Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC October 30, 1988
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, the savior for to see.”
Oh ... good morning, good morning. Almost didn't see you there. In fact, I've missed a lot of things, short as I am. Most people look each other in the eye, you know? Well, I am more intimately acquainted with your shirt than I am with your face. Being short has given me fits over the years, but there was one time, one glorious time, when it became something special.
That's why I'm here. I thought I'd better set you straight about it. Didn't I hear my name called?
You, over there, didn't you just read my story? Oh, you're not sure. Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet. I am Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus of Jericho, but you can call me Zack or you can call me Z, whatever. You can call me whatever you want to now, because somebody special called my name one day. It used to be that people called me really bad names and hurt me deeply, but no more, no more.
Let me tell you my story.
You see, when I was little – wait a minute, I'm still little, change that. When I was even littler than I am now, I was so short the other kids made fun of me, my father called me squirt, my mother stuffed me with food to make me grow even the rabbi at our synagogue said he thought the Lord had cursed me, maybe as an example to everybody else of what might happen to you if you didn't follow the Law.
Do you have any idea what it means to be denied all that you ought to be? For me it was that I was so little that they never picked for the games kids play, but for my sister Rachel it was that she was kind of slow in school, and people would accuse her of being lazy. She wasn't lazy and she wasn't stupid, just slower, that's all. But it hurt.
And my friend Isaac; his problem was that his family didn't have any money. Isaac's father had died when he was only seven years old, and so Isaac's mother just had to get by the best way she could. Sometimes my parents would pack up some food and take it over to Isaac's mother, and one time I went along. M y father seemed to think these folks were sort of inferior, and my friend Isaac just stayed in the back room of the house, wouldn’t even come out to see me or to thank my father. Seems like when people don't have what they need, other folks make them hurt about that.
Well, enough philosophy. I came here to tell you about me. As I said, I was so short that nobody picked me for our games, none of the girls would look at me twice, and when I got old enough to work, my father said I wasn't big enough or strong enough to help harvest the date palms he grew. How was I going to pick date palms that always seemed to grow about eighteen inches beyond my best reach? And so Father said, find something else to do.
Well, I did. Believe me, I did. And I fixed them, all those folks who had made such fun of me would have to take notice of me. If you'll forgive the play on words, they'd have to look up to me, because I found a way to get somewhere. I found a way to succeed. I became a tax collector, a publican. I got a job gathering customs duties. Let me tell you how that works.
You see, several generations ago the Romans took over our homeland. They sent in their armies, they protect us from invasion, they do a great job building roads and constructing aqueducts, and all that; but there is a price to pay. Taxes. Taxes are the price we have to pay for all the public works we enjoy.
Now the Romans collect most of the taxes themselves, but there is one kind of tax they contract out to others. That's the customs tax, the tax taken from all the goods that move along the roads from one place to another. They decided that this kind of tax they would farm out, and if you want to be a customs collector, you guarantee the Romans so much money every year, and then it's up to you to get it from the business in your city. As long as you give the Romans what you promise to give them, hey, no problem. They will look the other way while you squeeze out anything you can get for yourself.
So when my father said, “Shorty, get out and get a job …”; when my mother said, “You have to carry your weight around here…”; and when even my boyhood friend Isaac said, “Looks like we’ll be bringing you a charity basket this year…,” I went to the procurator and I got the tax collection job. I did it to prove something to them, I did it to show them; never mind they were going to call me a traitor, never mind they said I would end up robbing and cheating like all the other publicans. I did it because if I could not have their love, I would at least gain their fear. If I could not have their respect, I would at least achieve comfort. If I could never be a big man, I could live in a big house and wear fine clothes ... short clothes, but good ones. I would show them that I could be somebody.
Well, I can't say it worked too well. I got the job, I got the house. I piled up cash and I accumulated a closet full of clothes. I even offered to pay for a new synagogue, but the rabbi wouldn't take my money, said it wouldn't be right to build a house of prayer out of poisoned money.
And I was so unhappy. Nobody knew that, and they didn’t care anyway. I was so unhappy. When I walked on the streets they turned their heads or crossed to the other side. When I went home I would find graffiti on the door: "Sinner" "Cheat" "Traitor" How depressed I became; you know, I guess it is true, it says it somewhere in the Book of Deuteronomy, "Man does not live by bread alone." It’s true; life doesn't consist of abundance. I was surrounded by all sorts of beautiful things, but no one to share them with. I had every thing anybody could want, but … well.
Then one day the news leaked out on the street about a teacher named Jesus. It seemed everybody was talking about him. He had healed sick people, he had taught wonderful things about the Lord, he had stared down some of the lawyers and scribes that always had the right answers ... you know, the same folks that made life so hard for me: "Come out from among them and be ye separate." "The Lord loves the righteous but the soul of the ungodly it shall perish." 0h how I hated those pompous mules! Always so correct. But this Jesus had bested them in an argument or two, and now word was that he was headed to Jerusalem to do the same thing with the temple priests. I was intrigued, I was fascinated.
Still, I don't think that would have been enough to get me out with the crowds, the common scum, if I had not heard something else. I heard that he had picked out twelve men as his chosen disciples: common, ordinary folks ... fishermen, farmers, so on; but there was also among them a tax collector. Matthew, also sometimes called Levi. Now I knew Matthew. He and I had gone to tax collecting school together. Graduated with a degree in gouging while I was still trying to pass Fraud 101. Matthew was one of' the best; you can't imagine what a beautiful set of false books he could keep to show the Roman governors. If this rabbi could pick up on Matthew, well, then, I'd better see what made Jesus tick.
When the day came that he was to walk through Jericho, the old problems haunted me. I tried to get through the crowd … had to, you know, if I stood behind anybody all I would be able to do would be to memorize the backs of their burnooses: “made in Damascus, Union Label”. And I tried to edge up to the curb. I took so many elbows in my ribs I thought I was going to die, and when Isaac and his rowdy buddy Saul got me between them and then leaned in and kicked my shins … well, I knew I was just about up a tree on this project.
Up a tree! Of course. Why hadn't I thought of it before? Just behind me was a sycamore palm with low-lying branches. I just scooted up there a few feet and I could see everything. In fact, I thought, if I can put a few branches and leaves in front of me here, I can see without being seen. Wouldn't want Isaac and Saul to find me in a vulnerable spot like that.
As the procession came closer, I could hear all this talk and shouting and I could see Jesus, taller than the others. Wouldn't you just know he would be, just my luck? And there, just behind him, was my old school mate Matthew, looking for all the world like the cat that ate the canary ... so happy, so joyful. Not the same Matthew that used to sit up half the night telling me how much he hated his father. Not the same Matthew who used to grin and shuffle for the Romans and then spit on the ground when they walked away. Not at all.
Then I saw my old partner in crime lean over and whisper to the teacher, and my heart almost stopped. They were coming in my direction, they were looking up directly. Could it be? Yes it was; they were looking at me. Here I am, up a tree, safe and secure from all alarms, and the teacher is going to single me out right there in front of God and everybody. I could feel it coming, probably another zinger, like, "Let him that stole steal no more.” Like, "No publican shall inherit the Kingdom of God." I cowered and tried to hide behind a sycamore leaf; too small, though, even for me.
“Zacchaeus” Oh Lordy, he even knew my name. “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down.” Come down; I guessed he didn’t want to see me and didn't want me to see him. If I come down I'll probably get squashed like a beetle. “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for I must stay at your house today."
I could not believe what my ears were hearing. "I must stay at your house today.” Right out there where everybody could hear him. Right out in front of the tall, respectable, religious world. Right out there in front of God and everybody, including Isaac and Saul.
"I must stay at your house today." When I heard that the great teacher accepted me, just as I was; when I understood that he would come under my roof and risk his reputation; when I saw and felt a love for me ... well, you cannot imagine what I felt.
Sure, I felt happiness and pride that such a great man would take me on. Even though I was up a tree not just literally but spiritually too, even though I had no place to go but up spiritually, he loved me, just as I am. Never said, give up your job and then I'll talk with you. Never said scrub up, wash up, get a decent reputation and then we'll go together to the Officers Club. Never said anything like that; just, come on, I'm going to your house.
Well, what I felt was a crazy mixture of remorse and pride, sadness and joy, self-regret and self-esteem. It was just a jumble of feelings. And almost before I could think I got down from that tree but I went out on a limb. Huh? You don't see how that's possible?
Well, I mean I went out on a spiritual, emotional, financial limb. I took a risk, a big risk. He never told me to do this, but somehow it was because he found me there and he loved me just as I am that I blurted out, “Master, master, I have decided to give half of everything away. Half of it; my stars, the rabbis didn't even want to accept the tithe, the ten percent the law said I had to give, which had been fine by me, I didn't really want to give a tithe anyway. Just trying to buy a little respectability. But now, oh my soul; now If he could love me I wanted not only to give, but to give and give and keep on giving.
And something else; something in his eyes kept reminding me of what I had done. It was as if I could see in his eyes reflections, images of the poor widow whose purse I had emptied at the tax office, images of the merchant whose goods I had weighed with my thumb on the scales. I almost thought I heard in his voice the voice of the farmer complaining because several of his bales of wool went in one end of the customs house and: somehow never came out the other. I saw all those people and then heard my own voice saying, “Master, I've cheated some people. I am going to return to them four times what I took.” Four times … the Law said pay back people when you cheat them and add a twenty percent penalty. I must have been crazy to volunteer four hundred percent; but again, I could hardly help myself.
When I experienced his unconditional love for me, just as I am, I had to respond, I had to give. When I found that he would share roof and table with somebody everyone called traitor, I knew I could no longer be the traitor, I could no longer hold back from God what was God's. When I felt his eyes on me, not accusing me, just loving me, I knew that even the old fraud (got an A in that Fraud 101 course, by the way) ... I knew that even the old fraud had to give himself to justice and to mercy. When he saw my need: me, the low life, the man who was little in stature but even smaller in spirit, and he lifted me with his love, I knew I had been saved.
I went out that morning on a journey of discovery, to see what kind of teacher this was. But I did not so much discover him as he discovered me, what I was and what I could become, what I had done but also what could do for the Kingdom. When I, Zacchaeus, was really up a tree, Jesus discovered me and I went out on a limb, took a real risk, only to find that he too would climb a tree at the place they call Calvary, he too would stretch out his arms on the limbs of that cross-tree, and would say to me and to all of you too, "Today salvation has come to this house."
Is it possible he’s looking you in the eyes right now? He knows who you are and what you are. He knows how far down you’ve been and how much climbing you thought you had to do. He knows you’re up a tree.
But oh, is it possible he’s calling you out on some limb, to risk it all for him, with him? Do what I did: come down, take Him home, and see what happens.
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he; he climbed up in a sycamore three, the savior for to see.
