Luke 19:1-10
1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 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." 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." 8 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." 9 Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
There’s this show that comes on some mornings (I believe it’s on A&E) about the real-life stories of those who work with the Philadelphia Parking Authority and Detroit’s Municipal Parking Department. It’s a reality show that follows these folks around as they ticket illegally parked cars or place those big, yellow boots on vehicles with way too many unpaid tickets. Some episodes even involve those who drive the tow trucks and work at the impound lots where these vehicles wind up. It’s a wonderfully fascinating program to me, as it shows what it’s like to have a job where everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) hates you.
Seriously. It’s a bit disappointing at times to watch; here’s a young man, trying to be courteous, trying to do his job, so when he sees an illegally parked car he walks down the block, asking if anyone knows the driver, and when no one turns up to move the vehicle, he prints a $35 ticket. Well, of course as soon as he places the ticket under the wiper on the windshield the owner appears and begins to call him all sorts of names I can only assume were ugly as they were bleeped over by television censors. Or they show a typical day at the impound lot: a man comes in to pick up his car, demands they release his car because he’s innocent (he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to park in the fire zone in front of a school during the day), and when the woman behind the glass (again, trying to do her job in the nicest, most polite way imaginable) tells him he’ll have to pay the $150 fee, he loses it. He begins yelling, demanding to see “a manager,” threatens to call a lawyer, and delivers a rapid-fire string of words so vulgar that the censors even have to blur his mouth to keep folks from lip reading. It’s terrible! To have to do such a job—a job where you know folks will instantly hate you, are instantly on the defensive, ready to call you every foul thing they know how even though they don’t really know you—it’s terrible!
I suppose that’s how most parking enforcers feel. I suppose that’s how a lot of high school and college coaches feel (parents and fans will nearly threaten to take your life without so much as knowing your middle name). I suppose that’s how a lot of police officers feels, how some elected officials feel, (maybe even how some ministers feel). I suppose that’s how folks who have jobs and hold positions that come with all the weight of misappropriated anger and frustration feel. To have people instantly judge your character based solely upon your occupation…well, I even suppose that may have been how wee, little Zacchaeus must have felt too.
You know, Zacchaeus: “Zacchaeus was a wee, little man,/ And a wee, little man was he./ He climbed up in a sycamore tree,/ For the Lord he wanted to see./ And as the Savior came that way,/ He looked up in the tree,/ (Spoken): And he said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down from there,’/ For I'm going to your house today./ For I'm going to your house today.” You know the words, right? Well, sadly, those are about all the words most folks know when it comes to Zacchaeus, but there are three words left out of that little children’s song that identified Zacchaeus to everyone around in his day—even those folks who didn’t know him by name: “chief tax collector.” That’s right, Zacchaeus worked for the government! And he wasn’t just some low-level employee with a decent benefits package and plenty of vacation days. No! He was upper-level management! He was a “chief tax collector,” one in charge of collecting the taxes for an entire region, one who stood to make a good profit from his work, one who was nearly universally hated by everyone in his community.
To be honest, I can’t blame the folks back then—I mean, really, I can’t imagine anyone, at any time in history exclaiming with joy, “Oh boy, the tax collector is coming!” In those days, tax collectors had the reputation of being extorters, those who ripped people off when it came to collecting taxes only to make themselves wealthy. On top of that, tax collectors worked for the Roman government, and if you were Jewish, that just gave you another reason to despise them as they were working for the oppressors. But the worst offenders were those who were Jews themselves collecting taxes from other Jews (a tactic the Romans no doubt thought would smooth things over but only led to more anger and disdain). These Jewish tax collectors were seen as traitors, those who had turned their backs on their brethren, their nation, their heritage. Before they uttered one word, they were already deemed as reprobates, as those who had rejected their place among the promised people of Israel. Tax collectors were the worst, and on top of that, Zacchaeus was the “chief tax collector’—so you know folks just loved him!
I can hear them now (can’t you?): “Hush up now. Here comes Zacchaeus. Traitor! Degenerate! Why, I bet he’d sell his own momma for brand new $20 bill...There’s old Zach, living it up in his big ole house. You know, I heard he paid for that with the money he squeezed out of widow Ferguson. Mhmm, sure did…There’s Zacchaeus. You know, after the amount of taxes I had to pay last year, he better hope I don’t run into him in the Wal-Mart parking lot…” Folks would have hated him from the get-go. There would have been no convincing them otherwise: Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector, and as far as they were concerned, he was the enemy, a living embodiment of everything wrong with society.
That’s probably why they wouldn’t get out of his way in verse 3. Oh, sure the verse says, “he was short in stature,” but that’s just as much a comment on his reputation in the community as it is a description of his physical height: he was “short” in the eyes of others. That same verse tells us that “He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not.” Now isn’t that interesting? “On account of the crowd he could not.” Maybe there were just too many of them, “thick as hair on a squirrel” some would say. Perhaps they were moving too fast, too closely together. Maybe they were just so caught up in rapturous wonder and joy that they didn’t think about making way for those who couldn’t see over their shoulders. Maybe...or, when the crowd was passing through Jericho, and they passed by the house of Zacchaeus, someone said, “Hey, don’t let that guy in here amongst us. He’s one of those people.” You know, those people can sure ruin things for folks in the crowd, folks who are trying to “get close to Jesus.”
Honestly, I don’t think such a thing is too far-fetched to think. After all, in the passage immediately preceding the one before us this morning, “the crowd” ordered a blind beggar to be quiet when Jesus was passing by, to quit shouting out his name, trying to get his attention. Blind folks were blind for a reason—most likely a sinful reason—so they really had no place in such a crowd. Seems like those folks in “the Jesus crowd” are prone to jumping to conclusions, making rash, harsh judgements on folks they don’t know all because of who they are and what they seem to be. Seems a little familiar to me…
You know, I wonder how often folks are kept from seeing Jesus because those who gather so closely around him refuse to let others in to see him? I wonder how often judgements are made simply from a glance, a reputation, a stereotype? I wonder how many people are permanently labeled as “outsiders” simply because those “insiders,” those in the crowd, have determined they are outside the bounds of inclusion? To put it another, perhaps more to-the-point, sort of way: I wonder how many people have been turned away from Christ because the people who claim to follow him won’t let them in?
How many folks like Zacchaeus have wanted to see who Jesus was, yet “on account of the crowd” they couldn’t? How many have been immediately judged by the “in-crowd” as unworthy, unfit, undeniably unclean, and therefore kept from Jesus altogether? You know, some of the folks we’ve deemed through the years as such are just like Zacchaeus—they long to see who Jesus is. I can’t help but wonder, do we show them?
Now, lest you begin to feel the hefty burden of drawing the line in the sand or thumbing through your Bible to find exactly who can and cannot be in “the Jesus crowd,” I want you to listen again to what Jesus says after Zacchaeus climbs that sycamore tree, after Jesus invites himself into Zacchaeus’ house, after the crowd saw what took place and accused Jesus of being “the guest of one who is a sinner,” after Zacchaeus boldly proclaims, "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." I want you to pay attention to what Jesus says after all these things take place: “Then Jesus said to [Zacchaeus, but clearly so the crowd could overhear], ‘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.’" “Today salvation has come to this house…For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
Did you notice who does the seeking out and the saving? It isn’t the righteous, those who’ve already claimed the prize as their own, those who have established themselves as the standard bearers for all that is right, holy, and pure in the world. Did you notice who does it? It isn’t the clergy or church-folk: Jesus didn’t say, “Salvation has come to this house today, because you walked the aisle on the third verse of ‘Just As I Am.’” Did you notice who does it? Why, it isn’t even the sinner himself: Luke makes no declaration of Zacchaeus’ repentance; there’s no “sinner’s prayer,” no confirmation classes, no baptismal font, no Bible presented with Zacchaeus’ name inscribed in gold leaf on the front cover—nothing like that at all. Oh sure, Zacchaeus says he’ll give to the poor and repay anyone he’s defrauded, but the language can be understood to say that he’s already been doing those things, that he isn’t the crook everyone thinks he is. So it isn’t even Zacchaeus who comes seeking his own salvation—he may even have had no idea what it meant to be “lost!” No, the one who does the seeking and the saving was, is, and always will be Jesus!
Do you know what that means? It means no matter how much those of us in “the Jesus crowd” try to keep others from seeing Jesus, Christ will still seek them out. It means no matter how much we may think someone is outside the bounds of salvation, Jesus still saves them. It means there is no crowd large enough, no barrier big enough, no mountain high enough, no ocean vast enough, no valley deep enough, no sin dark enough that Jesus doesn’t still pursue us with his relentless love in order to save us—to save us from our sins of selfishness and bring us back into the selfless, loving relationship with God and each other.
As you move through this life, whether you consider yourself part of the “Jesus crowd” or not, whether you believe there are those outside the bounds of salvation or that you yourself are beyond saving, know this: the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, came to seek out and to save the lost. That includes you. That includes me. That includes every, single soul in this world, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or what we ourselves have deemed them to be. Jesus Christ still seeks out and saves the lost. May we choose to join him in such searching and saving, and may we never fail to show Jesus to all who wish to see him. Amen.
