You know those people that always seem to have it all together? I knew this woman when I was in graduate school that was irritatingly perfect. She never even seemed to have a single hair out of place. She was always dressed just so. One time her coat, her bag and her shoes all matched and I was just waiting for a dog to come trailing after her with a matching outfit. Even though I know intellectually that perfect people simply don’t exist, I am so easily convinced otherwise when I see people like her. I am sure you know people like this. I secretly hoped that I would be around when she got rattled. I didn’t actually know much about her, but from what I saw, I assumed her life was fairly easy. She reminds me of Zacchaeus. We meet him in a bizarre scene where he ends up in a tree, with a crowd of people below him whispering in disgust.
He was a rich tax collector. He probably wore the ancient equivalent of a banker’s business suit. Maybe he wore expensive tax collector sandals that coordinated with his bag. He is the kind of guy who always has his act together. He seems to have it all. He has a high paying job, he eats good food, drinks delicious wine and in a time where either you had enough to eat or you didn’t, he had it made. People secretly hoped that he would get rattled while they were watching. No one knew much about him, but from what they saw, they assumed his life was easy. They dismissed him because they thought he had it all.
Humankind has a way of doing that sometimes. We dismiss people because they seem to have everything. And we also have a way of dismissing people because they have nothing at all.
Crowds seem to be in the business of dismissing. So you can imagine the shock when this well-to-do, always together man decides to scramble up a tree in a crowd to get a good look at a man who he has only heard about. Of course people started talking. Suddenly, the one who had it all together begins to look a bit disheveled. I bet his hair was messy, sweat came dripping down his face, leaves scattered over him. And the people on the ground are whispering, pointing and staring. What in the world is he doing up in that tree? Why does he care about this Jesus of Nazareth? He has everything he needs. He doesn’t need healing or a hot meal or a new life. The crowd seems irritated. What would he want with this Jesus?
Zacchaeus is usually the one presiding over meetings and going to great lengths to look professional. He is usually the one who is being served, the finest wine and sweetest honey, the one who never thirsts or hungers, the one who lives easily, the one so together that people can’t wait to see him get rattled, to fall apart even if just for a moment. And the crowd knew that Zacchaeus was the kind of person Jesus loved to preach against. They were so sure that Jesus would condemn him and they couldn’t wait to see it happen.
People are funny that way. We long to be able to categorize and codify, to label and predict what goes where and who belongs in which place. Perhaps it is how we are wired. Like ducks or lions, we want to order ourselves, to classify. But when Jesus comes along somehow everything changes. If he does offer a label, it is usually a reversal of what we might expect.
And so it is with Zacchaeus. Jesus invites him down from the tree. A wildly ridiculous scene instantly becomes a moment of grace. The one labeled a sinner is the very one to whom Jesus is drawn. Zacchaeus straightens himself up and gets his act together. He thought he could catch a glimpse and slip away. But Jesus calls him down and asks him to spend some time with him. And Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ house. There is no time for Zacchaeus to run home and dust or hide his pile of laundry. Jesus wants the raw stuff of Zacchaeus; he wants to really see him, to know him. The crowd is shocked, why him? The crowd began to grumble and say, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Jesus has stooped so low as to hang out with him!
But of course, the crowd was missing something very important- that is exactly what Jesus is about. Jesus made a life out of blessing those whom the crowd, whom all of us, have pre-judged, dismissed, failed to understand or get to know, Jesus made a life of blessing those whom the world, who we have labeled as sinners. And as Audrey West writes, “Jesus refuses to be bound by labels. Where [the crowd] (they) see[s] selfishness, Jesus sees welcome. Where they see an outsider, Jesus sees a member of the family. Where they see lost, Jesus sees found.”
I think of all the times I have been in the crowd, looking on and whispering; I am sure most of us have been in the crowd at one time or another. But I don’t want to be. I want to be with all of you walking behind Jesus, loving people just as they are. That’s what I love about this story. Jesus never makes fun of Zacchaeus for looking silly or asks him what in the world he is doing up there, he doesn’t ask him about his life or his past, he doesn’t ask him how or why or when, he just calls him down. He comes to him right where he is. Jesus wants to meet him in his home, right in his heart with all of his tender spots and open wounds. He sees him right where he is and wants to know him.
And Zacchaeus is so ready to change, to be loved and to love that he unravels right then and there. It seems Zacchaeus couldn’t wait. He greets Jesus and starts pouring out his soul. It seems this was the moment he was waiting for, the moment he longed for, the moment he needed. He longed for someone to see him right where he was. Perhaps he had been waiting to turn his heart into gold, waiting to be gracious and generous, waiting to do God’s will and so he spills his guts. He blurts out to Jesus in true confession fashion that he will give half of his possessions to the poor, that he will pay back four times to anyone who he might have defrauded. Maybe he expected Jesus to negotiate the terms of his salvation to make a plan for Zacchaeus to get right with God, but Jesus doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t ask to hear more or ask Zacchaeus to sign some paperwork. He just says, “Today salvations has some to this house,” “the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” In other words, there is always room to come home to God.
The crowd sneered at Jesus for being the guest of a sinner, but we know Jesus probably saw that as a compliment. Zacchaeus was willing to risk looking foolish to see Jesus and Jesus was willing to risk it all to bless Zacchaeus. He was the guest of a sinner and friends I want to be the guests of sinners with you. Amen.
“House Calls” by Audrey West in The Christian Century, October 16th, 2007.