn’t. He says to Jesus “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” (Luke 19:8 ESV). The experience of Grace and forgiveness transforms Zacchaeus.
I think most people come to Jesus the way the rich ruler did: We come hoping Jesus will tell us something that we can do for ourselves, sure that if Jesus will just tell us the three easy steps to salvation we can do it. And so, like the rich ruler, when we discover that we can’t do it, we go away very sad.
When we come like Zacchaeus in our brokenness, knowing that we really can’t do it, we discover that Jesus is ready to forgive us anyway. Like Zacchaeus, we discover that we are able to do what seemed impossible. Zacchaeus life became a witness to God’s grace, because he became a gracious person himself.
[I think another great example of what it means to live as a forgiven person can be found in the life of Thomas Cranmer. Most of you probably know a bit about Thomas Cranmer. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury during the English Reformation, and he is responsible for putting together most of the Book of Common Prayer, including the service we are using today.
Cranmer was a politically powerful man, but he was also known as a very kind man. His enemies would have said he was a pushover. There was even a joke that went around that if you wanted to make Archbishop Cranmer your friend for life, just do him some injury, and he would rush to forgive you. But if you read Cranmer’s writings, his letters and journals, you’ll discover that he was not just a nice man who wasn’t particularly suited to politics.
He knew exactly what he was doing. Cranmer was a man who knew that he was one of the lost, like Zacchaeus, whom Christ “came to seek and to save.” He knew that he had been forgiven, and that if God had forgiven him he also had to forgive those around him. He hoped to show them a glimpse of God’s grace and forgiveness in the way he treated them, and to point them back to the source of that grace. That is what it means to live as forgiven person: to live in a way that displays God’s love.
So like Zacchaeus, and like Cranmer, may we remember, that we are among the lost whom Jesus Christ came to “seek and to save,” and may we be people whose lives point to the power of God to redeem. As we have received grace, let us show grace, and as we have received forgiveness, let us offer forgiveness.
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