Up a Tree Without a Ladder
November 4, 2007
Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder

Luke 19:1-10

Introduction to the Reading

When was the last time you were "up a tree" - literally, I mean? I myself never did like climbing trees much - they had to be pretty low, with lots of good strong branches before I would leave the good, solid feel of Mother Earth. And I gave up tree-climbing at adolescence. Some of you who hunt still climb trees, I hear, but you're smart enough to take a tree stand with you.

I can't think of many good reasons to head up a tree - except for one: the view. Things look different from up there. If you get up high enough the things of earth below can take on a different perspective. And that can be worth the climb.

The "view from up there" is exactly what our hero in today's story was willing to risk life and limb and reputation for. Zacchaeus wasn't tall enough to see over the crowd, so he headed for a sycamore tree, and up he went - to see Jesus.

As you listen to the story you need to know some things about Zacchaeus. First, he worked for the Romans to collect their taxes. In fact, he is a "chief tax collector" - head of the Jerusalem office, I presume. Which means he wasn't young, and therefore he had probably not climbed a tree for a while. But he does here.

Which tells us something about how badly he wanted to see this man, this Jesus. A well-to-do man of status, a professional man of means, of some dignity - yet he was willing - eager, he didn't care what people might think - to shimmy up that tree in front of everyone to see Jesus.

As a tax-collector, Zacchaeus you might guess was not a popular man. Everyone knew him - Jesus calls him by name. But he is hated as a traitor to the Jews, a collaborator with the occupying enemy force.

And so what we have here is a story about Jesus and an "outsider." There are a lot of stories like that in the gospels. And this story, like those others, is a story of extravagant welcome!

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As we prepare to celebrate the ancient rite of the church, this Lord's Supper in which we remember the Jesus of our story today, let us look at this little story to see in it perhaps glimpses of ourselves, to catch some new insight into the God Jesus invites us to know and to worship.

We are first struck by how Zachaeus seeks out Jesus. My, how zealously he seeks out Jesus. He's heard about the new teacher, some even say miracle-worker. He wants to see him - badly. We don't know why, for sure. It goes beyond mere curiosity, though - the merely curious don't climb trees in front of their enemies, risking their mocking, their laughter. No, he's not just curious. And he's not ill - he's not looking for a healing miracle as so many were.

Perhaps Zacchaeus had learned something by this in his life. Perhaps he has learned that his money, while enjoyable, was not what he was looking for, really. Perhaps he had discovered a surprising emptiness inside, despite his best efforts to be full and happy. And he thought, hoped, perhaps, that this new teacher Jesus had something he needed. Whatever the reason, something drove him to seek out Jesus.

And so he does, but he'll find out that Jesus is seeking him out.

Zacchaeus's efforts are rewarded - he gets to see Jesus, from up in that tree, peering down. We don't know if he was impressed, or maybe disappointed, seeing for the first time the preacher he has heard about. But he sees Jesus.

And more importantly, Jesus sees him. Looking up, Jesus may have been surprised to see anyone up there, let alone the infamous and very rich man, the man everyone loved to hate, unceremoniously perched up there in the sycamore tree. Jesus sees Zacchaeus. But not only does Jesus see him; Jesus notices him. Ah, it's always good to be noticed isn't, by someone. And this someone is Jesus!

"Zacchaeus come down! I'm coming to your house today!" A bold invitation! He invites himself over - to be a guest, to share a meal together, to be at home, in Zacchaeus's home. And that's what happened - Jesus the preacher, the holy man, the rabbi sitting down at table with the outcast, the presumed sinner, that last one we'd expect a holy man to welcome, the last one we might welcome. But there they are, sitting at table together, welcoming each other.

Jesus didn't say, "Zacchaeus as soon as you leave your traitorous job, and return all your ill-gotten gain to the poor, then I'll come to your house." He doesn't say - nor did he ever say to any of the outsiders that he welcomed as his followers - "When you finally become good, when you have been transformed, then you are welcome to my table." No, he just said to them, "Come. Come, for you are welcome!"

Poet Mary Oliver begins the poem Wild Geese with these welcoming, startling, radical, nearly incredible, but wildly transformative words:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You do not have to be good. You just need to be welcomed. For to be welcomed is to be transformed. Oh, not all at once, changed forever. As Carol said last week transformation is "little by little." But the beginning of transformation, of renewal, of growth in spirit is being welcomed, just the way we are, right now. To be welcomed is to be transformed.

That's the message of this Table. At this Table all are welcome. All are welcome. All are welcome. And so this Table is open to all. Sadly history tells us the that Christians have taken this rite of welcome, this ritual of open, inclusive grace, and closed it to only the righteous, to only those who fit, to only those who follow the rules. They call it "closed Communion" - meaning only the few are welcome, meaning only we are welcome. But this Table is open; this is a Table of Welcome.

It makes no sense, this welcome, this grace, this unconditional love and acceptance. "Jesus, how can you welcome even tax collectors? How will they ever learn, if you accept them, welcome them? And how about the poor, the sick, the immoral, the never-go-to-church crowd? You can't just invite them in unconditionally! Make them change first, and then they can come." That makes more sense, doesn't it?

But the shock of this story of Zacchaeus is that he is welcome. The shock of the Christian faith is the extravagant welcome of Christ. And the day we feel for ourselves that extravagant, unconditional acceptance by God, that is "salvation day" for us.

We have been seeing paintings, some of them hundreds of years old, of the last supper. What we do here today Christians have been doing for a very long time indeed. In that sense this celebration of the Lord's Supper links us with people of faith, back way back to Jesus and his first followers. The artists who painted these portrayals, and more importantly the people who celebrated the Eucharist in every time and place, all were presented the paradox we must feel here: the paradox of the infinite, unknowable Creator God inviting us the sons and daughters of the earth, bounded in time, by our meager minds, the frailties of body and spirit to sit at Table together. The maker of the stars, in Christ breaking bread, drinking of the cup, with the children of earth. It defies all explanation; it defies common sense, this paradox of our faith. And yet . . .

What if . . . what if the One who made the stars, the galaxies, the novas and supernovas, the breathtaking awe of the heavens, what if that One in Christ welcomes us, invites us to the Table, assures us of love that knows no boundaries?

They say, you know, that according to latest theories the universe has no center, and no edges either. I say, I have no clue what those words mean. But I also say that for me there is no denying the power, the beauty of the Mind that is creating that center-less, unbounded universe. And that Holy Presence that is here in each one of us, that was in Jesus who went home with a transformed Zacchaeus that day, Jesus the Christ who invites us all to the Table here today, who is here among us now.