Seeing Zacchaeus

I have been "vertically challenged" for my whole life. I was 4-foot-10 when I started High School and never really had that hoped-for growth spurt. I was 5-foot-5-and-a-half when I graduated and I've been there ever since.

And I've heard a lot of "short people" jokes in my life. "Just how short is he?" "He's so short, he can do chin-ups on the chalk tray." "He's so short, he can play hand ball against the curb."

Perhaps that's why I love the story of Zacchaeus so much. "He wanted to get a look at Jesus, but he couldn't see over the crowds because he was a pip-squeak, so he ran up ahead, anticipating the route, and climbed a sycamore-fig tree so he could get a look at Jesus when he passed by" (Luke 19: 3-4: my paraphrase). (If someone is casting another Jesus movie, how about Danny DeVito in this role?)

And of course, we know that Zacchaeus was a "chief tax collector." That is, he was not just a lowly tax collector, but someone at the top of the tax collector pyramid scheme. He bought tax lots from the Romans and then brokered them to other tax collectors. Kind of like a mob boss controlling territories. The tax lots imparted the right to collect taxes on a commercial route or a region. The position was rife with corruption. It was common practice to extort more money from tax payers to make even more money. Kind of like paying a gang "protection money." And Zaccaeus was at the top of the pyramid.

The Jewish tax collectors were completely ostracized from Jewish society since they were collaborating with the enemy, the hated Romans who were occupying their homeland. Since they had to interact with these unclean Gentiles, the tax collectors were labeled as "unclean sinners." Perhaps more hated than the Romans themselves.

So, Zaccaeus, although wealthy through his profession, was cut off from any access to salvation because of the Pharisees and scribes. The Pharisees had a fixation on holiness, due in part to the reforms instituted by Ezra after the exile, and then formalized after the Maccabean revolt. In their world, salvation was obtained through rigid adherence to the holiness codes taught by the Torah and interpreted in the Oral Torah and later resulting in Mishnah and Talmudic writings.

And the common person agreed with their leaders. The tax collectors were unredeemable sinners.

But Jesus had a "kingdom" focus. And everyone was a potential citizen of the Kingdom of God if they had faith. So, while the Pharisees were erecting more and more barriers to people, represented to the extreme by Zacchaeus, Jesus refused to treat anyone as exempt from the Good News that the Kingdom of God was now available.

And that is why Jesus "saw" something when he looked at Zacchaeus: faith. Maybe just a mustard seed, but faith nonetheless. He saw that the Father was at work and that this man was close to the Kingdom of God.

No one else in that very religious society had the eyes to see Zacchaeus in the same way. If Jesus had not arrived on the scene, Zacchaeus would remain lost.

But Zacchaeus' transformation can be seen as the fruit of the faith that Jesus called forth. And he compares that faith to the Father of faith, Abraham.

This brings us to us. A religious spirit, maybe also described as pharisaism or legalism, tends to think of people as in or out of our holy club. But Jesus calls us to let go of the glasses of religious sectarianism and see the world through Kingdom lenses.

"My Father is always at his work to this very day; and I, too, am working" (John 5: 17).

Is the Father working in the heart of the pot-smoker, the atheist, the porn-star, the militant gay activist, the [you fill in the blank] that sits in the cubicle next to you at work, or occupies the desk next to you in class, or is on the treadmill machine next to you at the gym? Are you willing to open your eyes to what the Father is doing in their lives? Are you willing to eat dinner at their house or invite them over to yours? This is where the rubber of the Gospel meets the road.