The crowd was thick that day. The road coming into Jericho was thick with people pressed up against one another. They were there because word had it that the man Jesus of Nazareth was coming.
Jesus had earned quiet a reputation of late. People were talking about how he had healed many, restoring their bodies, making it possible for them to work and earn a living.
And the things Jesus said. It made one believe that things could be different, that life could be different, that one could have hope of a better tomorrow.
He had even confronted the religious leaders and the lawyers when he felt they were treating people wrongly...particularly the very poor and very sick...particularly the people no one else wanted to have anything to do with.
Zacchaeus was one of those people.
No one wanted anything to do with Zacchaeus. They had a name for him. It was traitor.
Zacchaeus had a despicable job of being a tax collector. The Emperor needed to fund his army. He needed to clothe and feed his soldiers. He had to have funds in order to increase his holding and territories - to maintain occupying troops in order to keep peace in occupied areas. So the Emperor taxed the very people who hated and despised the presence of the Romans - the occupants of occupied territories and taxed them heavily.
Those of Zacchaeus’ occupation were the worst sort of persons, and were seen as traitors who not only collaborated with the enemy, but everyone one knew they got rich and took advantage of their fellow countrymen doing it.
No one wanted to be a tax collector. No one wanted anything to do with a tax collector.
Zacchaeus’ occupation made him wealthy at the expense of his colleagues and fellow Jewish citizens and he was hated by them.
He may have been rich in money, but he was destitute when it came to friends and fellowship. He might as well have been living in isolation. No one would have anything to do with a tax collector for the Roman government. No one would have anything to do with Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus had made his fortune off of others. His reputation was tarnished. His reputation was ruined. No one would have anything to do with Zacchaeus - not now, not ever.
That day, people lined the streets of Jericho. Jesus was coming. Several had seen the miracles he had performed. Many had heard him speak. Throughout the crowd there was an excited buzz about the approaching Jesus. People couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of him, and they crowded together, pushing against one another, clambering to see him.
Zacchaeus had heard the stories about Jesus, too. He wondered if the stories he had heard about Jesus were true. Some of those people’s lives had been completely changed. The healing they had experienced was transformative to their situations in life.
And Zacchaeus particularly thought about the people who were just like him. He thought about the other tax collectors. He thought about the other people called sinners whom Jesus had gotten a reputation for associating with. He wondered if Jesus would have anything to do with him, with a guy like Zacchaeus.
I can just see Zacchaeus’ isolation and desperation driving his curiosity. He just has to check this Jesus thing out. He must find out if what he hearing is really true. Imagine the turmoil within him as he hears that Jesus is approaching his hometown of Jericho. All Zacchaeus can think of is seeing Jesus for himself, of looking in his eyes, of discovering there in those eyes if what he has heard is trued, of discovering if there is at least one person in this world who will accept him as he is, for himself, someone who might care for him - Zacchaeus.
But it wasn’t meant to be. There were so many people. And when they saw who it was behind them that was trying to push his way through the crowds, I can just see them moving together, elbowing him out of the way on purpose, shoving him to the back.
Why is HE here? Don’t want Jesus to see the likes of him! What would Jesus think? Its certainly not putting the best foot forward for the people of Jericho, is it?
So the crowd pushed him back. There was no hope of getting to the front, and Zacchaeus was too short to see over the heads of the people in the crowd.
But Zacchaeus is consumed with his desire to see Jesus. His reputation has robbed him of all of his dignity. So it wasn’t anything for him to do a most undignified thing for a grown man like himself.
First, he took off running. Grown men didn’t run in public. It was degrading, but what else would we expect someone like Zacchaeus to do?
If that wasn’t bad enough, then came the shocker. Can you believe that Zacchaeus actually had the nerve, the gall to climb a tree in front of all those people? He had no shame at all. Everyone always knew it about Zacchaeus, but now he had gone and proved it. There was nothing Zacchaeus wouldn’t stoop to.
And it was just fitting that he climbed a sycamore tree. Its not the kind of sycamore tree we think of. This kind of sycamore tree was an inferior tree that produced a puny and inferior fig for an inferior person like himself and was sold to the lowest class of people.
If there was ever any tree Zacchaues belonged in, it was definitely a sycamore tree.
But then...a most amazing thing happened. Just then, far of down the road, the noise in crowd got louder. Jesus must finally be coming by.
Everyone forgot about the traitor Zacchaeus and began looking expectantly down the road, looking for Jesus as he made his way toward them.
People cried out his name. They clambered around him trying to touch him. Excitement bubbled through the crowd. And as Jesus made his way through Jericho, he saw a most peculiar sight. There, up in a sycamore tree was a grown man, clinging to the branches, looking expectantly, hopefully towards him, almost with - was it - a look of desperation on his face?
How this man looked for Jesus! How desperate was his need! How ironic that he could have any and every luxury that money could buy, but he wanted so much to see Jesus, that Jesus would find him up there in such a humiliating way, in that sycamore tree.
Do you think Jesus saw to the very heart of him? Do you think Jesus saw the terrible wrongs he had committed (how he had cheated other people and not cared about them) and at the same time saw the deepest desires of his heart ( how he wished his life could be different)?
I think he did.
Once spotted, Jesus made his way to the sycamore tree. As he got closer and closer, I bet never taking his eyes off of Zacchaeus, the cheers of the crowd must have grown silent.
And as Zacchaeus began to realize that Jesus was making his way towards him, his eyes must have gotten wider and wider, his breathing faster and faster, his grip on the branches tighter and tighter.
And then Jesus reaches the foot of the sycamore tree. He looks up at Zacchaeus, and he CALLS HIM BY NAME!
“Zacchaeus, hurry and come down! For I must stay at your house today!”
Can you imagine? Jesus knew him by name! Yes, I think Jesus knew Zacchaeus’ deepest wrongs and knew his deepest desires. I think he knew Zacchaeus.
It was true. What people were saying was true. Jesus did eat and hang out with sinners and people no one else liked. Zacchaeus couldn’t believe his ears. Jesus had just said he was coming home with Zacchaeus today.
Home.
What sort of images come to your mind when you hear that word? I still think of my childhood home growing up in Pasadena, Texas. Sometimes I still dream about it and I’m back there remembering a place that is so much a part of who I am.
And I think of the home Mike and I had the first couple of years after we were married. Stories come to my mind of our experiences there - touching and funny stories.
I think of the home I brought my boys home to after they were born - the place we grew into a family together.
I think of the home we have now here in Conway - fill of love and full of God’s blessing. We thank God often for the fortune in happiness and contentment we have found here.
And I think of this home, here at Grace. I think of the family we have discovered here. I think of the joy we have discovered here, the love from the people who have become our family, and the deepening love that comes from Christ Jesus, a love that is present with us everywhere, but also a love we have found expressed to us here at Grace from the people of Grace.
When I think of home, words like comfort, security, love, peace, joy, and acceptance come to my mind.
And when I think of home, I think of those things being found right here at Grace Church. I would suspect some of you would feel the same way. And I would also suspect that some of you are looking for that very thing.
Is it you up in the sycamore tree? Is it you looking longingly, expectantly down the road, hoping beyond hope that what you’ve heard is true? That what you’ve heard about Jesus is true? That whatever it is in your life that sets you a part, makes you unacceptable by your family and friends - at least in your own mind - that you can find a place to belong here, someone to accept you here. Are you hoping to find that Jesus will hang out with you, that your life CAN be different from your past? Are you looking to see Jesus, like Zacchaues?
Are you hoping that what you’ve heard about Jesus is true?
Are you wondering what would happen in your life if Jesus went home with you?
From what we see, Zacchaeus wasn’t disappointed. From the way Luke tells the story, he makes it sound like Zacchaeus’ life was dramatically and instantly transformed.
I suspect it wasn’t quite like that.
But what is important is that we see a very different Zacchaeus from the traitorous tax collector.
When Zacchaeus took Jesus home with him, a transformation began. Jesus changed the person Zacchaeus became and changed the way in which Zacchaeus interacted with other people.
Zacchaeus became a very generous person and a person of integrity. Where Zacchaeus had become an outsider and a despised individual. Jesus gave him back his worth and his dignity.
Jesus put it this way:
“Today, salvation has come to this house.”
Zacchaeus, who was lost to the world, was found and saved by Jesus.
This weekend is “Welcome Home Weekend.”. It is our hope and desire that everyone who is a part of this family called Grace will have come home to gather together with us here. We pray that the transformative power of Jesus that can change the life of one sinner and outsider who is a tax collector into a person with restored hope and vision for the future will be discovered by each and every one of us here.
Maybe you are an active part of this family, and you come home here often. I hope words like comfort, security, love, joy, and peace describe your experience here at Grace Church.
Maybe you come tonight, not as a member of the family, but as the expectant Zacchaeus, looking down the road, hoping to discover what it would mean for Jesus to be a part of your life - how your home might be changed, and how you might come to discover a home and family here as a part of this congregation.
On behalf of Jesus, I want to say to each and every one of you, welcome home. There is a place for each and every one of you here and the transformative power of Jesus can work in each of our lives as it did in that of Zacchaeus.
Salvation has come to this house and to yours. Jesus comes to seek out and save us who are lost. Jesus comes to stay at our homes today.
During the days ahead, I invite you on an transformative journey with Jesus. Zacchaeus discovered what he had heard about Jesus was true as he developed a relationship with him. I invite each of us to make those same discoveries as we explore our relationship with Christ.
In the days ahead we will explore the tools of the faith needed to make those discoveries and in some cases to move to a deeper relationship with our Lord. I encourage you not to miss a single week as we examine our relationship with Christ, how to make initial discoveries as Zacchaeus, and how to move deeper into our faith. We begin next week by looking at our prayer life.
There is one more aspect of Zacchaeus’ story I think we must see, and then I am through.
Maybe, as we heard the story tonight, we see ourselves as Zacchaeus. Maybe now or at sometime in our life we’ve been in the sycamore tree, looking expectantly for Jesus, at Jesus, not knowing what we will find.
Maybe the time Jesus came into our home and transformed our life there is very real to us. Maybe we have or hope to find a home here among other followers of Christ.
But I also think there are times we are a part of the crowd. There are times when we encounter people who are vastly different than we, people who are considered to be outsiders. Sometimes, we are the people in the crowd looking up at Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, or elbowing him out of the way.
This church has always made me proud in the way it which it has reach out to others looking for a place to belong. The family of Grace has always been a welcoming, inviting community of believers who have always been ready to make room for the next individual to join us.
Zacchaeus’ story reminds us of that part of who we are. His story reminds us that someone is always in the sycamore tree, hoping and praying not to be an outsider anymore, hoping to find meaning and purpose to life. Zacchaeus’ story reminds us to be looking for those individuals. As Christ’s disciples we are called to invite them down from the tree, to travel to their home as Christ’s representative, and to invite them to find a home here amongst ourselves as brothers and sisters in Christ.
To all of us here, and all those yet to come,
I say to you, welcome home.
