Jesus was subversive. He had a habit of turning the tables on respectful establishment people and promoting those who were 'unclean' and seen to be sinners. For several Sundays past, we have seen him bring people in from the outside, from being 'outsiders,' offering salvation to sinners and exposing the phoniness of hitherto respectable people in the community. We saw it with the prodigal son and his brother, the rich man and Lazarus, the Samaritan leper who returned to give thanks, the Pharisee and the tax collector, and now Zacchaeus in an artfully told tale for this Sunday.
This parable, like so many others, is multi-dimensional. Like a good poem, it speaks its message at several levels at once. The Old Testament saw Jericho as the sinful city that was destroyed for trying to stop the Israelites from entering the Promised Land. It was where the sinful Rahab (the great, great, great...great something grandmother of Jesus!) lived and worked the world's oldest profession. The city lies some 23 miles SE of Jerusalem, down a twisting road that ends 3100 feet below. To travel the road was to ask for trouble; it was infested by robbers. Jesus told the story of the 'Good Samaritan' in this context. If Jerusalem is a symbol of the city of God, Jericho symbolizes the earthly city. The Fathers of the Church saw the ultimate traveler from Jerusalem to Jericho as Jesus Christ coming to dwell among us, the subject of that marvelous Pauline hymn of Philippians 2: 5-11.
Zacchaeus, like Rahab twelve hundred years earlier, lived and plied his trade very discretely in Jericho. Both were looked down upon as sinners, 'outsiders' who earned their living in shameful ways. Rahab was a common prostitute who collaborated with the enemy, and the short-statured Zacchaeus worked, quisling-like, for the Romans. Being chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, did he perhaps run a mafia-like operation out of Jericho? Being unpopular with the Jews, did Zacchaeus keep a low profile when someone new came to town, like when he climbed a sycamore tree the day Jesus came through, using its foliage to hide his 'nakedness,' like Adam and Eve in the fabled garden of Eden?
What we know is that Zacchaeus was curious to see Jesus. Most people, whether good or bad, have a curiosity about God. The curiosity may not be very explicit, very deep, or very developed. But it's there in all of us. Many people are barely aware of it and don't know what to do about it. Others feel the need to explore an unmistakable tug inside them. If you read the biographies of celebrities - presidents, sports and movie stars, captains of industry - you will be surprised to learn that most all of them, throughout their lives, experienced a deep abiding hunger for something more than the fame they achieved in life.
President Obama was in town recently and TV news clips showed people going to extremes to catch a glimpse of him. Zacchaeus ran the gauntlet of the crowd's ridicule as he, probably no spring chicken, climbed the sycamore tree to see Jesus. There was an urgency about Zacchaeus that day. Unknown to him, God's grace was urging him along the path to salvation. As God recognized Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes, Jesus looked up and saw Zacchaeus in the tree. "Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." There was an urgency about Jesus to get into Zacchaeus' life. Not tomorrow, or next week: Today! Now!
Zacchaeus wasted no time. Acting on the spot, he came down immediately and received the Lord with joy. Only Jesus Christ will give us ultimate meaning, final peace in our restlessness, and soul-expanding joy and fulfillment at the end of our searching and seeking. Having found what all his wealth could not buy, Zacchaeus comes clean about his wrongdoing. When the light of Christ enters our lives, illusion disappears quickly and we become real; we hurry to become the persons that God created us to be in the first place. William Blake summed it up thus in one of his poems: "The wind is old and still at play,/ but I must hurry upon my way,/ for I am running to Paradise."
"Today salvation has come to this house," said Jesus to Zacchaeus. Jesus came on earth, from Jerusalem to Jericho, to bring salvation. Zacchaeus, the social outsider, had now become the true insider. God's ways are not ours. Only God knows who the real insiders are. As the gospels like to point out, the real insiders are those who feed their curiosity about God and humbly place their faith in Jesus Christ. The faith of Zacchaeus, like that of Rahab, led to Shalom, the best gift that God has on offer.
PASTOR EMERITUS
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