Zacchaeus

A word for the week

Today I must stay at your house. Of all the things Jesus could have said to the man in the tree, this is what he said, and it changed everything. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, which means he was rich and he was hated, a Jew who had grown wealthy collecting taxes for the occupying Romans and taking a cut for himself, a traitor and a cheat by the reckoning of everyone in Jericho. And he wanted, for reasons even he might not have named, just to see Jesus. But he was short, and the crowd was thick, and so this rich, powerful, dignified man does an undignified thing: he runs ahead and climbs a tree like a child, just to catch a glimpse.

And Jesus stops under the tree, looks up, and calls him by name. Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. Not, come down and repent. Not, come down and I will tell you what is wrong with you. Just, I am coming to your house today. Of all the homes in Jericho, Jesus invites himself to the one belonging to the man everybody despised. And the crowd hates it; they all mutter that he has gone to be the guest of a sinner. But look what being wanted, rather than shamed, does to Zacchaeus. He comes down joyfully, and before Jesus has asked him for a single thing, the change is already pouring out of him: Lord, half of everything I own I give to the poor, and anyone I have cheated I will pay back four times over.

Notice the order, because it is the whole gospel in miniature. Jesus did not say, clean up your life and then I will come to your house. He came to the house first. He offered the man welcome and honor while he was still a crook, still up a tree, still exactly the sinner everyone said he was. And it was that undeserved welcome, not a threat, not a lecture, that broke the man open and turned him generous. This is how grace works. It does not wait for you to become good enough to be loved. It loves you first, into your tree, and the goodness comes tumbling out afterward, in response.

Think about what changed Zacchaeus. Not fear. Not being told what a wretch he was; he surely knew that already, and it had never once made him give his money away. What changed him was being seen and wanted by name. Jesus looked up into that tree and saw, not a category, not a traitor, but a person, and called him by his name, and offered to sit at his table. And something a lifetime of contempt could never do, one afternoon of being genuinely wanted did.

Jesus says it plainly at the end: today salvation has come to this house, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. To seek. Zacchaeus climbed a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus, and discovered that Jesus had been coming to find him all along. That is the direction of the whole story of God: not us frantically climbing to see him, but him walking straight to the foot of our tree, looking up, and saying our name. He came to seek and to save the lost, which means, if you have ever felt like the one up the tree, the one nobody wanted at their table, that he is looking for you.