BACK IN HIS PROPER PLACE

 NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Luke 19:1-7

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”


You are most likely familiar with this story of Zacchaeus, who was a “wee little man." He was a “tax man”, working for the Roman government collecting taxes from his fellow Jews. He would not have been popular, he like others we encounter in the Gospels, was excluded because of the way he made his living.

But along comes Jesus and He sees Zacchaeus, and invites Himself to the tax collectors home. Now, it was a big thing that Jesus does here. In the culture of that day to go into someone’s home, was a very intimate step. It suggested deep fellowship and closeness; a welcoming and acceptance of that person. The outcome of this visit is that Salvation, it says, came to his house.

We notice that Jesus is criticized and judged by the religious people of this community for this very moving act of grace. Jesus explains His purpose again: He came to seek and save the lost. “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham."

There is so much packed in this encounter but let me just point out that Zacchaeus was among the “wealthy” of the community, a son of Abraham who is restored to his proper place. Jesus meets and welcomes not only the poor to experience God’s love and care, but the rich as well.

And at some point, people stopped seeing him as a person loved by God, and instead put him in a category of the unseen, someone to avoid at all costs. They lost sight of their calling as God’s ambassadors of mercy, grace, and compassion.

This can happen subtly, I want to ask you this question, it is one I have wrestled with lots, “What group or people to you tend to avoid or overlook? We use categories, don’t we? You know categories like “those people”, or "Us versus Them", labels that construct barriers and keep us from people, who like us were created in God’s image. I wonder what might happen in our communities if more of us viewed the people around us the way Jesus would see them, the way Jesus saw Zacchaeus.