October 30, 2022, Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.
A few weeks ago, I saw a cartoon in a friend’s Facebook feed that really grabbed me. I do not remember all the details, but it was about something I do a lot. It poked gentle fun at people like me, who continue to buy books long after they already own many, many books they have not yet read.
It said something along the lines of, ‘Really, I am on track to read all the books I own. I should be finished by the time I’m 564 years old.’
I laughed. And then I posted a comment. “I feel seen,” I said.
I’m guessing most of us have had that experience. We look at a screen or a show or a meme, we watch a movie or read a cartoon, and we feel seen. We feel understood. We recognize our selves. Often we laugh.
And perhaps most powerful of all, we realize that we’re not alone. Someone else in the world is like us in some way.
Today our Gospel story is about a guy who ‘gets seen’ in the most powerful, life-changing way possible. He gets seen by God.
I think it’s important that Zaccheus gets seen by God because he goes to extraordinary lengths to get a look at God. Of course, he didn’t know it was God he was trying to see. I’m sure he thought Jesus was just an itinerant prophet passing through town.
But something he had heard or something about his own life, or maybe some combination of Jesus’ reputation and Zaccheus’ circumstances or experiences, came together and compelled him to go get a look at Jesus, indeed, to go the great indignity of climbing a tree to try to get a glimpse of him.
See, Zaccheus was not exactly just an “ordinary guy.” He was not the town drunk who climbed the tree in a stupor. He was not a kid who climbed trees for the fun of it. He was a wealthy man, very wealthy, because he was a tax collector and not just a tax collector but the chief tax collector for the town of Jericho.
And that means he might well have been the most powerful and the most despised guy in town. He had the backing of the oppressive Roman regime to collect taxes as he saw fit—lining his own pockets as he wished, as long as he gave the Romans their due. But the social price he paid for that was to be thought of pretty much as a traitor, a Jew who worked for the enemy.
I’m sure his wife dressed in finery. But I wonder how she felt about being the wife of the town pariah. I’m sure his kids had everything they wanted, but I’ll bet they got teased unbearably in school. I imagine Zaccheus knew the hard way that money and power do not bring happiness or contentment. Maybe that’s why he was so ripe for the picking.
But ripe for the picking he was. Here’s this wealthy, powerful guy climbing up a tree, risking everybody on the ground looking right up his skirt… hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus and, in all likelihood, assuming Jesus will never once look up at him.
Why would he? Why would the prophet and healer, the most righteous man he had ever heard of, take note of the biggest sinner of them all?
Wouldn’t you love to have seen Zaccheus come down from that tree? I’m betting it took a fraction of the time it took to climb up. I’m guessing he grabbed a limb and swung to the ground, because there he is in the blink of an eye, face to face with Jesus.
I said earlier that Zaccheus was “ripe for the picking.” At this point it is worth comparing this story to another well known story about a man who goes looking for Jesus.
I’m speaking of the man known as the “rich young ruler” in the story told in Matthew. So there’s similarity right away. Both Zaccheus and the young ruler are wealthy.
And there’s a second similarity: They both go to encounter Jesus on a road Jesus is traveling, Zaccheus on the road into Jerisho, the young ruler while Jesus is traveling about Judea healing and teaching.
Neither of them, you will notice, goes to church or the synagogue to find Jesus. Indeed, the people Jesus encountered in the synagogue mostly criticized him, argued with him, or chased him out of town!
I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere. If church is the only place you are looking for Jesus, well… you’re not looking very hard! You’re taking the easy way out. However hard it is for us to drag ourselves out of bed on a Sunday morning, it’s nothing like actually following Jesus out into the world where he carried out his ministry and called upon us to follow him!
As the Franciscan friar and priest Richard Rohr has somewhat famously said, “It’s a whole lot easier to go to church than it is to follow Jesus.” It’s perhaps my favorite of his sayings.
But back to the rich young ruler and Zaccheus the tax collector: there the similarity ends. The rich young ruler walks away shaking his head. He encountered God with a capital “G,” but it did not change him. He already had his god with a small “g,” namely his wealth.
Zaccheus is transformed. He does not wait to be told what he needed to do. The words tumble out of his mouth. He has been seen by God and he knows he has been seen. He is humbled, and he knows what to do.
Again, notice the contrast. The rich young ruler asks, “Teacher, what must I do…” “What must I do…” He had an agenda. He was looking for another rule to follow. He did not expect or want to be seen for who he really was.
Zaccheus came with no agenda other than to see. And he got more than he bargained for. He seeks God with an open heart and mind, and so he accepts the gift of being seen. You’ve seen me Lord, he acknowledges, now here’s what I’m going to do.
And that’s the most powerful lesson of all: Being seen by God can transform us. It can heal us. It can change our lives.
But we must be ripe for the picking. We must put our own agendas aside. We must know that we have been seen as the sinners we really are, not as “the good church people” we imagine ourselves to be. Only then will we be transformed.
In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
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