Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost
Year C
November 1, 2019
North Fork Ministries
Gospel:
Luke 19:1-10
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."
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In today’s gospel reading we heard that Zacchaeus “was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.” We tend to assume from Luke’s recounting of the story, that Zacchaeus was the one who was short in stature – a wee little man was he, as a Scotsman might say, or as you may remember from the children’s song describing the encounter in the shade of the Sycamore tree. But what if we read the passage a little differently and imagine that Luke is saying that Zacchaeus, the tax collector, couldn’t see Jesus in the midst of the crowd, not because Zacchaeus was short, but because Jesus was short. What if this story is describing an encounter with “the short Jesus”?
Jesus was, in fact, almost certainly short, at least by today’s standards – maybe about 5’7” and with dark curly hair and an olive complexion - like most Middle Easterners at the time. Would you think of Jesus differently if you saw him, in your mind’s eye, as short. I’ll admit that I might. I tend to think of Jesus as rather tall, and powerfully built. Charismatic. With a deep intellect and typically cryptic in his comments. I think of him as a defender of the poor and the marginalized. A man willing to stand up to the Roman oppressors. A man who fought for social justice and truth.
But you might think of Jesus as the gentle soul who took children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. And told his listeners that anyone who did not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.
Or maybe you think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd – the shepherd who gathers his flock, and keeps them safe from danger, retrieves any lost sheep and brings them back into the fold.
Or maybe the Jesus you identify with is the Jesus who chased the money changers out the temple. The Jesus who overturns tables and sets things right. A Jesus who knows how to clean house.
Or maybe yours is the Jesus in the midst of a furious squall, who emerges from his slumber on a cushion at the stern of their boat to find his disciples fearing for their lives. “Peace, be still” he calls out and wind dies down and there is complete calm. Those of us who live with anxiety and live harried lives, may long for the peace, the serenity, that Jesus offers.
We tend to see in Jesus what we want to see, what we need to see, what we identify with, or maybe what we feel is absent within us. If you search scripture carefully enough, you can probably find a Jesus that fits whatever occasion you might have in mind. Jesus can be imagined as “a man for all seasons.”
Even so, I don’t hear a lot of “Jesus talk” among progressive minded Christians. I think we are a little embarrassed to talk about Jesus. Why do you think that is? It may be because the name “Jesus” has been co-opted by the religious right. Fundamentalist Christians and their political allies, in what seems to me a perversion of Christianity and a misreading of scripture, are likely to pay homage to a Jesus who wouldn’t welcome the immigrant, a Jesus who wouldn’t care if people could afford good health care, a Jesus who wasn’t concerned about disparity in wealth, or the damage we are doing to our environment. The Jesus I know practiced love and compassion for all creation. Not hate and disregard for the well-being of others. The religious right has given Jesus a bad name. It’s no wonder that our young people are turning away from our faith.
It’s time to take Jesus back. We’ve allowed those with a narrow-minded conception of what faith is about to keep Jesus to themselves for too long. If Christianity is to thrive in the 21st century, we need Jesus. We need the Jesus who looked up in the sycamore tree and said to Zacchaeus, “hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today”. Jesus invited himself in. And we have the same invitation. I don’t know if Zacchaeus couldn’t see Jesus because Jesus was short, or because Zacchaeus was short, or if the crowd just got in the way. But if Zacchaeus hadn’t climbed the sycamore tree, if he hadn’t done something to rise above the crowd, he wouldn’t have seen Jesus and Jesus wouldn’t have seen him. And the connection with the Divine that Zacchaeus sought would not have happened.
Upon his encounter with the Christ, Zacchaeus readily agreed to leave his old life behind, abandon his attachment to wealth, and be generous with all he had. He chose to do what was right, fair and just. But he made that choice because of his encounter with Jesus.
I don’t know if Jesus was tall or short. What I know of Jesus, and the reason I am a Christian, is that Jesus was divine. And it was Jesus’ divinity, the presence of God within him, that resonated with Zacchaeus, with the twelve disciples, and with the multitudes that followed after him.
We can be drawn to Jesus because of his charisma, his commitment to social justice, his compassion, his love, his care for his flock, the sense of peace he possessed. We can, and should, follow his example of how to live in the world. But we speak the name of Jesus today, because of his divinity. Because others, like Zacchaeus, recognized within Jesus the presence of the Holy. With Jesus, they saw God. And when Jesus gazed on them, he could see God within them as well. The potential for recognizing the presence of God within ourselves, within all those around us, within all creation, was perfectly realized in the form of the man we call Jesus. That realization is at the core of our faith - the true and central essence of our call to follow Christ.
As St. Paul prayed in his letter to the people of Thessalonica, “To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call…so that that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God…