Jesus and Zacchaeus - Luke 19: 1-10

LUKE 19: 1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through it.  A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.  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 down and was happy to welcome him.  All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”  Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”  Then Jesus said to him, “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 to save the lost.”

Commentary

I see three things here we need to pay special attention to. The first is being noticed. The second is being called, and it comes from the first. And then finally there is the repentance. As is usual with Jesus, the repentance part is difficult. But it is in fact the whole point of the entire series. If we are not prepared to repent, there is no point in being noticed.

That is just the Cliff Notes thumbnail. We need to go back and look at it with care. We need to remember that these stories are never just stories. They are stories for us. Stories that we are to apply to our own lives. Here. Today. In Reno. The story doesn't actually say that Zacchaeus wanted to be noticed. I confess I am just adding that myself. But when I think of real people I have known, and imagine the ones who would have climbed a tree overlooking the road down which a crowd is coming, they wanted to be noticed. I'm pretty sure of that. Maybe not consciously at the moment, but that was just who they were. They wanted to be noticed.

In this story, it is important that Zacchaeus wanted more than just to be noticed. In particular, he wanted to be noticed by Jesus. Jesus was the key figure on the scene. Jesus held the key. Zacchaeus may or may not have known what it was a key to, but he knew Jesus held a key. So he wanted to be noticed. Doesn't that describe us as well? Jesus holds a key. We want to be noticed.

Only for us it is not as “simple” as climbing a tree. In quotes because I have to acknowledge that climbing a tree, at my age, is no longer so simple as it might once have been. But that's not really our problem. Our problem is that Jesus has not walked this earth in nearly 2200 years. At least not as a body of flesh and blood that we can readily recognize. What to do?

The problem is compounded by the fact that what we really want is not just to be noticed, but to also be called. We want that Peace that only Jesus can give. We want it so bad we can taste it, but what to do?

Some of our churches, and some of us as well, look askance at evangelism. It makes us squeamish. Who do these people think they are to be going on that way? Who do these people think they are to be pushing these simplistic beliefs at us when any thinking person can readily see they are not true! WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? Makes me see red just thinking about it.

Well, who do we think we are? On the one hand, we KNOW we want to be both noticed and called, and on the other hand, Jesus is not here to do it for us. Not in the flesh. If it is going to happen it is going to take some living breathing person willing to put him/her self in the path of our scorn in order to bring Jesus and his call to us. We are going to have to settle for a fill in. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Furthermore, in my mind being called is not something that can just happen once and we are good for life. Its like taking care of your body. You can't just go to the gym for a month and then go back to sitting in front of the tele for the rest of your life. We all wander. We all forget. We all get distracted. If we really want a lifetime with God and Jesus, we are going to need real people who are willing to repeatedly call us back. If the truth is told, we NEED evangelists. Even if they do make us squeamish. Lord bring us evangelists.