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“Up in a Tree” (Fn.:LUKE 19 1-10 2016.DOC) Scripture: Luke 19:1-10 William C

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“Up in a Tree” (Fn.:LUKE 19 1-10 2016.DOC) Scripture: Luke 19:1-10 William C “Up In a Tree” (fn.:LUKE 19 1-10 2016.DOC) Scripture: Luke 19:1-10 William C. Pender FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 10/30/16 Luke 19: 1-10: 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.” No one has ever been popular as a tax-collector! Even in our country, with so much legal protection, there is a fear of the tax-collector. Snuffy Smith, the Appalachian cartoon character, calls the “Internal Revenue Service,” the “INFERNAL Revenue Service.” In Jesus’ day, a day with minimal legal protection, tax-collecting was a brutal and corrupt system. And Zacchaeus, in our Scripture for today, was not just a tax-collector; he was a CHIEF tax-collector. He’s at the top of the heap. For example, you might have some sympathy for the peasant who grows poppies for opium—the peasant who lives in squalor and who is just trying to eke out a living for his family, but how much sympathy do you have for the leader of the drug cartel using that opium, who uses that wealth for his own comfort and to corrupt leaders, undermine government, and foment revolution? Zacchaeus did not simply have a job that was morally questionable—he was a chief, a leader, a player. More than that, Zacchaeus was rich. In Luke’s telling of Jesus’ story, Jesus has just said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 18:25). By the way, if you are feeling poorly today, check out the globalrichlist.com (or just search for world wealth indicator). If you make $25,000 a year, you are only in the top 2 percent of the world—sorry to inform you that 98 percent of the world is poorer than you are. Make $7,000 more—$32,000—and you are in the top 1 percent in the entire world! Like us, Zacchaeus is rich, but according to Jesus, he had that camel’s chance of squishing through the eye of needle and entering God’s kingdom. One of the guarantees of Jesus’ ministry is that he will mess with our sense of rightness and fairness. In this story, Jesus strains his own popularity and reputation with the common people. It is one thing to have arguments and conflict with self-righteous, self-important Pharisees and religious leaders—the common people liked that! But Zacchaeus was a different matter. Zacchaeus was at the top of the food chain as far collecting taxes went—he was a CHIEF! And he was rich—rich from cheating people. So, there is Zacchaeus, up in a tree, because the crowd kept him from seeing Jesus. He has enough curiosity to want to see Jesus, but he does not mix in with the crowd. He is separated from the common folks by his career and his wealth. After all, what business did Zacchaeus have with Jesus? Page 1 of 4 But Jesus looks up in the tree and says: “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” And the crowd that had physically blocked Zacchaeus from seeing Jesus, set up another obstacle—the social obstacle. The crowds, the common people, complained. Someone likely quoted a proverb such as “If you lay down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.” Or, apropos of Jesus’ day, the wisdom of the Greek philosopher Meander was quoted by the apostle Paul: “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33) Or, the Oriental version of this wisdom is as follows: “Next to rotten fish, you’ll stink; next to orchids, you’ll be fragrant.” Jesus is hanging out with the wrong kind of person—the sort of person that we would say to our children, “Don’t hang out with such bad people.” So, let’s look closer at Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus. Consider what Jesus said: “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” First, he called Zacchaeus by name. He called him by name in greeting. We are living in a time when people’s names don’t always come off our lips with kindness and care. People of all kinds spit out the names “Trump” and “Clinton”—I mean they spit! Jesus does not speak Zacchaeus’ name in that way—he calls him by name in greeting, in connection, in relationship. Sometimes we cannot even speak our own name with such care. A certain sports psychologist who works with golfers found that one of his clients often spoke to himself by name after hitting a bad shot—the golfer’s use of his own name was harsh and demeaning. I get that; after a bad shot, I say things like “William, what a fool you are…William, you’re just a joke…William, you are terrible!” With the professional golfer who berated himself in this way, the sports psychologist asked the golfer for a picture of the golfer’s two-year-old son. He asked the golfer to say to the picture all things he says to himself by name after a bad golf shot. The golfer said, “I can’t do that; that would not be right. I love my son.” And the psychologist had the focus for their work: “Then let’s work on treating yourself with same respect and care.” Jesus called Zacchaeus by name—not a threat, not a curse, not an insult. In the entertainment world, that long-running television series, Cheers, highlighted the importance of knowing one’s name. The theme song to the show proclaimed: Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name, And they're always glad you came. You want to be where you can see The troubles are all the same. You want to be where everybody knows your name. 1 Jesus knows Zacchaeus by name. And Jesus does not simply want to be with Zacchaeus—he says, “I must stay at your home today.” Literally, Jesus says, “It is necessary for me to stay in your home today.” And whenever Jesus says “it is necessary,” he means divine necessity—God wills it. Jesus is the freest human being ever born. He is free of the addiction that drives us all. You and I, we have to mess up. We have to hate. We have to stand apart. We are driven—call it “sin,” call it “maladjustment,” call it “selfishness.” We are not free. But Jesus is free and yet he does not simply choose to be with Zacchaeus—he says, “I must stay in your home today.” Jesus is not free from 1 Portnoy, Gary and Judy Hart Angelo. Where Everybody Knows Your Name . Page 2 of 4 extending grace to Zacchaeus—to call him by name, to be in his home. That is Jesus’ nature. Jesus says: “I must.” It is like the Eastern story of the holy man engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion was caught in the roots about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him. A passer-by came along and said to the holy man, “You fool, don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it’s the nature of a scorpion to sting?” “To which the holy man replied, “That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?” Jesus must to go to Zacchaeus—to the one separated—separated by being up in a tree, separated by the crowd that despised him, and separated by his own participation in a life of fraud. It’s Jesus nature. Now, you may be waiting for the “catch,” for the “conditions,” for the rationale for Jesus to come to Zacchaeus’ house. There are none! Zacchaeus was hiding from Jesus—where he could see and not be seen. Zacchaeus had a morally corrupt career, and his great wealth was ill-gotten. Zacchaeus offers no argument for Jesus’ favor. In some ways, this story is not different from the infant baptism that we undertake today. If we can get beyond the cuteness of a child and reflect on very human nature, there is no argument for God’s favor for a child…none from the child.
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