Luke 19:1-10
I suspect that one of the reasons some
do not take the Christian faith seriously today is that those who profess to be
Christians do not always live out their faith with integrity. For example, many people who identify
themselves as followers of Christ in our society give more time, energy, and
attention to their favorite athletic teams, politicians, pastimes, entertainment,
and self-centered desires of whatever kind than to living faithfully in how
they treat other people. When Christians
appear to live in ways that are no more virtuous than those of people without
any religious faith at all, it is no wonder that some have little interest in
or respect for our faith.
That is precisely why we all have a
lot to learn from Zacchaeus, whose life was changed so profoundly by his
encounter with Jesus Christ. No one would have had any illusions about what kind
of person Zacchaeus was before the Lord entered His home. He was a traitor to his fellow Jews because
he collected taxes for the Romans, who were occupying his country. He was a chief tax collector and quite
wealthy because he took even more than was required from his own people. He lived in luxury from what he stole in the
name of a hated foreign power. Though
his way of life was about as far from God’s requirements as one could get,
Zacchaeus wanted to see the Lord as He passed by. A short little man, he had to climb a
sycamore tree in order to be above the crowd and get a decent view. There were probably some people in the crowd that
day who would have liked to see him fall out of the tree and break his neck.
Zacchaeus certainly knew what people
thought of him. So just imagine how shocked everyone must have been when the
Messiah of Israel called out to this wicked man: “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
today I must stay at your house.” Then that little tax-collector quickly went
home and got ready to welcome Christ. He
received Him joyfully, but others grumbled about what was happening. How could any righteous Jew, let alone the Messiah,
become a guest in the home of a notorious traitor and criminal? Christ would be defiled by going into the
home of such a person and presumably eating with him. He would appear to
endorse theft, greed, and even the oppression of the Romans. That would be a terrible scandal that would
call into question the integrity of His ministry.
In that very stressful moment, just when
the crowd was seething in anger at Christ and at Zacchaeus, the tax-collector did
the unthinkable: He repented of his own
free will. Yes, before Christ said or
did anything else, Zacchaeus repented.
He accepted the truth about himself, that he was a criminal exploiter of
the needy. To make things right, he gave
half of what he owned to the poor and restored four-fold what he had stolen
from others. In that moment, this despised
and miserable man began to turn his life around. And Jesus Christ accepted the sincere
repentance of this sinner, proclaiming that salvation had come to this son of
Abraham, for He came to seek and to save the lost.
If we ever wanted a sign of the
difference that it should make in the life of a human being to encounter
Christ, this is it. Though it may be hard to see, Zacchaeus’ story is the story
of us all. The Savior has appeared in our world, born and baptized for our
salvation. He enters not only our world
and our humanity in general, but wants to commune personally with everyone
created in His image and likeness, even though we “all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) As He says elsewhere, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will
dine with him, and he with Me.” (Rev. 3:20)
He comes to fulfill the purposes for which He created food and
fellowship to begin with, namely, to share Himself with us, to make us
participants in His eternal, blessed, and holy life that conquers all forms of
human corruption and even death itself. That is His intention for each and every human
being.
Even as
our lives are about far more than emotion, the life which Christ shares with us
is not simply about how we feel. Even as
our lives are about far more than the few hours a week we spend at church, the
life which Christ shares with us is not simply about what we do in time set
aside for prayer. He comes to bring
salvation, to bring healing and fulfillment, to every dimension of the lives of
His sons and daughters. That is why the
Savior became fully one of us so that we could participate fully in the life of
God by grace.
Notice
that Zacchaeus did not repent by saying that he had a certain kind of religious
experience or would change his habits about what he did one day a week. No, he took
some very practical and visible steps that required him to sacrifice what he
loved most, his money and comfort. He
did what justice required for the victims of his crimes and then some,
returning four times as much as he had taken.
And he gave half of what he had to the poor, regardless of whether he
had stolen from them personally. In response to the Savior’s overwhelming mercy
toward him, Zacchaeus showed that same abundant grace toward others. He not only received the Lord into his house,
but into his life--from the depths of his soul to how he made his living and
treated other people on a daily basis.
Could the
same be said of you and me? We commune
with Christ in the Eucharist in every Divine Liturgy. We personally take His Body and Blood such
that He dwells in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. We dine at His heavenly banquet and receive
Him into our bodies, souls, and spirits “for the forgiveness of sins and life
everlasting.” If we think for one moment
that communing with Christ is simply an ancient religious ritual or something
that has merely an emotional or invisible significance, then we must think
again. For to be united intimately with
Christ, to be nourished by Him for the healing of our souls, must impact every
dimension of who we are in this world. Salvation
is not an escape from life as we know it, but its complete fulfillment. Salvation must come to our houses just as
tangibly as it did to Zacchaeus’s. For through
faith in Christ, we are also “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the
promise.” (Gal. 3:29)
One way of
applying these lessons to our lives is to ask in what ways we need to open
ourselves to fuller communion with Christ, to a deeper and healthier
relationship with Him. Since how we
treat our neighbors is also how we treat the Lord, we should ask with whom we
need to make things right according to justice and then do even more for them. (Matt.
25:33ff.) If we have denied our spouses,
children, and other family members the fullness of our love, we must make up
for that also. We should consider what we have taken by selfishness from our
neighbors, whether money, time, attention, or something else, and give it back
in abundance. Like Zacchaeus, we should
look for opportunities to help the poor as much as possible, regardless of
whether their poverty is one of friendship, encouragement, or the resources
necessary to buy food, clothing, and shelter.
We need to
prayerfully consider what change is in order in our lives because of Jesus
Christ’s gracious entrance in our souls.
Zacchaeus is such a wonderful example of a sinner who received the Lord
and became a shining beacon of holiness.
He did so by deep, genuine, personal repentance that went to the heart
of who he was before God and changed how he related to other people in
practical ways. If we will follow his
example, then we will be in intimate communion with Christ each day of our
lives, always celebrating the liturgy of offering ourselves to Him in every
thought, word, and deed. We will become
a channel of blessing to others, and even skeptics will notice that salvation
has come to our house. And then they may be so curious about what has happened
that they will even climb a sycamore tree in order to get a better view.
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