The Blessedly Obscure (Luke 19)

            Reading this story, it is nigh impossible for many Protestants to resist humming a bit as Zacchaeus, “a wee little man”, shimmies up a sycamore tree, for “the Lord he wanted to see”.  Involuntarily, you lose your grip on the Bible, your hands going on autopilot, miming the story as learned in Vacation Bible School.  The song kicks into overdrive as you remember the sugar shock of too much Kool-Aid on a summer day and the heady smell of glue sticks as you made that little craft project while very patient (and some would say, long-suffering) teachers ensure that you make that Tower of Babel out of tongue depressors before the week is over.

            Oddly enough, I did not remember much about Zacchaeus since VBS days, until I attended seminary.  Despite years of church attendance (and even paying attention during most of the sermons and Sunday School lessons in the meantime), I did not realize that Zacchaeus was such a wee little thief.

            You see, the VBS song kept the story “rated G”, when the gospel narrative itself is a bit more controversial.  Perched up that tree is a short fellow with a long rap sheet.   Zacchaeus is a tax collector working in one of the busiest (and therefore most personally lucrative) tax districts.
            If you asked anybody there, they would suggest some new lyrics.  (It’s a great tune, they’d say, it’s got rhythm and you can dance to it, but you really should be singing:

            “Zacchaeus was an extortioner, an extortioner was he.

            He taxed and swindled all day long, and then chuckled, “Hee, hee, hee!”

            If you think I jest or worse, overstate Zacchaeus’ complexity as a character alongside Jesus, consider Luke’s description of the crowd.  The crowd recoils a bit at the sight of Zacchaeus and even more so when Jesus treats this fellow well.  The gospel storyteller claims “everybody grumbles” about the situation.  And by everybody, Luke means, “everybody”:  the Pharisees and the disciples of Jesus agree at least on this point.  This guy is not worth a second glance, as he has surely lost any respectability with his work as a tax collector.  (Cue the old movie trope of a hillbilly waving a shotgun, shouting, “He’s a revenuer!  Get him!”)

            So, what sort of person would get Jesus’ opponents and Jesus’ inner circle both all riled up? 

            According to Jesus, the object of scorn is the same person that he cannot wait to see and to welcome.

            A few minutes ago, the sanctuary was visited by a variety of little goblins, dressed in all manner of outfits.  Halloween is an interesting holiday, allowing a child to pretend what it means to be a superhero, or explore a fantasy about growing up (I’m going to be a fire fighter this year!).  Sometimes, adults also find themselves curious, wondering what it would be like to take leave of the day in/day out daily grind of life, pretending for an evening that it’s fun to be a pirate rather than spend the night at home wearied from the workday as an accountant.   Take a bed sheet, and it’s time to play Caesar for an hour or two.  Shell out the big bucks and strut down the street as Darth Vader or a princess from a Disney film.  Halloween is that day that most Americans (well, the folks in New Orleans get two days a year….) can be really imaginative and, better yet, among friends and strangers with the same yearning to be so.

            So, what does Zacchaeus, the short heavy, have to do with Halloween?   Such a story as this is a wonderful gift for a day like today.  We encounter Jesus, arms open to welcome, the person who imagines that his life could indeed be other than the only way he has lived it out.   Zacchaeus does not scramble through the crowd and up a tree for his dignity’s sake.  (Indeed, the image of his efforts leaves a rather silly image in my mind.)  He hears that Jesus is coming, and he knows that, despite the ridiculous efforts he will undertake to see Jesus, despite the ridicule he inevitably draws from anyone (Luke said, everyone) around him, Zacchaeus realizes that he sees something far better than the “easy life” he has created.  He wants to see Jesus, as it’s part of what it means to start being somebody other than he’s always been.

            It’s quite a spectacle:  Zacchaeus welcomed by Jesus and the derisive reaction of the crowd.  Such love and grace pours forth from Jesus, yet the religious around him (friend and foe alike) cannot see any good reason to celebrate.  After all, did not John the Baptist himself, proclaim (in Luke’s own gospel, to boot!) that tax collectors had a difficult challenge.  For the tax collector to repent, the cranky Baptist claimed, would have to stop the things that made him rich:  don’t overcharge on taxes.   Don’t exploit others for your own gain.  As far as the crowd around Jesus and Zacchaeus could see, it’s like saying, “Hey, leopard! Change your spots!”

Zacchaeus has beaten the odds.  He confesses most publicly that he has amended his ways and will take the challenge to follow God’s ways even at his own expense or comfort.  This small, unlovable man has done something incredible in his life, exchanging his exploitative ways for a way that is far less lucrative.  Zacchaeus has taken up a new way, and Jesus not only sees this.  He welcomes it with great joy.

Perhaps in that moment of change, in that desire to explore that yearning spiritual and moral hunger within, Zacchaeus became what latter Christians would term a “saint”.  Saints may come with wondrous stories of daring and fortitude, or they may be persons who wouldn’t necessarily think of themselves first and foremost as “saintly”, just faithful to God.  Saints in the Christian tradition are actually not a select few.  The gospel calls each of us to be Christ’s saints!

This day, while we acknowledge Halloween with our children, we observe with appropriate reverence the holy day of “All Saints”, celebrated traditionally on November 1.  It is a day that Christians celebrate those who have gone on before, recalling the New Testament’s splendid language of “the cloud of witnesses”.  We recall not only the “greats” of the Church.  Such days call us to remember the folks who might be only known to us as great examples of the faith lived well and lived out in the midst of the world.   Recalling the saints helps us remember the best of what it means to be Christian.

The story of Zacchaeus offers us a glimpse of what happens when the least likely person steps forward in faith.  Jesus rejoices and welcomes you to this new way of life.  We have difficult choices to make about how we live our lives.  We struggle with adversities and challenge, and sometimes the scorn and misunderstanding of others.   Yet, we move forward, as Christ’s beloved, a group of people who know what it means to be lost and know what it means to be welcomed home.