Zacchaeus : Luke 19:1-10
I blame my parents.
It must have been something to do with them - the reason that I was so short. Even from being a young child I was much smaller than my contemporaries and by the time of my bah mitzvah I was about half the size of my peers. My hands and feet were ' normal sized' but my body was shortened and my head looked too big for my torso. I had trouble with aching bones and was often short of breath. But that wasnt the worst of it. The worst of it was that from as far back as I can remember I was the target of every bully and mean-minded half wit in town.
At school I was thrown about like a ball. I was called every name under the sun and often came home covered in cuts and bruises. My parents were desparate to intervene and try to sort the bullies out, but that just made things worse. So in the end I developed a strategy of attack and assault. I reckoned that if I could get them before they could get me......
I spent a lot of time on my own at home and in that time I worked on becoming as strong as possible. I also became devious, working out ways I could get my own back on those who had victimised me. By the time I was in my early twenties I was quite a piece of work. I could throw a punch which would fell a man twice my size ( usually because I was hitting him right where it hurts) and I had contacts in the lower side of town who would rough people up if I paid them to. What is more I became adept at gambling. I found a sort of gambling fraternity of mis-fits who accepted me for who I was and who paid out when they lost to me with moderately good grace. They wouldnt have dared to do otherwise. My reputation went before me
By the time I met Jesus I had been working for the Romans for several years. It had seemed like an obvious career move for me. Very few people wanted the job collecting taxes and as a result it paid very well. I didnt have any friends to lose really, so that side of things didnt bother me. I was good at ' persuading' people to pay up and as a result I got promoted quickly until I found myself in charge of a team of tax collectors right across the city. My fellow collectors were a motley bunch. Most of them were loners like me, some of them had been in jail for various petty crimes and were paying their way out of prison by working for their Roman captors. We were universally hated by the Jews because we made a habit of skimming a percentage off everyones tax bill to line our own pockets. We werent much liked by the Romans either. Despite doing a good job for them they were suspicious of us and were never quite sure whose side we were on.
The day I met Jesus I had been at my office in the middle of town all morning. I heard a commotion outside in the street and asked a colleague what was going on. He told me that the Rabbi was passing through our neighbourhood and told me that he had been teaching about a new kingdom which was supposed to be coming. This concerned me somewhat. I was well in with my Roman masters. Any shift of power or invading army would serously upset the apple cart and could put me and the whole of my team out of a very lucrative job. I wasnt about to have my comfortable lifestyle turned upside down. I asked my colleague if he knew any more about this kingdom, but he said he didnt. He had just heard that the ordinary people were very excited about the things Jesus was saying and that the Pharisees and Saducees and Sanhedrin were secretly worried that a revolution might be about to break out.
I was deeply concerned. This all sounded very worrying. I decided to go out into the street and see if I could find anyone who might know more.
On going outside I found myself immediately in the crush of a large crowd. As I stood no more than four feet tall I couldnt see anything except peoples waists and chests and nobody was paying me any attention at all - it was going to be impossible to find out what I needed to know in this situation. I decided to move further down the street to where I could see the crowd was thinning out a bit. I pressed my way through the people until I reached the tail end of them and tried to catch the attention of someone who might know what this was all about. But just as I was about to try to stop someone and ask some questions a huge shout went up from the crowd and people started cheering and hollering. I couldnt see what was going on, but there was a tree on the corner of the street not ten feet away, so, casting dignity to one side I sprinted over to it and shinned up into the lower branches. I was glad I'd kept up my strength training. A tall tree and a shorter than average man are not ideal companions.
From my vantage point in the tree I could see down the road. The Rabbi was slowly making his way through the crowd, followed by a dozen or so men who I presumed to be his disciples. People were pressing in around them but the Rabbi didnt seem to be annoyed. He stopped every few paces to talk to someone, to lay a hand on a head or take a child from someone and kiss it. He was smiling and laughing and so were the people around him. He certainly didnt look like someone who was about to kick off a revolution. I'd seen a couple of rebel leaders being crucified in the past - they were rough and scarred and uneducated. This man was none of these things. I was intrigued.
The crowd was getting closer to the tree I was in and I realised that I really wasnt going to be able to get anyones attention until after Jesus had left town. I would wait until he had gone and then climb down and try to find someone who was not following him all the way to wherever he was going. Just then I heard someone shout my name.
I looked round wondering who had spotted me and feeling a little foolish that a man of my importance had been caught in such a ridiculous position. ' Zacchaeus! Come on down from there! I'm coming to your house this afternoon' I looked down and saw Jesus standing right underneath me looking up and laughing. I was completely flummoxed. How did he know my name? What did he mean he was coming to my house?? Was he really staring straight up my robes and looking at my undergarments? Aaaaarrgh. The whole situation was impossibly excrutiating.
I scrambled down from the tree and one of his disciples helped me, which was humiliating again. I could hear the crowd grumbling and complaining - I was used to that, wherever I went I heard people bad-mouthing me, calling me a dwarf and a thief and other less palatable things. ' Why is he going to Zacchaeus's house? Doesnt he know what a scumbag that tiny tax collector is? That man almost ruined us last year. That man DID ruin us - we had to sell our business to cover the taxes. He is a traitor and a pig. Jesus can't know who he is - someone tell him .' And so it rumbled through the crowd. Jesus must have been able to hear them but he seemed oblivious to the comments and simply looked down at me and said ' So friend, would there be any chance of a meal for my friends and me this fine day? We have been very busy and would really appreciate your hospitality and a chance to rest'
I was still unsure if this was real or some sort of elaborate hoax. But I heard myself saying ' Of course sir, it would be an honour to host you in my home. Please, follow me' and I started off towards my house which was only a block and a half away.
To cut a long story short, Jesus and his disciples did come to my home that day and they stayed for several hours. They dined at my table and reclined on my couches. Jesus did not seem at all impressed by my lovely home full of rich tapestries and fine furnishings. He seemed much more interested in me. Which was odd. Nobody has ever really been interested in me before. He asked me lots of questions about my life, my childhood, my work for the Romans. And as I talked to him I began to see something I had never seen before. In telling him my story I began to see that the experience of being different as a child, of being bullied and deeply hurt, had formed my life in very negative ways. I asked Jesus if the things Id heard about him were true - was he planning on starting a revolution? Was there a new kingdom coming? He answered my by talking about my heart. He explained that God has always wanted to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and that this was the revolution which was coming. God doesnt want to change governments or policies - these things are only the external trappings. God wants to change each individual person from the inside and make them more like Him. This was a complete revelation to me. I had never heard anything like it - but it made perfect sense. When every heart is changed then the whole world is changed forever.
' Surely Lord' I said ' God cant change someone like me? I've been so hard and so mean and selfish for such a long long time. My heart is beyond changing' ' Is it?' said Jesus smiling. ' Do you want it to be dfferent Zacchaeus? Do you want the kingdom of God to come to you?' At that moment I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be free of the cruelty and pain of my childhood and the defensiveness and hardness which I had built up round me as a response. Jesus loved me. I could feel it. I hadn't felt that sort of acceptance and love and kindness from anyone other than my parents many years previously. The disciples were the same, they were kind, non-judgemental, there was a peace about them which I hadnt experienced before. It was all somewhat overwhelming.
By the end of the evening Jesus had prayed for me and I had repented of all the meanness and dishonesty and anger in my life. I felt an immense sense of relief and healing as I asked God to forgive me and as Jesus prayed for peace and blessing and justice and righteousness to be the hallmakrs of my life. As he said that, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be good. I wanted to find the outcasts and the misfits and the bullied ones and tell them about this new kingdom. As Jesus and his disciples left that evening I vowed that I would pay back anything that I had stolen from my clients fourfold. And the very next day I started to do that. At first people were highly sceptical and dubious - thinking that there was some dodgy Roman scam going on to trick people somehow. But after a while the townspeople started to realise that something had happened to me. They accepted their refunds gladly and some of them even began to talk to me in the street and smile at me in the market. My colleagues found my change of heart difficult to understand at first. But as I made a point of talking to each of them individually and at length about what Jesus had said and done, many of them also asked God to forgive and restore them. Pretty soon we had the most honest and reliable tax office in the province and our Roman masters were making more money than ever before.
Jesus came to my house and he moved into my life. As a result everything has changed. I might not be any taller, but Im a giant inside. God has grown me and keeps on growing me. Im a small man with a big heart and I pray that it keeps on getting bigger the more I trust in Him.
It must have been something to do with them - the reason that I was so short. Even from being a young child I was much smaller than my contemporaries and by the time of my bah mitzvah I was about half the size of my peers. My hands and feet were ' normal sized' but my body was shortened and my head looked too big for my torso. I had trouble with aching bones and was often short of breath. But that wasnt the worst of it. The worst of it was that from as far back as I can remember I was the target of every bully and mean-minded half wit in town.
At school I was thrown about like a ball. I was called every name under the sun and often came home covered in cuts and bruises. My parents were desparate to intervene and try to sort the bullies out, but that just made things worse. So in the end I developed a strategy of attack and assault. I reckoned that if I could get them before they could get me......
I spent a lot of time on my own at home and in that time I worked on becoming as strong as possible. I also became devious, working out ways I could get my own back on those who had victimised me. By the time I was in my early twenties I was quite a piece of work. I could throw a punch which would fell a man twice my size ( usually because I was hitting him right where it hurts) and I had contacts in the lower side of town who would rough people up if I paid them to. What is more I became adept at gambling. I found a sort of gambling fraternity of mis-fits who accepted me for who I was and who paid out when they lost to me with moderately good grace. They wouldnt have dared to do otherwise. My reputation went before me
By the time I met Jesus I had been working for the Romans for several years. It had seemed like an obvious career move for me. Very few people wanted the job collecting taxes and as a result it paid very well. I didnt have any friends to lose really, so that side of things didnt bother me. I was good at ' persuading' people to pay up and as a result I got promoted quickly until I found myself in charge of a team of tax collectors right across the city. My fellow collectors were a motley bunch. Most of them were loners like me, some of them had been in jail for various petty crimes and were paying their way out of prison by working for their Roman captors. We were universally hated by the Jews because we made a habit of skimming a percentage off everyones tax bill to line our own pockets. We werent much liked by the Romans either. Despite doing a good job for them they were suspicious of us and were never quite sure whose side we were on.
The day I met Jesus I had been at my office in the middle of town all morning. I heard a commotion outside in the street and asked a colleague what was going on. He told me that the Rabbi was passing through our neighbourhood and told me that he had been teaching about a new kingdom which was supposed to be coming. This concerned me somewhat. I was well in with my Roman masters. Any shift of power or invading army would serously upset the apple cart and could put me and the whole of my team out of a very lucrative job. I wasnt about to have my comfortable lifestyle turned upside down. I asked my colleague if he knew any more about this kingdom, but he said he didnt. He had just heard that the ordinary people were very excited about the things Jesus was saying and that the Pharisees and Saducees and Sanhedrin were secretly worried that a revolution might be about to break out.
I was deeply concerned. This all sounded very worrying. I decided to go out into the street and see if I could find anyone who might know more.
On going outside I found myself immediately in the crush of a large crowd. As I stood no more than four feet tall I couldnt see anything except peoples waists and chests and nobody was paying me any attention at all - it was going to be impossible to find out what I needed to know in this situation. I decided to move further down the street to where I could see the crowd was thinning out a bit. I pressed my way through the people until I reached the tail end of them and tried to catch the attention of someone who might know what this was all about. But just as I was about to try to stop someone and ask some questions a huge shout went up from the crowd and people started cheering and hollering. I couldnt see what was going on, but there was a tree on the corner of the street not ten feet away, so, casting dignity to one side I sprinted over to it and shinned up into the lower branches. I was glad I'd kept up my strength training. A tall tree and a shorter than average man are not ideal companions.
From my vantage point in the tree I could see down the road. The Rabbi was slowly making his way through the crowd, followed by a dozen or so men who I presumed to be his disciples. People were pressing in around them but the Rabbi didnt seem to be annoyed. He stopped every few paces to talk to someone, to lay a hand on a head or take a child from someone and kiss it. He was smiling and laughing and so were the people around him. He certainly didnt look like someone who was about to kick off a revolution. I'd seen a couple of rebel leaders being crucified in the past - they were rough and scarred and uneducated. This man was none of these things. I was intrigued.
The crowd was getting closer to the tree I was in and I realised that I really wasnt going to be able to get anyones attention until after Jesus had left town. I would wait until he had gone and then climb down and try to find someone who was not following him all the way to wherever he was going. Just then I heard someone shout my name.
I looked round wondering who had spotted me and feeling a little foolish that a man of my importance had been caught in such a ridiculous position. ' Zacchaeus! Come on down from there! I'm coming to your house this afternoon' I looked down and saw Jesus standing right underneath me looking up and laughing. I was completely flummoxed. How did he know my name? What did he mean he was coming to my house?? Was he really staring straight up my robes and looking at my undergarments? Aaaaarrgh. The whole situation was impossibly excrutiating.
I scrambled down from the tree and one of his disciples helped me, which was humiliating again. I could hear the crowd grumbling and complaining - I was used to that, wherever I went I heard people bad-mouthing me, calling me a dwarf and a thief and other less palatable things. ' Why is he going to Zacchaeus's house? Doesnt he know what a scumbag that tiny tax collector is? That man almost ruined us last year. That man DID ruin us - we had to sell our business to cover the taxes. He is a traitor and a pig. Jesus can't know who he is - someone tell him .' And so it rumbled through the crowd. Jesus must have been able to hear them but he seemed oblivious to the comments and simply looked down at me and said ' So friend, would there be any chance of a meal for my friends and me this fine day? We have been very busy and would really appreciate your hospitality and a chance to rest'
I was still unsure if this was real or some sort of elaborate hoax. But I heard myself saying ' Of course sir, it would be an honour to host you in my home. Please, follow me' and I started off towards my house which was only a block and a half away.
To cut a long story short, Jesus and his disciples did come to my home that day and they stayed for several hours. They dined at my table and reclined on my couches. Jesus did not seem at all impressed by my lovely home full of rich tapestries and fine furnishings. He seemed much more interested in me. Which was odd. Nobody has ever really been interested in me before. He asked me lots of questions about my life, my childhood, my work for the Romans. And as I talked to him I began to see something I had never seen before. In telling him my story I began to see that the experience of being different as a child, of being bullied and deeply hurt, had formed my life in very negative ways. I asked Jesus if the things Id heard about him were true - was he planning on starting a revolution? Was there a new kingdom coming? He answered my by talking about my heart. He explained that God has always wanted to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and that this was the revolution which was coming. God doesnt want to change governments or policies - these things are only the external trappings. God wants to change each individual person from the inside and make them more like Him. This was a complete revelation to me. I had never heard anything like it - but it made perfect sense. When every heart is changed then the whole world is changed forever.
' Surely Lord' I said ' God cant change someone like me? I've been so hard and so mean and selfish for such a long long time. My heart is beyond changing' ' Is it?' said Jesus smiling. ' Do you want it to be dfferent Zacchaeus? Do you want the kingdom of God to come to you?' At that moment I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be free of the cruelty and pain of my childhood and the defensiveness and hardness which I had built up round me as a response. Jesus loved me. I could feel it. I hadn't felt that sort of acceptance and love and kindness from anyone other than my parents many years previously. The disciples were the same, they were kind, non-judgemental, there was a peace about them which I hadnt experienced before. It was all somewhat overwhelming.
By the end of the evening Jesus had prayed for me and I had repented of all the meanness and dishonesty and anger in my life. I felt an immense sense of relief and healing as I asked God to forgive me and as Jesus prayed for peace and blessing and justice and righteousness to be the hallmakrs of my life. As he said that, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be good. I wanted to find the outcasts and the misfits and the bullied ones and tell them about this new kingdom. As Jesus and his disciples left that evening I vowed that I would pay back anything that I had stolen from my clients fourfold. And the very next day I started to do that. At first people were highly sceptical and dubious - thinking that there was some dodgy Roman scam going on to trick people somehow. But after a while the townspeople started to realise that something had happened to me. They accepted their refunds gladly and some of them even began to talk to me in the street and smile at me in the market. My colleagues found my change of heart difficult to understand at first. But as I made a point of talking to each of them individually and at length about what Jesus had said and done, many of them also asked God to forgive and restore them. Pretty soon we had the most honest and reliable tax office in the province and our Roman masters were making more money than ever before.
Jesus came to my house and he moved into my life. As a result everything has changed. I might not be any taller, but Im a giant inside. God has grown me and keeps on growing me. Im a small man with a big heart and I pray that it keeps on getting bigger the more I trust in Him.
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