The Conversion of Zaccahaeus
A Sermon by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, October 30th, 2022.
(Jesus said,) “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Luke 19: 1-10
The story of Zacchaeus is very familiar to those of us who grew up in the church. Many of us learned the song “Zacchaeus was a wee little man” in Sunday school. Back in the day, it was probably #2 on the “Top Ten” list of Children’s Bible songs, second only to “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”. (It was really great to hear a flash my past when the Angel Choir sang it today.). Children can relate to “wee Zacchaeus” because they are small too. But I think the appeal goes much further than that. With the huge crowd all around, with all of those people, Jesus focused in on Zacchaeus. And, he saw him for who he really was rather than who he had become. We all long to be seen, loved and appreciated for who we are, children and adults alike.
There was really no one more despised than a tax collector in Jesus’ day. Tax collectors were Jews who were agents of the Roman empire. They made their living by adding a significant surcharge to the tax. And they of course were hated for it. Hated for exhorting money from their fellow Jews, hated for their dishonesty, hated for their collusion with the Romans. And Zacchaeus wasn’t just a tax collector, he was a chief tax collector. He had built up quite a business, with other tax collectors working for him and he was especially rich. So, people wouldn’t have exactly been too eager to help him out as he was trying to get a look at Jesus. But there is obviously something going on within Zacchaeus, that he may not even be able to quite name. He is curious about this itinerant preacher, healer and rabble rouser whom he has heard about. Jesus created a lot of buzz everywhere he went. And Zacchaeus is so eager to see and hear him, that he climbs a tree. But what begins as curiosity and just seeing who this guy that everyone is talking about is, becomes so much more.
Jesus sees him, calls him down, and invites himself to his house for dinner. Zacchaeus was stunned that this famous, holy person would deign to come to his home, the home of a sinner who was scorned by everyone. Jesus didn’t demand that Zacchaeus change his ways before he came to his house. He just announced that he was coming. And Zacchaeus was so filled with joy that Jesus saw him, saw his worth, his humanity, that he decided of his own accord that he was going to live differently.
Christian tradition calls this repentance. Repentance is recognizing when we are going in a bad direction, a direction that is not of God, a path that is hurting other people, a path that is making us someone we aren’t, and then in a lightbulb moment, making a conscience decision that we are going to take a different path, a path that will help us to reclaim who we truly are and not the person that accommodation to the world has made us. Zacchaeus looked into Jesus’ eyes and saw love and acceptance and forgiveness. Jesus didn’t even have to say anything. And Jesus looking at him with such love was what made Zacchaeus want to change. He recognized that repentance required something of him. He decided to give away half of his possessions to the poor and repay anyone he had defrauded four times what he had taken from them. Jesus’ generosity of spirit toward Zacchaeus caused him to want to be generous in return. He knew what he had been doing was wrong, but Jesus didn’t chastise him. He let his love speak for itself. And Zacchaeus was so moved, that it changed his life.
I think this is important for us to remember. Sometimes we think about how unworthy we are, how messed up we feel, and we don’t see that we are really the apple of God’s eye. God loves us more than we can imagine and nothing we can do can separate us from that love, as Saint Paul tells us in his Letter to the Romans. We are made in God’s perfect image, and our journey with Jesus is about being restored to that image. One of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, said it best. He said that we are like pearls, each created uniquely in God’s image, but when we accommodate to the world in unhealthy ways, it is like we have fallen into the mud and our image becomes distorted. We become someone we are not. When we begin an intentional journey with Jesus, it is a process of having those layers of hardened, encrusted mud washed off over time. Becoming our true selves again, the unique person that we were created to be, is an ongoing cleansing process.
Interestingly, the name Zacchaeus comes from the Hebrew word for “clean” or “innocent”, denoting God’s original intent for his life. And Jesus could see that he was not who had become when he decided to value wealth and power over love of God and love of neighbor. Zaccahaeus’ conversion was more than spiritual. He immediately realized that his change of heart needed to be expressed in concrete ways. He needed to show forth in his life what he professed by his newfound faith. He wanted to show his gratitude and thanksgiving for Jesus’ generosity toward him by being generous with others.
And that is what pledging to Saint George’s is all about. Our pledges are an expression of our gratitude for all that God has given us. We, like Zacchaeus, are generous because God is so generous toward us. Generosity is at the heart of how God created us. Those layers of fear and scarcity about money that we can sometimes build up take us away from who we really are. So, when we pledge, we are responding to God’s desire to bring us back to our true selves. Generosity is at the core of what it means to be human and it is key to our ongoing transformation as we follow Jesus. Zacchaeus was happy to welcome Jesus into his home and into his life. So, when we get our pledge letters this week, we can see them as God’s invitation to welcome Jesus into our lives more fully and to grow in the generosity that flows from that. Next Sunday we’ll all have the opportunity to put our pledges on the Altar in thanksgiving for all of our many blessings and in response to Jesus’ call to live joyfully and open-heartedly.
“(Zaccaheus) hurried down and was happy to welcome him.”