The Impatient Caller

The Impatient Caller--January 12, 2018

[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”  [Luke 19:1-10]

Jesus doesn't wait to be asked.  He is rather too impatient a caller to be a polite messiah.

Did you notice that?  Jesus does not wait for the man in the tree to ask him to come, or for an engraved invitation, or for Zacchaeus to work up the nerve to climb down and request the pleasure of Jesus' company at a dinner to be given in his honor.  None of the usual protocols or rules of etiquette.  None of the expected quiet dignity of a respected public figure. 

Instead, Jesus invites himself over and crashes the party, because Zacchaeus will never muster the courage to take the first step on his own.  Zacchaeus, after all, is on everybody's hit list.  Like Levi, whose story we looked at earlier this week, Zacchaeus is a tax collector (a reminder that Levi wasn't a one-off, or an exception to the rule, but that Jesus made a habit of including outcasts and sell-outs). That's an unpopular profession in any era, but especially despised in this setting, because it meant that Zacchaeus was a collaborator with the much-hated Roman empire, with the implicit backing of Roman soldiers when he presented your tax bill to you. So there was no way of knowing whether or not your money was just lining the tax collector's pocket, or actively enriching the empire for the privilege of having their soldiers occupying your land.  But either way, it was a racket.  And that meant Zacchaeus, whose wealth came directly from the livelihoods of others, was a public target for spite and hatred. 

As short as he may have been, Zacchaeus walked around wearing a giant, unmistakable bull's-eye on his back.  So it's no wonder that Zacchaeus figured that the closest he would ever come to the popular rabbi visiting their town was to see him walk past from up in a tree.  Just think about the physical arrangement of this scene--Zacchaeus has physically removed himself from being able to have one-on-one conversation with Jesus, because he's convinced he's unworthy of it, or that he is unacceptable in Jesus' eyes (because he is unacceptable in everyone else's eyes).  

But that doesn't stop Jesus.  It never does.

Jesus doesn't wait for Zacchaeus to make the first move. He stops right in his tracks, looks up, and puts himself in Zacchaeus' social debt by asking to come to his house.  Jesus becomes guest, and Zacchaeus will be the host.  Most folks in town won't have anything to do with Zacchaeus, much less give him the satisfaction of letting him be the celebrated center of attention at a dinner party.  And, you know, who among us would blame the rest of the townspeople for doing that?  We who live in the age of the boycott protest, who are constant customers at the buffet of outrage we call social media, we who are tempted to "unfriend" or "unfollow" the bitter, estranged relative or former co-worker who goes off on unhinged, hateful rants without provocation, our way of dealing with people we deem unacceptable is to turn the cold shoulder, or publicly shame them, or to write them off forever as hopelessly embittered.  Let's be honest here: we would have all "unfriended" Zacchaeus if we had lived in Jericho. We would have written him off as "too much in bed with a despicable government," or "too crooked and corrupt," or "disloyal to his countrymen," or all of the above.

And this is what makes Jesus' calling to Zacchaeus all the more amazing.  Jesus is not stupid.  Jesus is not unaware.  Jesus knows both what Zacchaeus is complicit in, and what everybody else thinks of him... and what they'll think of Jesus himself if he dares go to dinner at the home of "one of those people," a hateful, crooked tax collector. 

And not only that, I don't even think that Jesus would have disagreed with that assessment of Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus was a rotten sell-out who made his livelihood selling his people out to the empire and getting a cushy living doing it.  This isn't one of those situation where the crowd is just being prejudiced or mean--their collective verdict about Zacchaeus being a rotten imperial extortionist wasn't very far off the mark at all.  This wasn't a situation where the facts weren't in, or one could legitimately debate those facts.  There really weren't two sides here, and nobody, not even Zacchaeus himself, was there protesting that deep down he was a good feller with a heart of gold. Zacchaeus really was just a terrible, self-serving, misanthropic jerk, who had learned to keep everybody else at arms' length--both because it made it easier to bilk them if you didn't have to look them in the eye, and because it was safer in case they started to throw punches or wanted to slap him in the face.  Jesus wasn't so naïve as to think, "Well, maybe he's really a swell guy who is just misunderstood."  No, like the Grinch, Zacchaeus was "a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce." You and I know people like Zacchaeus--people we wouldn't want to be seen at a table with, or would be embarrassed to be seen talking to in public because their whole conduct seems so terrible.  And it is also quite possible that someone else who knows you (and me) would put you on a list like that, too.  I have a feeling I'm on more than a few people's Zacchaeus list, myself.  

We wouldn't have anything to do with a crooked money-grubbing sell-out like Zacchaeus, if we had lived in Jericho back them.

But....

Jesus calls him anyway.  

Jesus calls him, despite the fact that Zacchaeus brings nothing but a shriveled up heart and tight-fisted hands.  

Jesus calls him, well aware that Zacchaeus has made terrible choices and doesn't deserve more than to have to live with the consequences of those choices.

Jesus calls him, knowing full well that Zacchaeus doesn't have the nerve to even ask Jesus first for hope, or mercy, or a forgiveness, or a new beginning.  If Jesus had to wait around for him to approach first, he'd still be waiting there outside of Jericho by the sycamore.  

And that is where everything changes.  The call--like the Creator's voice to the chaos at the beginning--has the power in and of itself to bring something beautiful from the mess that was Zacchaeus' heart.  The call itself, "Come down, so I can have dinner at your house," brings transformation.

But let us put to bed once and for all any ridiculous notion that Jesus, either there in Jericho or at this very moment, is waiting for us to take the first step or invite him into our lives, our hearts, or our dining rooms.  He is not.  Jesus always takes the first step... because we never will.

As much as we might want to set ourselves apart from crooked old Zacchaeus, we are up the same tree right there with him.  We are crooks and sell-outs, sinners with shriveled hearts, and left to our own devices, we would stay that way forever.   For that matter, we are all so fearful of what other people think of us that chances are, we will never work up the nerve to come to Jesus because we don't want to risk seeking him out, only to be rejected again.  It's quite a double-bind.

So, because we can't come out of the tree ourselves, or because we won't out of fear, Jesus calls to us.  And because we would never dream of imagining that a respectable rabbi would darken our door if we asked, Jesus just invites himself over.  He invites himself over to our hearts.  His call sets it all into motion.  When everybody else in town would have just stared and pointed, or referred to him as "That godforsaken cheating tax collector!" Jesus calls him by name.  "Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house.  Let me have dinner with you--friend to friend."  And the call itself has the power to transform.

Note that Jesus doesn't phrase the dinner idea as a conditional proposal.  He doesn't say, "Hey, if you would make a few changes in your life, I'd be willing to reward you with a celebrity dinner with me!"  There is no trading of good behavior first for a dinner party appearance and a selfie.  There is only grace that comes from Jesus' calling.  Before any promises of making amends with the people he had cheated, before any promises or payments to make restitution, there is simply the gracious call: "Zacchaeus, put on the coffee. I'm coming to your house."

It is a humbling thing to admit that we are all--every last one of us--up a tree like the friendless tax collector, paralyzed by our own baggage and fear to ever come to Jesus on our own.  But it also allows us to be honest, too, to recognize grace in front of our faces, too.  

We find ourselves at table with Jesus, not because we were bold enough to invite Jesus into our homes or our hearts first, but because Jesus invited himself over.

We find ourselves face to face with Jesus, not because we were respectable and religious, but because Jesus is the sort who looks up into tree branches and summons the sell-outs to eat with him.

We find ourselves called by name, called beloved, and called a child in the family, not because we've earned it or made it happen, but because Jesus' call has that kind of power.  

He calls himself a guest at Zacchaeus' table, and all of sudden, so he is.  He calls Zacchaeus acceptable as a host, and at Jesus' say-so, he becomes just that.  He calls Zacchaeus a son of Abraham, and even though everybody else thought God surely would have disowned him, Jesus' knows otherwise.

And this same Jesus has called you beloved... and now dares you to speak the same call to people all around you, who have been told they are unacceptable, who have been told they are beyond hope, who have been told they come from the wrong place, or look the wrong way, or don't dress nice enough for church, or are too messed up to belong.  And now Jesus taps you and me on the shoulder and says to us, "Would you invite yourself over into that person's life for me?  I would like to use your voice to call them by name."

Lord Jesus, let us dare to believe we are what you say we are, and let us offer our own eyes to look up in the sycamores for people whom you love, too.