3 rd November: Proper 26

No Longer Just Looking

A tree branch on a street in Jericho is where it all changed for Zacchaeus, where he went from “just looking” to being seen and truly seeing.

Jericho was an important town just north of the Dead Sea. This city appears several times in the Bible – it’s here that Joshua “fit the battle” and made its famous walls come tumbling down. No wonder people fought over it – Jericho was an urban Eden, an oasis of date palms and balsam groves, a place where perfumes were made. ¹ Situated along a great caravan route, ² Jericho’s products were exported all over the known world. Mark Antony once presented this city as a gift to Cleopatra, ³ and the ruler Archelaeus built a magnificent palace here with fragrant gardens. ⁴ The city’s roads were bordered, as great ancient cities were, with lovely trees. Jericho had at least one sycamore tree, a tree that can grow as high as an elm, with stout branches not far from the ground that make it great for climbing.

Jesus and his disciples are taking the road that leads from Galilee through Jericho to Jerusalem. And it’s in this prosperous city that Jesus meets Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector for the Roman government in this boomtown, this place for making wealth, showing wealth, enjoying wealth—and for transferring wealth to the Romans. He probably had a staff of collectors, and he was, very possibly, the most detested man in all of Jericho. He worked for the occupying forces, and therefore was regarded as a traitor to his own people. He and his cohorts could stop a person in Jericho and assess duties on nearly everything in that person’s possession. For example, a cart could be taxed for each wheel, for the animal that pulled it, for the merchandise it contained. ⁵

A tax collector would send in a portion of his collections, and everything over what the Romans were expecting, he was free to keep. ⁶ It was a system ripe for abuse and our text tersely states, “He was wealthy,” in verse 2, not merely a description, but rather, an indictment.

Zacchaeus had made himself rich in service to the Romans and at the expense of his people. No decent person wanted to be seen with him. Zacchaeus’ name must have brought a bad taste to the mouth of his fellow Jews: his name meant “the pure one” and “the righteous,” but far from being pure, he was a little man who had made himself big in his community by his greed and cooperation with the enemy occupiers.

One day, along comes Jesus. The word has spread about Jesus, and Zacchaeus is one of the many in Jericho who want to see Jesus.

Surely Zacchaeus is curious. But what did he really expect to see in Jesus? Would he be happy about Jesus, or not? On the one hand, maybe he had heard that Jesus was known for eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. Maybe he had heard that in some of Jesus’ stories, like the one we heard last week, where it’s the tax collector who’s the hero and the Pharisee who looks bad. Maybe he’s heard that a man named Levi, who was a tax collector, is amongst those counted as Jesus’ closest followers. On the other hand, maybe Zacchaeus has heard that Jesus told the rich man to sell all that he had and follow him. Maybe he’s heard Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And, after all, Levi had to leave his tax collector’s booth behind in order to follow this Jesus.

So maybe the most we can say of Zacchaeus is that he is curious. He wants to see Jesus—not meet him. He doesn’t want to touch Jesus, or be touched by him. He certainly doesn’t come to Jesus for healing. He wants to see him. He wants to observe. The crowd is big and he is small, so he shinnies up the sycamore so he can observe from a safe distance. Besides, being a tax collector, he knows he has no friends on the ground.

Zacchaeus thinks he is safe in the tree where he can watch. Where no one will confuse him with the cheering crowd. Where no one has to know where he stands. Where he can’t touch or be touched. Where he is safe to say, “Just looking, thank you,” like one would say to a shopkeeper, if anyone accidentally pays attention to him up there. Not committed, “just looking.”

I wonder if sometimes we’re all a little like Zacchaeus. Don’t we all have times it’s easier to stay in our tree, to watch as a spectator as the world goes by, rather than come down and get involved? Rather than come down amongst the crowd and the dirt and the noise and the needs and the confusion and put one foot in front of the other to follow Jesus? Isn’t it easier sometimes to say, “Just looking,” when asked to help, to give, to get involved. “Just looking.” There’s a different sermon for those of you who do everything, who need to learn to say no, who might need to work on some Sabbath time. But for others of us, is it time to get involved, to stop being a spectator, and join the procession? Maybe it’s time to take on some ministry in the church, maybe it’s time to get involved in the community. Maybe it’s time to participate, to serve, to say yes.

Sometimes getting involved in a church takes a leap of faith. I am all for people doing what is called “church shopping.” I did it. I wasn’t raised in this denomination. I think it’s important for people to look around, to explore different faith communities to see where it might be a fit, a place where they can worship, grow, participate, serve, be comfortable, and yet be challenged too. But I think there’s a danger sometimes, that people don’t just come down out of the tree and say, this is it. Here I am. I’m getting involved.

Or in our own faith lives: wanting to see Jesus is a good thing, but do we keep him at arm’s length, pondering him from a distance, rather than meeting him, coming to know him, to love him, to serve him, to be changed by him, to grow more and more into his image and likeness, to discover the meaning of our lives through a deep relationship with him, powered by prayer, nurtured by participation in the faith community, nourished by the sacraments. It’s messy down here. It’s easier to stay up in the tree. “Just looking, thank you.”

That day in Jericho, Jesus looks up at the sycamore and sees a fluttering of leaves. And amongst the ashy green leaves, he sees Zacchaeus clinging like a little ripe fruit, ready for the picking. Jesus gives Zacchaeus a chance to come down, to let him not just pass by, to not just go back to business as usual. He says, “Hurry down Zacchaeus, for I must stay at your house today.”

Zacchaeus could have stayed up in the tree and turned down Jesus’ invitation. Jesus never compels us to follow, never demands. It’s always our free choice. We can always say no.

And it might seem easier to go on with our life and continue with our preoccupation with ourselves and our own agendas, rather than allow Jesus Christ to invite himself over for dinner and allow him see our true selves. It might be easier to say, “Just looking, thank you.”

But I know from experience, and perhaps you do too, that it’s not easier to go on with our own preoccupations, to try to take care of our worries ourselves. That actually, there is a tremendous ease and grace to letting Jesus take our burdens from us, to giving ourselves over to him, to letting him set our agendas instead of worrying over trying to do it all ourselves. It’s easier to stop scrambling up trees and allow ourselves to know the one who knows us completely and loves us still. Despite that ease of surrender, we may still want to scramble up the nearest tree when faced with the prospect of getting involved, of being truly accepted and loved, of loving the one who first loved us. But, like Zacchaeus, we can take the chance, invite Jesus in, and watch the radical realigning of our lives.

We don’t really know what happened at Zacchaeus’s house. All we see are the results. Zacchaeus’s life changes. He promises to give half of his yearly income to the poor—that is five times a tithe!–and to return any fraudulent gains four-times over—or a return of 400% interest on money taken. Something in his encounter with Jesus changed the way Zacchaeus saw the world. He could now see people in need, whereas before he only saw people who could feed his need for gain.

Salvation comes to Zacchaeus’s house, and he is forever changed from a taker to a giver. He had made his living taking from others, and suddenly, after just one meal with Jesus, he is giving away money like he’s the head of Charity Jericho. And Zacchaeus isn’t unique. We see it time and time again. When Jesus takes up residence in a life, the result is a generous heart. Giving becomes an opportunity, not just a requirement. What’s given may be money, it may be time, it may be some ability that can be shared. But time and time again, when Jesus plucks us out of our tree, we ripen into givers, not takers, workers, not watchers, lovers, not onlookers.

Jesus isn’t coming to our town. Jesus is already here. And he may be looking up at you, inviting you down, out of some safe, but lonely perch, and into the kingdom of God.