Transcript
...up in the tree. Why? To see better? To get out of the way of the crowd? I think to some extent here we have to look at the kind of man Zacchaeus was or probably was. Where is Zacchaeus? Up in the tree. Why? To see better? To get out of the way of the crowd? I think to some extent here we have to look at the kind of man Zacchaeus was or probably was because we don't
know more about him than just what was read here, what you find in your bulletin. He was a chief tax gatherer. Now the tax gatherers, the tax collectors of the time, were not nice people. They were given, so to say, a franchise by the Roman government to collect the taxes in the particular area and to make their own living. They padded the taxes so that if you owed, let's say, a dollar for tax, Zacchaeus would charge
you a dollar and a half or perhaps two dollars. Zacchaeus was not a nice guy and not the kind of guy that people would would flock to and think of as the upstanding citizen in the community. It seems to me that one of the things that happened here was that the crowd refused to recognize Zacchaeus's humanity considering the kind of man that he was. They no doubt were unkind. They no doubt didn't make any special attempt
to help him see. He was a short guy. We know that. He had two strikes against him then. The first, and probably most important, being that he was a tax collector and therefore an evil person. The second being that he was a short person and therefore unable to see over the crowd and also vulnerable. Now this Zacchaeus wanted to share in something wonderful and exciting. He heard about this Jesus. This Jesus was coming through town. He
wanted to see, but he got up in the tree to see. Perhaps the prejudice of the crowd got in the way. Sometimes when people don't accept you, this is the very time when it's hardest for you to accept others. That is hardest for Zacchaeus to see Jesus, to appreciate the being of who Jesus was because he was not accepted. He was not thought of as a reasonably worthwhile human being by his fellow townspeople. So he got
up in the tree, this Zacchaeus. Perhaps you could say he was forced up there, up into an artificial perch. Perhaps Zacchaeus' height is symbolic of his esteem in other people's eyes. He was short. He had low esteem, probably low self-esteem, and the prejudice of the crowd didn't help any. It kept him from getting up to where he could see Jesus for being the big person who could see, appreciate what and who Jesus was. So to
get out of the crowd, Zacchaeus has assumed a grand stand seat, perhaps even an authority for which he has no special qualifications. Later on we hear that Zacchaeus stood and talked to Jesus. He was no longer dependent on an artificial thing, on some kind of riser for which he had no responsibility. Zacchaeus was now up out of the peanut gallery, came down out of the peanut gallery room. He had raised himself up artificially into a... That,
too, can be a perch. Artificial. It's got nice scroll work on it. But it seems to me that for a body of believers, us, to assimilate, appreciate meaning of the gospel, there's an awful lot to be said for mobilizing the resources that I say that I experience, the knowledge, the abilities that I don't have, but that you have. In other words, all the people in the Christian church, it seems to me, have a responsibility, or should
have a responsibility, to participate in the proclamation of the word. And so at this time, in this context of this Zacchaeus story, I am going to ask you to, with me, accept responsibility for that proclamation. So what did we do? Got any ideas? Got any comments on the Zacchaeus story? Well, the pious immediately promised half of his worldly goods. What did he do then? Well, he felt different from the prince. You know, the prince who wanted
to follow Jesus, but when he said, we've been waiting for worldly goods, and follow me, the prince said, I can't do that. Why do you suppose this is acceptable? Was it a sudden thing, a burst out of the blue? What presented this? This is the thing that always held him apart from the rest of the people. Most likely, he was a tax collector. It was the money that was the thing that he was accepting. Uh-huh.
This was the separation point, and it provided the bringing back point, the possible bond between the human people. How come he didn't give away all his money? He did. He wasn't willing to go all the way. Oh, what's the difference between a prince who willingly gave to Jesus, then couldn't give up anything. He wasn't accepted, therefore, and Zacchaeus, who was the one that the church normally would not accept, the crowd wouldn't accept, and yet Jesus accepted
him. So who's being excluded? Zacchaeus was grateful for Christ having noticed him, no one comes out. Is it just a noticing? Is that, you know, and in response to being recognized, there's Catherine Short. Is that a kind of converting phenomenon or kind of converting catalyst? Or, you know, is it something more? I don't know. I think Zacchaeus wasn't thinking about this for quite a while. That's why he came to see Jesus. He heard of Jesus' reputation,
but he didn't really know too much about it. He heard what kind of things he could accomplish. I think he came here prepared to change his way of doing business, and when he did see Jesus, Jesus recognized him. That was the final, that was the final prayer. The church can only oppose those who have need. Or recognize the need. You recognize your own need, you can jump on top, then you can reach out. If you don't
have a need or you don't communicate that need with someone else, how does someone else respond to it? It can't be that way with Cardinal Cromwell, can you? Luck brings Zacchaeus to our end. You've suffered. That's one story. We all have to contribute according to our abilities. Zacchaeus was contributing to his skill, his skill with money, in a generous way. And then, when we go back to the story of Mary and Martha, Martha contributed her skill
in working and achieving, and he said, well, don't criticize Mary because Mary contributes her skills in love, in appreciation. They all have different skills. Zacchaeus was there for many of us. I don't know. I'm not sure that I got heard. Zacchaeus, not much different from many of us as a church. One thing he said to us was that he was willing to admit or accept himself. He didn't do it to us. And then? He first made
it to himself. First made it to himself. Which, again, is this recognition. Leading to what? An openness to something like the coming of the star of Jesus. For the Son of Man has come to seek the same for the lost. Is that what Paul's saying, too? The resurrection of the just and the unjust? Oh, I don't know about Paul. My son was in town as a kid, so I don't know about Paul. Don't talk about Paul.
But I was just occurring to the last part of that, which talks about the resurrection of the just and the unjust. I don't know who to think of it as being this way. I think it's being those who are, you know, saving a particular group and yet definitely suggest the resurrection of those who are wicked and those who are good. So I think it's including, you know, pointing out both of these groups that you shouldn't, one
group shouldn't exclude the other. In Christ, all are, you know. Yeah. Okay, there's one sort of question I'd like to ask, and I'm afraid we haven't got time to deal with it in any depth unless somebody has a quick comment, and that is what difference does all this make to us in our lives? How do we assimilate as we live our lives in the next hundred and sixty-three hours or a hundred hours a week? What
we know about Zacchaeus and what happened to him and what he did, and so on, and how does that pre-communicable process, or does it? Zacchaeus had problems. He wanted to redeem himself. We had problems. How do we redeem ourselves? He just had to kill himself. He just had to kill himself. He had to kill himself. What did he do? You know, that's how we manage to live, you know, by pleasing people. Uh-huh. That's how
we recognize the world. We realize how we've got to fight. We don't have to kill ourselves. We don't have to kill ourselves. It's fine. It's fine. So it's, is it a matter of this week of going out with him and selling your Cadillac and giving that to the poor and making sure they're conscious? What do you have? I wonder, it's easy for Zacchaeus. I mean, everybody can go out with Zacchaeus. You know, Zacchaeus, you love him.
Well, here's what's wrong, yeah? Yeah. What does that say for us? Yeah, I wonder if there's something beyond just looking at it. You know, if action is inculcable. I don't know if any of us do, necessarily. But I think this is the kind of thing, kind of question we have to ask. And I think you have that question, I guess. Okay. Re-examine. And look at your conscience. Look at the ways you might have transgressed. I
guess I was taking what wasn't your deal or done something that was unkind or mean. But beyond that, try to figure out what to do about it. If it's just harping on it, just thinking about it, you can put it on a page anywhere. I don't care. I don't care. That's all the future. I don't care. Thank you very much for your participation in this. I think this kind of worship service, and I totally believe that
it's worship, is very, very valuable. And I just hope that some of the questions that you've raised will stick with you. The Lord be with you. And with you also, sir. Let us pray. Lord, we realize that you are not hidden from us. You are within our sight, within our hearing, within our touch. You walk beside us and talk beside us. You live and you sweat beside us. You call us down out of the tree to
be beside you. You are in the rocks and in the hills, in the skies and in the seas. And most of all, you are in other people, from the richest to the poorest. You are within people we love, and you are also within people we hate. God, it scares and it frightens us to know that you are close to us. The closer you get to us, the more frightened we become. As we ignore and hide ourselves
from others, we ignore and hide from you. We pray now, each one of us individually, that we might have courage not to hide from your holiness, which is seen in others. Let us pray with the courage not to hide.