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Trying to See Jesus
By Riviera UCC | November 7, 2007
Trying to See Jesus
By the Reverend Alicia S. Rapp
Luke 19:1-19
November 4, 2007
At dinner with friends a couple of nights ago, we were talking about the movie “Luther,” a biographical account of Martin Luther, the 16th century priest who is responsible for beginning a revolution that changed the church forever. Because of Luther, Bibles are in the hands and in the language of the people, not just the clergy. Because of Luther, the sacraments of baptism and communion have been opened up in new ways. Because of Luther, heaven is not for sale, a commodity reserved for the rich.
But there are many things that haven’t changed much since Luther’s time. Luther is quoted as saying, “the problem with the world is that we hate evil more than we love good.” You may have to think about that a minute: we hate evil more than we love good. Where is it we spend the bulk of our resources in the world: fighting, defending, imprisoning? Or educating, nurturing, developing? Five centuries have passed since Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation of the church, and yet the world has changed very little.
The world has changed very little since the time of Jesus. Look at the people who were following him in the crowd that day. They weren’t much different. They would rather see the repugnant among them treed than freed.
If we are keeping up with the story in Luke, we realize that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and therefore his own death. The Jericho road to the holy city was well-travelled. Even though it was the long way around from Galilee to Jerusalem, it allowed Jews to bypass the land of the Samaritans. Jesus had already crossed over this line, of course, broken this taboo. Still, here he was in Jericho, known to be perhaps the oldest city in the world, 10,000 years old, an oasis in the desert. He had passed on through and was headed out, surrounded by the small crowd of curious, the celebrity-seekers, the sick in need of healing, the true followers, the scribes and Pharisees and other religious folks, perhaps even a few children playing nearby and a beggar or two.
In the crowd on that day was a tax collector. If you’ve been reading Luke, you’re not surprised by this. He seemed to be fascinated by tax collectors. And to raise the stakes, this one had a name, a big deal in Bible stories where characters often go unnamed—Zacchaeus—and was the chief tax collector, a title otherwise unknown in Greek history and literature. And, he was rich! Zacchaeus had it all. He embodied everything we love to hate…and all that we desire.
I have a friend who told me about the day her children first came home from school with all of the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign stuff. She sat down with them and asked them what they had learned about drugs. They said, “Oh, drugs are awful. They’ll make you sick and make you do terrible things and then they’ll kill you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “But here’s the worst part, the part they didn’t tell you about drugs, the dirty little secret. First, before they do all of those awful things to you, they make you feel really good.”
It is a dirty little secret isn’t it? Sometimes the things that end up destroying us start out by making us feel oh so very good. Name recognition. Titles. Unbridled wealth. Powerful drugs.
Here’s another dirty little secret—we hate those things most when they belong to someone else. We hate wealth and power most when we don’t have it. We hate what we have already declared to be “evil” more than we love good. Why else would we pour over the tabloids, the entertainment “news?” Because we love to peak into the private lives of the rich and famous, even better if there is scandal and deceit.
Luke might have seemed to share our love/hate relationship with wealth and power. He began his gospel with the story of a young, pregnant woman singing about a God who has “brought down the powerful from their thrones” and “sent the rich away empty.” Then she gave birth to Jesus. That should give us a clue of what was to come.
You may also remember that just a few days before he came into Jericho, Jesus met a rich ruler who came seeking eternal life. The ruler was a good man, knew the law, had kept the commandments. But he went away sad and lost because he was addicted to his wealth.
Jesus was known to spend his time with outcasts and sinners, with Samaritans, with the sick and poor, and yes, with tax collectors. Yet Luke will not let us figure this messiah out completely. Passing through Jericho, Jesus did not choose anyone ordinary from the crowd, as we might expect—the poor, the sick, the needy. He chose the man who had the most—the rich, powerful tax collector Zacchaeus. He looked up and called the man down from the tree he had climbed.
This is, of course, a conversion story. Verse three gives us our clue. Zacchaeus, we’re told, was “trying to see who Jesus was…” That’s why he went to all that trouble to climb up into that tree. He was “trying to see who Jesus was.” Then Jesus came along and called Zacchaeus down: “I must stay at your house today.”
Anne Lamott, in her very best book, Traveling Mercies, remembers just before her own conversion experience, the sensation of Jesus’ strong presence everywhere she went. She describes it this way: “I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever.”
Zacchaeus came down from that tree and let Jesus in.
And all the world rejoiced and gave praise to God and shouted “Alleluia!” Or maybe not so much…
Because, as Luther said, we hate evil more than we love good. That crowd was so accustomed to hating tax collectors—and this one was the chief tax collector, the guy at the top, even if that did mean the top of a tree—the crowd was so sure this rich man would not be able to make it through the eye of the needle—that crowd so wanted Jesus to lead them on the war against…, well, against anything: Rome, Orthodox Judaism, the Establishment. They had forgotten that all of this, all of life, is a bid for what is good. Gospel: good news.
We are not told that Jesus preached a single word to Zacchaeus. He didn’t chastise him, make of him any demands. He had supper with him. Then the tax collector turned his life around. He stood (a sign of resurrection) and made a public commitment to give half of everything he owned to the poor. Further, he would make amends to anyone he had cheated, repaying them four times over, which was twice as much as the law of Moses required.
Why is it we are so reluctant to join in the joy of the Lord? Perhaps it is because we really do not understand conversion, we who have so privatized our lives, even our religion. This story is only a little bit about Zacchaeus. It is at least as much about his community. Jesus pronounces that salvation has come to this house. Everyone who lives with this tax collector will now live differently because of this man’s experience with Jesus. His wife and children will live more freely, his servants, even the creatures—the livestock or pets—under his care.
Jesus pronounces Zacchaeus a son of Abraham. With this, he is restored to the community of the Jews. This detested man, this unclean outcast, is saved, which isn’t about heaven, but rather about God’s kingdom. He is made a good and creative part of the world’s economy. Now that’s worth rejoicing about!
That, Jesus said, was his mission: to seek out and to save the lost. He came to call people down from those places in life where they’ve been treed—by power, by wealth, by the next thing that didn’t satisfy, or by the criticism of the crowd. If the crowd would only let them come down… If the crowd would only let them come to the table and have a little something to eat, let them have supper with Jesus. Then, just possibly, the world might be a little better. The kingdom of God might even come, here on earth.
But that’s a tough crowd down there. Easier to hate evil than to love good…
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