"What is Zacchaeus Seeking?"
Luke 19:1-10
Rev. Everett L. Miller
You may have heard of the book title, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Well, we could probably write a book called Everything I Know about Zacchaeus I Learned in Kindergarten because what most of us know about the man probably comes from the children’s song that starts out, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.” That song gives us the gist of the story. Zacchaeus was short so he climbed up a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus as he passed through Jericho. When Jesus came to the tree he told Zacchaeus to come down from the tree because Jesus was going to visit his house. The song really does hit the highlights, but if all that we know about this encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus comes from that great little song, we miss out on the power of this story and it becomes for us just a cute little tale about Jesus being nice to a short guy.
The story of Zacchaeus only takes up 10 verses in Luke’s Gospel and does not appear in any of the other gospels. But we can actually learn quite a bit about the man and the situation he finds himself in from these few verses. The first thing we learn is his name—Zacchaeus. It actually means “innocent,” which is ironic because the next bit of information we get about him is that he is a chief tax collector. If you think the regular tax collectors like Matthew were hated, then imagine how people felt about their bosses, the chief tax collectors. These men would contract directly with the Roman government to collect a certain amount of taxes from their own people. Usually the chief tax collector would pay that year’s full amount to the government before he ever started collecting the taxes. He would then higher underlings, like Matthew for example, to collect the money from the people, but he wouldn’t just recoup the amount that he had paid the Romans. He would hike up the taxes he collected from his own people so he could make a huge profit. If you think the IRS is stealing from you, just be happy we don’t use the Roman system. Chief tax collectors were extremely rich men and they were considered thieves and traitors to their own people. Zacchaeus would also have probably been considered unclean by Jewish law most of the time because of how often he worked directly with the Gentile Romans. Zacchaeus was anything but innocent and he was probably ostracized within his community. His wealth had come with a price.
The next thing we learn is that Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was but there was a crowd gathering in the city of Jericho and he was short so he wasn’t going to be able to see anything when Jesus walked through town. Then we often picture him climbing up a tree. But he did something else first. He took off running. He ran out ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore-fig tree, which was extremely common in the Holy Land, with low limbs that produced inferior figs that would only have been eaten by the poor.
That’s not so important, however. But here are a few facts that are: in the extremely formal society of ancient Middle Eastern Judaism it was considered shameful for a man, especially a man of social standing, to run. Kids ran. Men didn’t. Secondly, but in the same vein, it would be shameful for a rich man to climb a tree. Only poor people looking for food would climb a tree. Poor people and kids climbed trees. Grown, rich men didn’t. It may seem cute or goofy to us what Zacchaeus is doing but in his own society he was throwing his inhibitions away, making a fool of himself, and bringing shame on himself and his family. What could have been worth that?
Why did Zacchaeus want to see Jesus? Was he just curious what he looked like? Well, the Greek word for what Zacchaeus was doing was “to seek.” He was seeking to see who Jesus was. But why? It doesn’t make any sense. Zacchaeus, the man who has become rich by exploiting others, is seeking to see the Jesus who earlier in Luke’s Gospel said, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” Zacchaeus is seeking to see Jesus who once told the parable of the rich fool who wound up dead and in trouble with God, saying, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Zacchaeus is seeking to see Jesus who told the parable of the rich man who goes to hell and the poor man who goes to heaven. Zacchaeus is seeking to see the same Jesus who just a chapter earlier told a rich man to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor, then when the man refused told his disciples that “it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.” It seems that Jesus is the last person who Zacchaeus should be seeking. So something must be going on within Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus must have also heard that Jesus had been called a friend of tax collectors and “sinners”. He must have heard what chapter 15 tells us, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” He must have heard that Jesus had told a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector, in which the Pharisee brags to God and the tax collector says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” then Jesus says it is the tax collector who went home justified instead of the Pharisee. And he must have also heard that after Jesus said what he did about how difficult it would be for a rich man to enter heaven, his disciples asked him, “Who can be saved?” And Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
It must have seemed impossible to Zacchaeus that he could ever be saved from his life of dishonest wealth and his being ostracized from his community. He was surely left out of society, looked down upon. People talked behind his back. His kids probably got beat up because he was their dad. He was branded a sinner and everybody loved to grumble against him. It seems that his own people didn’t even consider him a Jew anymore. He wasn’t a son of Abraham to them. Everybody loved to hate him. Everybody offered him advice about what he could do to make life better for everybody else, like take a long hike off a short pier. But I think it is a pretty safe bet that nobody ever offered Zacchaeus what he really needed: FORGIVENESS--an OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE--and SALVATION, which is always wrapped up with forgiveness and the opportunity to change.
Zacchaeus must have heard that Jesus once said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” So he is seeking to see the one who said, “everyone who seeks finds.” Zacchaeus is seeking forgiveness. Zacchaeus “sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.” He was willing to lose any tiny little bit of respect that other people might have had for him in order to gain what he truly needed. He was willing to let it all go just for a glimpse of the one who proclaimed God’s love and forgiveness, even for chief tax collectors, especially for chief tax collectors.
He must have been terribly surprised when Jesus and his group of followers approached his tree and Jesus looked up at him and calling him by name although they had never met, said, “Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Then the NIV tells us “he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.” But “welcomed him gladly” doesn’t really give us the power of the word in the Greek. It means “rejoice.” Here in Luke’s gospel it is the word that Gabriel uses when he tells Mary how she should react to the news that she will bear the Savior of the world in her womb. This is the word that is used to describe the reaction of the shepherd who finds his one lost sheep. And this word is the reaction of the father who receives his prodigal son back after he thought he’d lost him forever.
This isn’t just saying, “Sure, Jesus, come on over. I’m glad you’re here.” This is rejoicing because what you have found is so much more magnificent than what you were seeking. This is rejoicing because you are an outcast and you are alone and you are in need of forgiveness and you are in need of an opportunity to change and you need to be saved from all kinds of things and you’ve made a fool out of yourself hiking up your tunic and running down the road and climbing a tree and Jesus, who you were hoping to catch a glimpse of, knows you and wants to come break bread with you. This is rejoicing. So Zacchaeus hopped out of the tree and rejoiced because Jesus is coming to his house for lunch!
So the crowd sees Jesus walk off with Zacchaeus and rolls their eyes and sticks their noses up and huffs and puffs, “[Jesus] has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” Of course Zacchaeus would have expected that, but who cares, Jesus isn’t sitting down to sandwiches at anybody else’s house. And Jesus was surely used to it by now. He’d been hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners of all kinds for quite some time. And all this that is going on, the seeking and the finding, the fact that Jesus knew his name and was giving Zacchaeus the opportunities he so sorely needed causes such a change in Zacchaeus that he stands up and tells Jesus, “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.”
What a change! John the Baptist had once talked about bearing fruits worthy of repentance. James would later write, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” Jesus talked a lot about repenting, which means changing the way you think and live. Jesus’ acceptance of Zacchaeus has inspired such a change in Zacchaeus that he is standing up, possibly in the middle of dinner, and repenting. The Zacchaeus who cheated people and who didn’t give to help the poor, that man is dead. From now on he doesn’t want to hold on to money for himself but to give as freely as he has received. Zacchaeus wants to change his life but no one would give him the chance. It was like he had been on an island surrounded by burned bridges, and Jesus was the only one willing make the swim. Jesus had once said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” Zacchaeus had gained a lot, but he had forfeited his very self. But even if the whole city of Jericho had given up on Zacchaeus, Jesus hadn’t.
So Jesus replies, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” Jesus has given Zacchaeus his identity back and re-included him in God’s covenant community of faith. It doesn’t matter if everybody else in town looks down on Zacchaeus and says he’s such a traitor, that he’s not even a Jew, not even a son of Abraham, because Jesus says he is and that is what matters. We don’t know exactly what Jesus means by salvation here. We are not told if Zacchaeus has made a profession of faith in Jesus. We are not told if he wants to join up with the disciples. But what we do know is that whatever happened in Zacchaeus was so powerful that Jesus sensed that and that Jesus proclaimed that salvation had come to Zacchaeus and his family because of what had happened that day with all the running and tree climbing and rejoicing and repenting.
And here it gets even more interesting. Jesus says, “For the Son of Man (by which he is referring to himself) came to seek and to save what was lost.” I thought it was Zacchaeus who was seeking to see Jesus, not the other way around. And Zacchaeus was certainly seeking Jesus because Zacchaeus was lost and he thought Jesus might be the one in whom he would be found. But Zacchaeus wasn’t the only one who was seeking someone that day. Jesus was seeking for him as well. In fact, Jesus says that is why he came to earth, to Israel, to Jericho, to Zacchaeus, a grown man in a tree. He came to seek and to save the lost. So Zacchaeus may have been a wee little man and a wee little man was he, but he was also lost and he knew it, but so did Jesus. The world wouldn’t give Zacchaeus another chance but Jesus would, because Jesus is the seeker and the savior of the lost.
And here is the best news of it all: that is just as true today as it was then. If you are lost, if the world has given up on you, if you have gained much but forfeited your very self, if what you seek is forgiveness, if what you seek is the opportunity to change, if what you seek is salvation, seek Jesus. He has promised that if you seek him, you will find him, because although you might think you are the only one who is seeking for something, for someone, he is seeking for you too. Like a miraculous birth, like a lost sheep found, like a long lost child returned, that is worth rejoicing over. Rejoice, for Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost. Praise God.
The story of Zacchaeus only takes up 10 verses in Luke’s Gospel and does not appear in any of the other gospels. But we can actually learn quite a bit about the man and the situation he finds himself in from these few verses. The first thing we learn is his name—Zacchaeus. It actually means “innocent,” which is ironic because the next bit of information we get about him is that he is a chief tax collector. If you think the regular tax collectors like Matthew were hated, then imagine how people felt about their bosses, the chief tax collectors. These men would contract directly with the Roman government to collect a certain amount of taxes from their own people. Usually the chief tax collector would pay that year’s full amount to the government before he ever started collecting the taxes. He would then higher underlings, like Matthew for example, to collect the money from the people, but he wouldn’t just recoup the amount that he had paid the Romans. He would hike up the taxes he collected from his own people so he could make a huge profit. If you think the IRS is stealing from you, just be happy we don’t use the Roman system. Chief tax collectors were extremely rich men and they were considered thieves and traitors to their own people. Zacchaeus would also have probably been considered unclean by Jewish law most of the time because of how often he worked directly with the Gentile Romans. Zacchaeus was anything but innocent and he was probably ostracized within his community. His wealth had come with a price.
The next thing we learn is that Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was but there was a crowd gathering in the city of Jericho and he was short so he wasn’t going to be able to see anything when Jesus walked through town. Then we often picture him climbing up a tree. But he did something else first. He took off running. He ran out ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore-fig tree, which was extremely common in the Holy Land, with low limbs that produced inferior figs that would only have been eaten by the poor.
That’s not so important, however. But here are a few facts that are: in the extremely formal society of ancient Middle Eastern Judaism it was considered shameful for a man, especially a man of social standing, to run. Kids ran. Men didn’t. Secondly, but in the same vein, it would be shameful for a rich man to climb a tree. Only poor people looking for food would climb a tree. Poor people and kids climbed trees. Grown, rich men didn’t. It may seem cute or goofy to us what Zacchaeus is doing but in his own society he was throwing his inhibitions away, making a fool of himself, and bringing shame on himself and his family. What could have been worth that?
Why did Zacchaeus want to see Jesus? Was he just curious what he looked like? Well, the Greek word for what Zacchaeus was doing was “to seek.” He was seeking to see who Jesus was. But why? It doesn’t make any sense. Zacchaeus, the man who has become rich by exploiting others, is seeking to see the Jesus who earlier in Luke’s Gospel said, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” Zacchaeus is seeking to see Jesus who once told the parable of the rich fool who wound up dead and in trouble with God, saying, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Zacchaeus is seeking to see Jesus who told the parable of the rich man who goes to hell and the poor man who goes to heaven. Zacchaeus is seeking to see the same Jesus who just a chapter earlier told a rich man to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor, then when the man refused told his disciples that “it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.” It seems that Jesus is the last person who Zacchaeus should be seeking. So something must be going on within Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus must have also heard that Jesus had been called a friend of tax collectors and “sinners”. He must have heard what chapter 15 tells us, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” He must have heard that Jesus had told a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector, in which the Pharisee brags to God and the tax collector says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” then Jesus says it is the tax collector who went home justified instead of the Pharisee. And he must have also heard that after Jesus said what he did about how difficult it would be for a rich man to enter heaven, his disciples asked him, “Who can be saved?” And Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
It must have seemed impossible to Zacchaeus that he could ever be saved from his life of dishonest wealth and his being ostracized from his community. He was surely left out of society, looked down upon. People talked behind his back. His kids probably got beat up because he was their dad. He was branded a sinner and everybody loved to grumble against him. It seems that his own people didn’t even consider him a Jew anymore. He wasn’t a son of Abraham to them. Everybody loved to hate him. Everybody offered him advice about what he could do to make life better for everybody else, like take a long hike off a short pier. But I think it is a pretty safe bet that nobody ever offered Zacchaeus what he really needed: FORGIVENESS--an OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE--and SALVATION, which is always wrapped up with forgiveness and the opportunity to change.
Zacchaeus must have heard that Jesus once said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” So he is seeking to see the one who said, “everyone who seeks finds.” Zacchaeus is seeking forgiveness. Zacchaeus “sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.” He was willing to lose any tiny little bit of respect that other people might have had for him in order to gain what he truly needed. He was willing to let it all go just for a glimpse of the one who proclaimed God’s love and forgiveness, even for chief tax collectors, especially for chief tax collectors.
He must have been terribly surprised when Jesus and his group of followers approached his tree and Jesus looked up at him and calling him by name although they had never met, said, “Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Then the NIV tells us “he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.” But “welcomed him gladly” doesn’t really give us the power of the word in the Greek. It means “rejoice.” Here in Luke’s gospel it is the word that Gabriel uses when he tells Mary how she should react to the news that she will bear the Savior of the world in her womb. This is the word that is used to describe the reaction of the shepherd who finds his one lost sheep. And this word is the reaction of the father who receives his prodigal son back after he thought he’d lost him forever.
This isn’t just saying, “Sure, Jesus, come on over. I’m glad you’re here.” This is rejoicing because what you have found is so much more magnificent than what you were seeking. This is rejoicing because you are an outcast and you are alone and you are in need of forgiveness and you are in need of an opportunity to change and you need to be saved from all kinds of things and you’ve made a fool out of yourself hiking up your tunic and running down the road and climbing a tree and Jesus, who you were hoping to catch a glimpse of, knows you and wants to come break bread with you. This is rejoicing. So Zacchaeus hopped out of the tree and rejoiced because Jesus is coming to his house for lunch!
So the crowd sees Jesus walk off with Zacchaeus and rolls their eyes and sticks their noses up and huffs and puffs, “[Jesus] has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” Of course Zacchaeus would have expected that, but who cares, Jesus isn’t sitting down to sandwiches at anybody else’s house. And Jesus was surely used to it by now. He’d been hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners of all kinds for quite some time. And all this that is going on, the seeking and the finding, the fact that Jesus knew his name and was giving Zacchaeus the opportunities he so sorely needed causes such a change in Zacchaeus that he stands up and tells Jesus, “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.”
What a change! John the Baptist had once talked about bearing fruits worthy of repentance. James would later write, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” Jesus talked a lot about repenting, which means changing the way you think and live. Jesus’ acceptance of Zacchaeus has inspired such a change in Zacchaeus that he is standing up, possibly in the middle of dinner, and repenting. The Zacchaeus who cheated people and who didn’t give to help the poor, that man is dead. From now on he doesn’t want to hold on to money for himself but to give as freely as he has received. Zacchaeus wants to change his life but no one would give him the chance. It was like he had been on an island surrounded by burned bridges, and Jesus was the only one willing make the swim. Jesus had once said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” Zacchaeus had gained a lot, but he had forfeited his very self. But even if the whole city of Jericho had given up on Zacchaeus, Jesus hadn’t.
So Jesus replies, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” Jesus has given Zacchaeus his identity back and re-included him in God’s covenant community of faith. It doesn’t matter if everybody else in town looks down on Zacchaeus and says he’s such a traitor, that he’s not even a Jew, not even a son of Abraham, because Jesus says he is and that is what matters. We don’t know exactly what Jesus means by salvation here. We are not told if Zacchaeus has made a profession of faith in Jesus. We are not told if he wants to join up with the disciples. But what we do know is that whatever happened in Zacchaeus was so powerful that Jesus sensed that and that Jesus proclaimed that salvation had come to Zacchaeus and his family because of what had happened that day with all the running and tree climbing and rejoicing and repenting.
And here it gets even more interesting. Jesus says, “For the Son of Man (by which he is referring to himself) came to seek and to save what was lost.” I thought it was Zacchaeus who was seeking to see Jesus, not the other way around. And Zacchaeus was certainly seeking Jesus because Zacchaeus was lost and he thought Jesus might be the one in whom he would be found. But Zacchaeus wasn’t the only one who was seeking someone that day. Jesus was seeking for him as well. In fact, Jesus says that is why he came to earth, to Israel, to Jericho, to Zacchaeus, a grown man in a tree. He came to seek and to save the lost. So Zacchaeus may have been a wee little man and a wee little man was he, but he was also lost and he knew it, but so did Jesus. The world wouldn’t give Zacchaeus another chance but Jesus would, because Jesus is the seeker and the savior of the lost.
And here is the best news of it all: that is just as true today as it was then. If you are lost, if the world has given up on you, if you have gained much but forfeited your very self, if what you seek is forgiveness, if what you seek is the opportunity to change, if what you seek is salvation, seek Jesus. He has promised that if you seek him, you will find him, because although you might think you are the only one who is seeking for something, for someone, he is seeking for you too. Like a miraculous birth, like a lost sheep found, like a long lost child returned, that is worth rejoicing over. Rejoice, for Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost. Praise God.
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