In telling us about Zacchaeus, Luke does not tell us any
of this. We might say he looks at
Zacchaeus from Jesus’ point of view. He
tells us about what Zacchaeus lacks.
Luke does not lay it out in black and white. You have to read between the lines to get the
specifics, but it is there for all to see.
You get the sense that Zacchaeus is isolated, that
there is a hiddenness about him, that all his bravado is a mask for a
deep-rooted sense of inferiority. Luke does
not identify a single important family member, friend, or acquaintance in
Zacchaeus’ life. He is shut off from the
community because of his job and the tax-collector’s typical tactics of
extortion. And, perhaps most important,
Zacchaeus is hiding from God. While he
may be been short in stature, it feels as if Zacchaeus believes himself to be
even shorter in soul. What does
Zacchaeus lack? He has everything the
world offers, but nothing that comes from God.
The conversion of Zacchaeus – the personal
transformation achieved with blinding speed – is one of my favorite stories in
the Bible. It tells us so much about
God’s nature, about the authentic spiritual life, and about how “churchie”
people sometimes get it all wrong.
The best sermon I ever heard on Zacchaeus had two
simple points. First, Jesus tells
Zacchaeus “I love you where you are.” Hiding in a Sycamore tree, cheating everybody
in town out of their hard-earned money, alone and miserable and isolated, but
nicely dressed! – Jesus says to Zacchaeus, “I love you where you are.”
Then Jesus says to him, “I need
your help. I want you to do something
for me. I want to come to your house for
lunch.” And there, at Zacchaeus’
home, surrounded by all his ill-gotten gain, Jesus is able to look past all
that is wrong with Zacchaeus. He is able
to see what Zacchaeus lacks.
No one had ever told him “God loves you right here, right now – no conditions, no qualifications,
no catches, and no hidden fees. God
loves you.” Do you realize what a
radical statement this is? In Zacchaeus’
day people believe God loves you because you are a part of the Chosen Nation
and because you follow all the rules and regulations and because you keep
yourself ritually clean for worship in the Temple and because you make the
right sacrifices at the appointed time.
Basically, folks believe you deserve God’s love when you do all the
things required to earn God’s love.
2000 years later I don’t know if things have changed
all that much. We still attach God’s
love to conditions like attending church and quoting the bible and being a
“good person” – however you might define ‘good.’ Now, as then, we want to put limits on God’s
love. We are more comfortable with a
Savior who says “Be a better spouse,
be a better parent, be a better person, get to church more often, and serve on
some committees when you are there. Do
this for several years and then maybe you will be worthy of my love.”
The problem is, when we put these kinds of words on
Jesus’ lips then our Savior doesn’t really save us at all. It all rests with us and with our ability to
get our own act together. When the
Church says to a person you need to come around to the right kind of life
before God can love you, then we are saying in effect, “Save yourself.” This is
not the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and
theologian, wrote this:
Christ is not concerned, himself,
with being good. He is concerned solely
with love for the real person, and for that reason He is able to enter into
fellowship with our guilt and to take the burden of our guilt upon
Himself. Jesus does not desire to look
down on us as the only guiltless One while each one of us goes on to our ruin
under the weight of our guilt. He does
not wish to acquit Himself of the guilt under which we die. He wishes to assume it. A love which left us alone in our guilt would
not be love for the real us. From His
selfless love, from His freedom from sin, Jesus enters into our guilt and takes
that guilt upon Himself in His body, on the cross.”
This is why we proclaim Jesus as the only Savior!
So Zacchaeus responds to unconditional love – perhaps
the first time in his life he has ever known a love like this! And then he responds to Jesus’ call to
service. Long-dormant gifts of
hospitality resurface. He makes a meal
for Jesus and his disciples. And at the
meal, overjoyed with a new sense of love and purpose, with a new sense of
community and a renewed fellowship with God, Zacchaeus makes the kind of moral
and ethical changes so many people would demand of him before they would allow
God to love him. But notice the
process. Notice how love comes first,
purpose follows, and finally repentance and amendment of life become a
possibility.
St. Augustine believed we are created with a need for
God – a God-shaped void in our souls. He
observed that people try to fill their God space with everything else but
God. This surely is true of Zacchaeus
and it points directly to what he lacks.
But Jesus does not demand Zacchaeus divest himself of all the corrupt and
worldly ways crammed into the space where God alone can be. He loves Zacchaeus and he calls him. And this sense of love and calling grows and
grows and grows in the place only God can be. Then and only then, is Zacchaeus ready and
able to get rid of the stuff that does not belong in his life.
This is how God works.
This is how grace works. This is
how salvation comes to us throughout our lives.
Sometimes it is dramatic, other times it is a small step forward in the
process of sanctification – of being the saints God created us to be.
What do you lack?
Do you sense God loves you right now, right here where you are? Can you discern God calling you to service –
giving you a reason and a purpose in life beyond surviving the daily grind and
paying the monthly bills? These two
spiritual elements seem to be prerequisites for real transformation. If they are not present, change will not
occur.
By my reading of this account, Zacchaeus does one
thing to initiate the change in his life.
He climbs a tree. He is too short
to see over the crowd as Jesus passes by.
He is not well liked so no one will let him pass through to the front
row and goodness knows he probably does not want to be front-and-center when
Jesus passes by anyway. So he goes to
the back and climbs a tree and this alone sets him apart from everyone else in
the crowd. This is why Jesus is able to
see him.
If you are listening to my sermon this morning and
thinking you are not all that different from Zacchaeus, that you are lacking
something you cannot live without, that you are putting all the wrong things in
the place where only God can be, that you have never really sensed God’s
unconditional love for you, or that you don’t believe you have anything of
value to contribute, do me one favor… call me some time. Climb a tree as it were and lets talk. There is nothing more important I can do for
you as your priest.
When I was ordained I did not take a vow before God
and the Church to highlight all the ways a person is unlovable. I took a vow to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus
Christ so that all people might come to know the power of God’s love and the
healing of God’s forgiveness. Call me
some time and let’s talk. Lets talk
about you and about Jesus and about how Jesus can love and use a person just
like you – right now, just as you are.
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