He 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.’
Do you ever feel that in the spiritual life everyone else is grasping something important but you’re just a small person whose vision is blocked? Everybody talks about this Jesus person but all you can see are crowds of people who are talking about him, defining him, discussing him and parsing his every word and action. Sure, you could just listen to all the words and homilies being spoken about him but everybody seems to have a different take on who he is, what he is doing and why he is doing it, and something inside of you wants more than that. You want to experience him for yourself. Even if you could just behold him from a distance with your own eyes, it would be better than what you’re getting now. Your heart is crying out, “I want to see Jesus!”
What are you willing to do to see him?
Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector in Jericho and he was a rich man. He was short but I’m willing to bet he wasn’t the only short person in Jericho. The difference between Zacchaeus and others who couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowds was that Zacchaeus was willing to take a risk in order to see him with his own eyes. In his case, it was a huge risk because he was willing to risk his pride. He would have known that the people of Jericho did not hold him in high esteem. Tax collectors were employed by the Roman occupation and tax collectors, as far as the Jewish people were concerned, were traitors to their people and cheats because they often over charged and pocketed the extra shekels. By climbing a tree in order to see Jesus he would have been opening himself to a lot of ridicule and scorn but something in his heart cried, “I want to see Jesus!”
Jesus didn’t stop and call Zacchaeus down to eat with him just because he was a rich tax collector; Jesus called him down because Zacchaeus had literally gone out on a limb in order to see him. I’ve said before that Jesus is a heart reader and what he read in Zacchaeus’ heart was more than just idle curiosity. Zacchaeus had risked a lot in order to see Jesus. There was unfulfilled desire there and perhaps Zacchaeus understood that his riches and possessions were not making him happy in the way he had hoped. Jesus called Zacchaeus down because Zacchaeus had capacity. Did Jesus say, “…Zacchaeus too is a son of Abraham” simply because Zacchaeus was a Jew or because within Zacchaeus there was the same seed of desire that Abraham had possessed, a kind of desire that moved Abraham to risk much in order to walk with God?
We can stand before the Lord and profess that we are poor, that we have nothing to offer him and that we depend on him for all we need to live but sometimes we need to go a little further than that. Going further does not prove anything to God who knows exactly who we are but it moves us beyond our ingrained self-images, beyond who we think we are and what we think we are capable of. Going further stretches our little boxes and that always requires taking a risk.
I want to emphasize that taking a risk is not an exercise in trying to gain God’s approval by what we do. Rather, it is a widening and deepening of our inner capacity to see Jesus. We have to keep in mind that what is a risk for one person may not be a risk at all for another so this is a very personal journey and we must not get caught up in comparing ourselves to other people and finding ourselves lacking – or comparing them to ourselves and making judgments when they find it difficult to do what is relatively simple to us. This is definitely a ‘mind your own business’ part of the spiritual journey. God does not compare us to anyone else so we should be very careful about doing it ourselves.
The kinds of risks that can challenge us are many and varied. They are rarely dangerous except to our false selves. Sometimes the risk is to take on a task we don’t feel is within our skill set or is one we’re not certain we’re able to do well. Sometimes the risk is to allow someone else to be in control or to allow someone to take on a task when we feel we’d do a much better job. There is a risk in allowing others to misjudge us. There is a lot of risk in receiving when we’re used to being the ones who give. For some, the risk is to be silent when everything inside wants to rebut and disprove. Some need to take the risk of being more transparent while others need to know the risk of not being the center of attention. So many kinds of risks to choose from.
What we are all called to risk is our pride and our fear of being vulnerable and imperfect. This is exactly what Zacchaeus risked by climbing the tree. His desire to see Jesus pushed him beyond protecting his self-image and when Jesus spied him in the tree, Jesus knew he had encountered someone who could receive his Word, someone who would welcome him into his home. Still, there was one more thing Zacchaeus needed to do before he committed himself to the risky acts of sharing his possessions with the poor and repaying those he had defrauded. Zacchaeus had to first decide to come down out of the tree. That, too, was a risk. He could have said, “No. I’ll stay here, thanks very much. I’ve caught a glimpse of you, Jesus, and that’s good enough for me. If I come down, I will be fully committed. It will mean that I am willing to go the whole way with you and risk far more than I’ve risked so far. If I come down, my life will be in your hands; nothing will ever be the same again. All my inner perceptions are going to be challenged and every day I will be called to take Kingdom risks.” Zacchaeus would be facing far more changes than in just his outward actions if he really wanted to see Jesus.
Zacchaeus took a risk, came down and participated in the love exchange: beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. After coming down from the tree of risk, he became grafted to ‘The Tree’ - the Tree of Righteousness. He had been lost but now he was found. Salvation in the person of Jesus had come to his house. I particularly like the fact that Jesus said salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house, not just his home. By saying ‘house’, Jesus was promising salvation not just for Zacchaeus but also for his family and his servants – his household. By taking a risk in order to see Jesus, we will be affecting many more people than just ourselves.
By the way, there is another person in scripture who took a risk, climbed a tree, came down, was utterly transformed and brought salvation to his house:
Jesus, the King of Kingdom risk takers.
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