Zacchaeus 2013

The story of Zacchaeus that we have heard in our gospel reading (Luke 19:1-10) is a tremendous story. It’s one of the best known accounts in the whole of the Bible. It’s one that’s very often used in Sunday Schools, and for that reason many people have known it since childhood.

The basics of the story are of course that Jesus came into Jericho one day, and Zacchaeus, a short man, climbed up into a tree to get a good view of him. Jesus saw him there, and called him down out of the tree and told him he was coming to his house for tea…

From a very simple story we can actually learn so much though about the character of Jesus. The first is that he probably knew thatZacchaeus was not the nicest man in the town. He was a chief tax collector, and they were notoriously dishonest people at the time -many people in the crowd that day would have certainly been far more honest, but Jesus didn’t care. In Zacchaeus he saw someone who was interested, interested enough to climb a tree to see him !

Jesus took that interest and he saw a person ready to be changed. One of the most incredible things about some of God’s most faithful servants is their ability to not judge people by what they see at first sight, but rather to see potential in everyone.

And of course that potential has to be taken a stage further, because a person has to then be given a chance. I’ve mentioned I’m sure before the story of Nicky Cruz a gang leader in New York in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. He was approached over a period of time by a preacher called David Wilkerson and was incredibly hostile to him, even threatening to kill him at one point. One day at an evangelistic rally held in a theatre, Nicky Cruz came along, which was surely a miracle in itself, and David Wilkerson asked him and a group of his gang to take up the collection.

At the end of the collection Nicky had to take the collection around to the side of the stage, and to do that he actually had to go out of a side door which went outside the building. He could easily have just walked away with the money. Most of the honest people there, and the not so honest, thought David Wilkerson was mad. This was a gang leader who thought nothing of mugging someone for money, and now it was being presented to him literally on a plate.

But as Nicky went outside he knew what was expected – he knew people expected him to run with the money and he couldn’t do it – he didn’t touch the money, but went in, gave the collection to David Wilkerson, and gave his life to Jesus… Seeing potential in people is important, but giving them the chance is also essential. Of course, we may be disappointed, but we have to be prepared to try.  

The Christian faith sometimes involves taking risks – knowing that God walks with us always.

So Jesus saw potential, and Jesus gave Zacchaeus the chance. He knew that Zacchaeus had come to look. Maybe he was just being nosy, maybe he was really interested, we don’t know, but his desire to hear Jesus was met with the awesome power of Jesus.

That power didn’t come in terms of physical strength. It didn’t come in being forceful. It came with a greater power than that, the power to transform. Many people talk of other great leaders through history. Some have changed lives, some for good, many for bad. People have followed Hitler, just as there are some who are following people like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe today.

There have also been many who have attracted a great following for good change – people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa – these are just a few of the more recent examples, but nobody has ever transformed lives like Jesus transforms.

He takes the hardest people, and he softens them, the worst people and brings out their good qualities, he takes you and me, and asks us to be more like him.

That is the really incredible part of this account of Zacchaeus. Yes, it was wonderful that Jesus saw potential. Yes, it was wonderful that he was prepared to go and sit with him and talk to him, but the most incredible thing is that he would change that man’s life for ever.

Jesus said, ‘Zacchaeus hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today’. Jesus ignored some of the others, perhaps he saw theurgent need Zacchaeus had for change in his life, and he demanded that he came down from the tree, ‘for I must stay at your house today’, perhaps he saw a desire in Zacchaeus to listen and to be changed.

And following that meeting, it doesn’t take long for the new Zacchaeus to appear! He stands and makes a bold promise to give away half of his fortune and to restore fourfold anyone he has taken anything from under false pretences. I wonder if his ears were shocked to hear what his mouth was saying?

All he is doing here is publically renouncing the old life of sin, lying, cheating and extortion and he is embracing the new life of faith and holy living. Zacchaeus is merely displaying the kind of change Jesus makes in all those He saves by His grace!

When we look at people we often judge them whether we mean to or not. I like the story of of a man called Bishop Potter. "He was sailing for Europe on one of the great transatlantic ocean liners. When he went on board, he found that another passenger was to share the cabin with him. After going to see the accommodation, he came up to the purser's desk and asked if he could leave his gold watch and other valuables in the ship's safe. He explained that usually he never did that, but he had been to his cabin and had met the man whowas to occupy the other berth. Judging from his appearance, he was afraid that he might not be a very trustworthy person. The purser accepted the responsibility for the valuables and remarked, 'It's all right, bishop, I'll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here and left his for the same reason!'"

When we look at people we sometimes listen to what we think they’re going to say rather than what they are saying. We may listen to their words or watch what they do without wondering if there is a reason for their behaviour…

But when God looks at us, he looks with love and with eyes that see a person created in his image – a person with potential… a person who is special… a person with whom he desperately wants to enjoy a relationship…

And Jesus ends this passage with a clear mission statement that says these things are true for everyone. He says “For the Son of man has come to seek and to save the lost.” It is as if Jesus was saying to anyone in that room that day, and to anyone who would ever read or hear these words, “What has happened to Zacchaeus can happen to you!”

That is the wonderful truth of our faith, and the wonderful power of a Saviour who promises to change us and work with us and through us to change other people and the world. AMEN