The Rev. Charles Youngson

21^st Sunday after Pentecost, October 30, 2022

Proper 26, Year C: Luke 19:1-10

“Come Down from the Tree”

Many of you know the Busbee family at All Saints. Kathleen is our Director of Children’s Formation, and her husband Brad and their four children are involved in a variety of ways at church, too. With his permission, I want to share a story about their youngest Elias, who is nine years old.  Now, despite having two parents and three older sisters to watch out for him, Elias remains adventurous and independent. 

As an example, one day when he was around five years old, his father took him to work at Samford, where Brad teaches. Elias was supposed to be reading a book or playing soccer with his sister while Brad did some work in his office, which was on the second floor of the building. As Brad is working as his desk, he looks out window and notices that the magnolia tree was swaying back and forth. He thinks, “That’s odd. It’s not a particularly windy day.” Then he notices a small crowd gathering under the tree and looking up. And that’s when he sees his son Elias at the top of the tree waving at him. The only problem is, Elias doesn’t know how to get down, and he’s starting to get scared. Brad, still in his suit from teaching earlier that day, heads outside and begins to coax Elias out of the tree. But soothing words aren’t enough, and Brad realizes the only way Elias is going to come down is if he climbs the tree himself and brings Elias down with him. And that’s what he does.

I can relate to this story because I was very much like Elias at that age. I loved to climb the big magnolia tree in our back yard at our house on Sherwood Drive in Tuscaloosa. The best part was scaring my elderly neighbor half to death when I would call out to him from high above. I assume he forgave me because when we moved away, he gave me his collection of pennies and nickels going back to the 1940’s, which I still have and update every few years.

There’s something about little boys and climbing trees. And though I can’t speak from experience since I don’t have sisters or daughters, I assume a lot of girls like climbing trees, too.  When you’re little, climbing a tree makes you feel big and strong. Maybe it’s the element of danger combined with the sense of safety you feel being high above the earth and hidden within the branches. Maybe it’s the fact that climbing trees is a skill that kids can do better than adults.  Or maybe it’s just some primitive connection to our primate ancestors.  And here in the South every tree climber knows that magnolia trees are the best because they grow lots of sturdy branches low to the ground. You can hide among their leaves year-round. And they smell so great. To me, magnolias smell like home and childhood.

Children love the story of Zacchaeus because they can relate to being small and unable to see over the grownups. And they can relate to climbing trees to get a better view. Years ago I had the chance to visit the Holy Land with a group of clergy from various denominations. And we went Zacchaeus’ hometown, the ancient city of Jericho. Jericho is an oasis in the Judean desert, which the book of Deuteronomy calls the city of palm trees. And there are a lot of palm trees there, but to this day you’ll find a sycamore tree in the middle of town, the same one that Zacchaeus climbed. Ok, sycamores don’t typically live 2000 years, but maybe it was the great, great, great, grandchild of the one Zacchaeus climbed the day that Jesus came to town. Not only did this distinguished group of pastors and seminary professors read from the Gospel of Luke in the shade of the famous sycamore, we also sang the song: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he.” 

That day in Jericho our tour guide shared something interesting with us. He said that it’s no accident that Luke included the fact that it was a sycamore tree in telling the story. Normally, he said, if a person back then was going to climb a tree for a better view, they would shimmy up one of the many palm trees in the area. So why did Zacchaeus climb a sycamore? Because he could hide there. If you’re hanging on to a palm tree, everyone can see you. But in a sycamore tree he could remain camouflaged.

And why did Zacchaeus want to hide? Well, that’s because he wasn’t well-like in Jericho, to put it nicely. As you may know tax collectors—and Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector—were seen as traitors because they took money from their fellow Jews to fund the occupying Roman Empire. Since they were paid a cut of what they collected, there was plenty of incentive for fraud. Luke tells us Zacchaeus was rich, and we’re left to assume his wealth came from exploiting his own people. That’s backed up by what he says when Jesus calls him down from the tree. Our translation renders it, “if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” But the Greek is present tense and can also mean something like, “if I defraud anyone, I always pay them back fourfold.” 

How you translate the verbs in this sentence determines how we look at Zacchaeus. Was he in the habit of giving back anytime he was accused of fraud, or did the encounter with Jesus inspire him to repent of his ways? Was Zacchaeus in the wrong for defrauding the people, or was the community in the wrong for ostracizing Zacchaeus unfairly? This is why they say the translation is the first interpretation. 

But at the end of the day the traditional interpretation and the one most scholars agree with is that Zacchaeus makes a decision to change because of the encounter with Jesus. Not only will he stop using his position to defraud others, but he will also make restitution according to the most stringent standard in the Old Testament. Something about that encounter with Jesus changes him, which is why Jesus then says “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 save the lost.” 

I believe the order events is key to interpreting this passage. Clearly Zacchaeus was drawn to Jesus. Maybe it was mere curiosity about this famous rabbi.  Or did he sense Jesus could restore what was broken within him? Whatever the reason Zacchaeus takes the first step. He shows up and puts forth the additional effort of getting past the crowd and up that tree. He literally goes out on a limb to see Jesus. But he’s still afraid. And so, he hides in the tree at a safe distance. But Jesus doesn’t let Zacchaeus remain a passive onlooker.  He seeks Zacchaeus out, call him by name, commands him to come down out of hiding, and then declares in front of everyone that he will stay at his home. That changes everything for this sheep who had wandered from the fold. It's clear to me that Jesus’ acceptance motivates him to repent.

The kid in us may love Zacchaeus for his small size and love of climbing trees, but the adult in us can love Zacchaeus because we see ourselves in him. We, too, often feel like we don’t belong or aren’t worthy of being accepted because of how we look, what we do for a living, or the bad decisions we’ve made. At times we, too, feel isolated and cut off from our community. We long to be restored to wholeness, and we are curious about this Jesus fellow. Does he really offer us the power to change and be healed? But we’re also unsure. We are drawn to him but afraid to get too close. What if he really does change me? Will I be ready? What if he asks me to let go of something that has been a false source of security for a long time? And so we hide ourselves in a tree at a safe distance.  But if we are willing to take that first step, if we are willing to show up, Jesus will go the rest of the way. Though we might be content to remain passive onlookers, Jesus comes to us, call us by name, and accepts us where we are. He offers to come to our house without demanding that we get our house in order first. 

What a difference from the way the world works! The world demands that we behave before we can belong.  We see that illustrated in the passage today. Notice how the envious crowd grumbles and wonders why a man like Jesus would single out a man like Zacchaeus for this special honor. In their minds, it’s the fine, upstanding members of society like themselves who deserve to have Jesus stay at their homes. But throughout the Gospels we hear Jesus say things like, “Those who are well have no need of a doctor,” and “I have come to save not the righteous, but sinners.” 

Jesus sets aside the system of rewards and punishments for an ethic of finding the lost, healing the sick, and saving the sinner. Such good news inspires us to live better, not out of fear of punishment or hope of reward, but out of a desire to be in partnership with Jesus in his work of reconciliation. And that’s ultimately what the Zacchaeus story is about: reconciliation. Through his encounter with Christ he is restored to unity with God and with his neighbors. This small man is inspired to do great deeds. The story of Zacchaeus reminds us that the true measure of a man is not his stature, but his generosity, his willingness to admit to wrongdoing, and to make restitution. The world tells us to keep climbing, to keep elevating ourselves above the crowd. But if we truly want to meet Jesus, then we’ve got to come down to earth.