“Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. . .”
I can still hear my father singing this well-known Sunday School song to me and to hundreds of Sunday School children down through the years.
By
all accounts my father was truly a man of God, a saint. I am biased. I am his
daughter. But others seem to think so as well. At his funeral someone had
arranged for people to post stories on a wall, about how my father’s faith had
made an impact on their lives. Story after, story, life after life he had
touched. There were too many to read, it was nearly over whelming. At the
viewing people waited in a line that was over 2 ½ hours long to pay their final
respects to him and to us, his family. He lived a life which exemplified
Christ’s love in all things. His faith was an example to all he met and served
to encourage many to walk closer to God and to follow Christ in their own
lives. Kids he taught in Sunday School, Caravans, or youth quizzing, have grown
to be pastors, missionaries, teachers, and doctors; you name it, faithful men
and women of God. You all met him, you knew his warm heart and his generous
spirit. I do not believe there is anyone who ever met him who did experience
the love of Christ in his actions and his words.
It
may or may not surprise you that my father related to Zacchaeus in a lot of
ways. My father was short of stature as well and my father, like Zacchaeus
remembered a life of which he was not at all proud, before he met Jesus. Some
of us come to know and follow Christ early in our lives, we cannot speak much
about the lives we lived prior to coming to faith. All we knew were the sins of
a child still finding their way in the world. But others lived quite a bit, were adults,
made choices which shaped their lives in ways that were not always positive. My
father came to Christ in his mid-twenties, which is not old but he had done
quite a bit of “living.”
Obviously
I was not acquainted with the man my father was before that fateful day when my
mother decided they were going to go to the revival she had seen
advertised. I know very little about
what kind of person he was prior to that day, but I know a few things. Upon
learning my father had lived in Germany when he was first in the military, I
asked him to teach me some German, he told me the only German he knew was the
kind of German a young man learns in a bar and was inappropriate to share with
me. I know my parents lived together for at least a year before they got
married. I know he was rough in high school and prone to fighting. I can still
remember him saying, “You messed with one of the Henson boys, you messed with
all of them.” Which is just another way of saying he settled things with his
fist and not his words. At this point I think it would be suffice to say, he
was not entirely proud of who he was prior to coming to know Jesus.
Zacchaeus,
prior to his encounter with Jesus that day, was also not an ideal citizen
either. He was not only a tax collector, but he was the chief tax collector. In
our system taxes are set up by the government and are based on how much you
make in any given year and some formula. Being a world without turbo tax and
tax accountants to figure out the formula, in the first century, the tax system
was a little less sophisticated. Each tax collector was expected to collect a
certain amount from the people in their jurisdiction. A tax collector was not
bound to only collect the amount he needed to turn into his superior, so they
often collected more than what was needed, as a sort of surcharge. Zacchaeus
had managed to get very rich off this “surcharge.”
As
you can imagine nobody liked a tax collector. Not only were they not known to
be the most honest of men, collecting more taxes than was required of them, but
they were a constant reminder to the Jewish people that they were subject to
Roman rule, were not their own nation and were essentially not free. Needless
to say, they were not the most popular people in town. They were considered
sinners simply because of their occupation. They were not allowed in the temple
or the synagogue. They were considered to be on par with thieves, gamblers and
dishonest herdsmen. They were deemed to be unredeemable by the law of Moses.
There was nothing for them. Even when they did their job fairly, they were
still despised and hated.
We
don’t know why Zacchaeus wanted so desperately to see Jesus that he ran ahead
of the crowd and climbed a tree, but he did. He is there in the tree when Jesus
sees him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house. People in the crowd don’t
like this. Of all the people Jesus could choose to go home with, he chooses the
tax collector, not only is he a sinner, but he’s an unpopular sinner, the kind
of sinner nobody likes, and nobody wants to be around. Not a single person
there would choose to go home with him. Zacchaeus is unworthy of their company,
why would Jesus decide Zacchaeus is worthy of his company? There are so many
more worthy people all around him, but Jesus goes out of his way to call the
tax collector down out of the tree and invites himself home with him. Zacchaeus
hurries down from the tree and welcomes Jesus into his home. Meanwhile the
people are upset, because Jesus has shown favor to the tax collector! What is
Jesus doing?
But
while they are grumbling something amazing is going on in the tax collector’s
house and in his heart. After his time with Jesus he declares he will give away
half his possessions to the poor, and he will restore to those whom he
defrauded, he will return to them four times what he took from them. And
apparently he is not doing this simply because he wants to impress Jesus, but
because he has truly had a change of heart, because Jesus says, “Today
salvation has come to this house.” Zacchaeus chooses to change his actions
because Jesus has changed his heart.
Jesus
reminds us that he came to seek and save the lost. This lost one has been
found. The shepherd went looking for him, found him in a tree and by going home
with him was able to bring him home.
The
story of Zacchaeus tells us two things. First it tells us that no one is beyond
the reach of Jesus. There is no person whose sins are so awful, who is so far
gone that they are beyond the seeking eyes of the Good Shepherd when he goes
searching. It does not matter what they have done, does not matter how bad, or
how many people they have harmed. It does not matter if nobody likes them, if
everybody has given up on them, or if not a single person is willing to give
them a chance. Jesus wants to seek and save everybody who is lost.
The
lost woman searched the whole house, sweeping all the corners, lit a lamp, and
looked carefully until each one was found. Jesus does not desire for a single
person to remain lost. Jesus is seeking everyone, all of them, each and every
single one. No one is too far gone, no one is too bad or deemed unworthy. The
fact is none of us are “worthy”, none of us are “good enough” but Jesus loves
all of us and desires for each of us to come, desires for each of us to
believe, to be in relationship with us. Jesus wants us all to come to him,
allow him change our lives, so that we too can reflect the love, the mercy, the
forgiveness, goodness and the holiness of God in our own lives.
The
other thing we can know is, Zacchaeus’ story is a saint’s story. Zacchaeus’
life was changed. His life was transformed. He became a follower of Jesus
Christ. This is his story and it is the story of all saints. They once were
lost but now are found. Jesus changed and transformed each and every one of
their lives. They were no longer who we once were.
This
is the story of each of the people we honored this morning. Jesus touched them.
Their lives were transformed. Their life, their ministry, their faith, their
witness has touched the lives around them. The light of Christ shone forth from
within them. Their lives, their actions, their words, pointed others, pointed US
to Jesus Christ, their faith increased our faith. Many of them were champions
of Jesus Christ, super heroes of the faith. Their lives are a testament to this
fact and we follow them as they followed Christ because we could see how Jesus
had changed their lives and we too want to be transformed into Christ’s image
just as they were.
But
their stories are the same as Zacchaeus’ they once were lost but now they are
found. It is the story of my father. This is why my father saw himself in
Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus’s story was my father’s story and my father’s story is
really everyone’s story. No matter who we were before we came to Christ. No
matter what we have done, our story is the same. We once were lost and now we
are found.
The
same is true for all Christians; for all saints of the Church. No matter how
much we look up to someone else’s faith, their knowledge of the Bible, their
ability to live the love of Christ in all they do; no matter how holy they
seem, no matter how perfectly they exemplify the life of a true believer, no
matter how clear their reflection of God appears to be, their story is the
same, the same as Zacchaeus’, the same as my Dad’s, the same as sister Beckles
or sister Warrick, the same as JoAnn’s or Lucille’s. They once were lost and
now they are found.
All
who believe are like Zacchaeus in this way and all who believe are saints. The
key is we have to live like Jesus, to look to Jesus as our example of what a
life totally committed to God looks like, to see Jesus as the person into whom
God is daily transforming us. We are daily becoming saints. As we live lives
committed to Christ, as we continue to allow ourselves to be made holy, wholly
giving ourselves to God so that we can reflect the character of God in this
world, so that we can be Jesus here and now, we are being transformed into
saints.
Our
faith is the faith the next generation looks to show them what it looks like to
be Christ. No matter how much we feel we might fail, no matter how much we
might hope nobody is following our example of what it looks like to be a
believer, someone is. These is always someone newer in the faith, or someone
who does not yet believe who knows we are a Christian, who sees who we are and
sees our life as an example of what it means to be a believer. As we remember
and honor the lives of all those to whom we look as examples of Christlikeness
lived on earth, we too much live as they lived knowing we are the saints others
look to, to point them toward Christ. Let us all be lights that lead others to
Jesus.
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