"Changed for Good"

Luke 19:1-10

Recently I heard a story about an Episcopal priest fresh out of seminary and just settling in to his first parish.  His first day on the job, he was unpacking books when he looked up and there was Jesus standing at the window looking right at him.  At a loss for what to do, he followed the advice given in seminary:  When you don’t know what to do, call the Bishop, so the priest immediately picked up the phone and did just that.  "Bishop," the young priest said, "I'm here in my office and Jesus is standing right here looking at me.  What do I do?"  There was a pause on the other end of the line.  Finally, the Bishop said, "Look busy." Well, What do people do when they believe themselves to be in the presence of Christ?  What happens to people when Jesus comes into their lives?We know what happened to Zacchaeus. He was changed, transformed, and made new.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Zacchaeus.  If you grew up attending Sunday School and going to Vacation Bible School, you surely learned all about Zacchaeus.  His is a story teachers love to use, because it lends itself to being acted out. Children can identify with Zacchaeus, because he's described as short in stature, just like them. And the fact that Zacchaeus was a tree climber further endears him to children.  Then there's the cute song about Zacchaeus:  "Zacchaeus was a wee little man…" Folks of all ages tend to enjoy Luke's slightly comical story about the tax-collector named Zacchaeus.

But let's not overlook the most important description of Zacchaeus:  He was an outcast!  Luke identifies him as a tax collector. Tax collectors in that day were almost universally hated as collaborators with the Roman occupiers. That Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector implicates him more deeply in the corrupt tax system of the Roman government.  In a corrupt system, the loftier one's position, the greater one' complicity in that system. So Zacchaeus was not merely unpopular among the citizens of Jericho, he was despised.

For that reason, when Jesus passes through Jericho Zacchaeus can't see him because of the crowd.  The implication is that the crowd intentionally prevented Zacchaeus from seeing Jesus. When Zacchaues saw an opening in the crowd and tried to squeeze through, the people would immediately block his path yelling, "Out of here scum-bag."  If Zacchaeus tried to peer over the crowd, he was slapped away as people sneered, "Go back to your sleazy business and leave us alone."

This morning our chancel choir sang the moving spiritual, "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child…"  Well, that could be Zacchaeus' song.  He was socially isolated and universally loathed.  He had money but no friends.  He had plenty to live on, but nothing to live for.

Perhaps that's why Zacchaeus was so determined to see Jesus for himself. Maybe Zacchaeus had heard stories about how Jesus welcomed tax collectors and sinners. How he included outcasts and befriended the friendless. 

And to the astonishment--and dismay--of the crowd, when Jesus sees Zacchaues, he comes straight to him, declares, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down from that tree; for I must stay at your house today."  Notice how the presence of Jesus and his unconditional acceptance prompt a change to wash over Zacchaues.  On the spot, he commits to sharing half of his wealth with the poor and restoring fourfold anyone he has defrauded.  He's a changed man.  He not only repents, but he begins to bear the fruit of repentance—he begins to share his wealth with the poor.

It's amusing to speculate on how Mrs. Zacchaeus reacted when her husband showed up at the house with an unexpected dinner guest. Mrs. Zacchaeus might understandably been a little peeved.  Then when her husband blurts out, "By the way, dear, I just gave away half of all our wealth."  I can imagine Mrs. Zacchaeus saying, "You just did what?"  But maybe it didn't happen that way at all. Maybe when Jesus stepped into her house, she too experienced a love so deep, a grace so abundant, an acceptance so compelling, that she, like her husband, joyfully welcomed Jesus, applauded the changes in her husband, and supported fully the generosity he had shown.

Zacchaeus may have been a wee little man, but once he welcomed Jesus into his life he became a changed man.  He experienced a conversion, to be sure, but not in any private, narrrow sense. His conversion clearly had social and economic dimensions. Specifically, it set him on the side of the poor and the oppressed. When Zacchaeus met Jesus, the whole of life was affected. He changed from a person living off others, to one who lived for others, from hoarding to sharing, from greed to generosity.   

Too often today salvation is narrowed down to merely a transaction of the heart. One hears some Christians speak of conversion in the very restricted sense of "preserving a soul for heaven."  All that matters, some suggest, is to accept Jesus as my savior with the assurance that now I have a ticket to heaven.  A change of heart doesn't necessary mean a change of life.  In some Christian circles it can be a test of piety to say that we have Jesus in our heart, but as I once heard someone say, "If it's really Jesus in your heart, he has brought a lot of other people with him." Namely, the disposed, the outcasts, the poor.   In short, wherever Jesus is welcomed, people are changed.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that all change is instantaneous.  Once Christ is welcomed into our lives all selfishness, greed, intolerance, anger don't usually just vanish like a cloud blown away by the wind. True, Zacchaeus, shows immediate changes in his life, but most significant changes require time.  In one of C.S. Lewis' letters, he responds to a person who has written to complain about an individual who purports to be a Christian, but who is still insensitive, gruff and impatient.    Lewis responded to the writer, "What you say is true, but you should have known him before he became a Christian."  Carlyle Marney, former pastor of First Baptist Church here in Austin, was fond of saying that true conversion takes place within the parenthesis of a life time.  Discipleship is a process, a journey.  We are a "being changed" congregation. We may not be as helpful to others as we want to be, but as followers of Jesus we are becoming more helpful. We may not yet be free enough to give away half of our wealth—Indeed, many of us are still struggling just to give a tenth--but surely we're becoming ever more generous in our giving. Step by step, little by little, from one degree of glory to another, we are being changed into the likeness of Christ. Martin Luther put the matter clearly when he wrote, "As our heavenly Father has in Christ come to our aid, we also ought to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christ to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians…"  (The Freedom of a Christian).

Friends, in our story of Zacchaeus, the word today is prominent.  Jesus tells Zacchaues that he must come to his house today, and that today salvation has come to his house.  That's the good news for us. Today Christ is present with us and among us. Today we are invited to the Lord's Table to receive again the life of Christ and to go forth from Christ's Table as a new person.  That's what happens to people when Christ comes into our lives. We are changed.  Changed for good.