C, Pent 23 Proper 26 - Luke 19:1-10 "A Polly in a Tree"
Luke 19:1-10 Jesus entered Jericho
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
Climbing trees would have to be one of the most exciting and enjoyable things every person has done in their childhood. To climb way up into the heights of a tree’s branches gives a boy or a girl a perspective on life far different from the relatively limited heights of everyday infancy.
And also, not to mention, it’s a really good place to get away from adults when you’re in trouble. Hiding up in the thin branches will guarantee if they come up after you they will most likely give up, because fear or commonsense or both would prevail! Besides sensible adults don’t climb trees anyway, less they end up on funniest home videos falling from the breaking branches!
There’s no way we would ever see the queen or the leader of the country climbing a tree. In fact if they did it would immediately grab your attention. Just imagine if on the election campaign we were privileged to have a visit from the Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition, and as they greeted us they decided to go over and climb a tree.
No doubt half of the crowd would be concerned that he might fall out of the tree in front of the cameras, and then the other half of the crowd might storm the tree to shake its branches to see the spectacle of a politician falling from grace!
But then just imagine if it was Jesus who was here visiting this place, while the election campaign was in full swing. And it was John Howard, our Prime Minister, who wanted to see Jesus. We know he is not well endowed with height — that’s a fact! And so to see Jesus he runs with the kids and climbs the tree to see Jesus. As Jesus walks amongst us he breaks through the rank and file to the tree and sees little Johnny Howard perched up in the branches in his designer suit. “It’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?” What do you think of that situation?
I think all of us, regardless of who we support politically, wouldn’t approve of a person like this doing something like running and climbing a tree! Why? Well, because if you were a supporter of the Prime Minister, you would expect him to act a little more decently than that so he wouldn’t disgrace or hurt, himself, the country, the party, or us! And if you didn’t support him, you would probably envy his elevated position. Perhaps one might think: What’s that short little so and so think he’s doing, getting the advantage like that, I ought to go over there and knock that polly off his perch!
And then imagine if Jesus says to the Prime Minister, sitting up there in the tree, “I want to remain with you as your guest for the evening. Come down from that tree, it’s necessary that I go to your house!”
I’m sure all of us would grumble in some way about these events, saying or thinking: “It’s bad enough he takes our taxes, now he’s taking our Jesus too! Does he have a right to do this? If Jesus knew what he was really like, not saying sorry, and refusing to do more for the environment, and all the lies, he mightn’t be so eager to go to his house!”
When Zacchaeus came out of the tree, invited by Jesus to do so, and then went to Zacchaeus’ house, we hear, All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’” (Luke 19:7)
This is why we can be sure that all of us would grumble for some reason if John Howard was called down by Jesus. Our nature is to mutter, to grumble, to cut down the tall poppy even if they need a tree to be tall. Humanity hasn’t changed at all from now to then and from Jesus day right back to the days when the Israelites grumbled against God and Moses in the Sinai wilderness. It is our pride that causes us to grumble! We all love to play the game of one-up-men’s-ship, keeping ourselves a head above the rest.
However, our sin is the same as the Prime Minister’s and as the same as Zacchaeus’ sin! The sin is not that these people are politicians or tax collectors, but that we all put our trust in the things the world holds up as important and profitable.
In fact, politicians and tax collectors, and all public servants, are elevated by the populace and once there they reflect the imperfections of the populace. Their sometimes unsavoury representation is, in fact, a reflection of those who are usually doing the grumbling. Perhaps it is us who live in glass houses, and we all know what throwing stones in fragile places like this does!
All people, short and tall, old and young, the powerful and the powerless, need the same grace! We are no different! Zacchaeus, politicians, prostitutes, the proud (that’s you and me) are God’s children, created in his image. And no matter how powerful we might think we are, we all need a leg up! We can’t see Jesus by ourselves, there’s nothing in human ability that allows us to climb up to God! We are all sinners, arrogant and proud, full of worry and doubt! It is us who need salvation; God needs to come down to us!
Zacchaeus has to climb a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus! Having heard of Jesus’ approach, here’s a man of great power and wealth having to do something so deplorable to see Jesus, and once up the tree he’s seen by all for who he was: a sinner, a tax collector, the chief of tax collectors, a real scoundrel!
We do well in remembering Zacchaeus, that no matter how powerful or prestigious we might seem in worldly terms, it’s the tree of the cross that lifted Christ up in sacrifice for us, which lifts us up in baptism so that we see Jesus. In remembering Zacchaeus up the tree, and Jesus seeing him and declaring that it be necessary that he go to his house, we do well in remembering the necessity of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and the promise that because of his death salvation abides in you!
We need to continually be remembered and returned to the cross, and hear the word of salvation, and cling to Christ like a child who has climbed a tree and clings onto it. It’s there we are received, remembered, and forgiven because of what Jesus has done and continues to do for us.
We need to never forget that Christ and salvation had come to us there in the weakness of our baptism into his death and resurrection. And not only that, but we also need to trust, that he promises to remain, to abide, to hold us up, and to catch us also when we fall, because of our baptism into his death, his cross, and his resurrection!
Just as Jesus came to Zacchaeus and brought salvation to him and his household, we need Jesus, to continually come into us, placing the assurance of salvation and his peace in us. This mysteriously happens when we hear his word of salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit alone!
So in these times as we grumble against the short fallings of our politicians and public figures, the failings of the fringe members who might only ever turn up at church to hold up their child in baptism, and the faults of our fellow believers, we do well to remember that because of our baptism, Jesus sees us sinners as saved because of the cross — the tree of life.
It might seem inappropriate that Jesus runs to the Zacchaeuses of this world, but he ran to the cross and was unjustly lifted up and nailed to it for them and for us! We need his forgiveness and so do they! It is not inappropriate or out of place for him to do this; in fact, it is necessary!
And because of what he does, and why he had to do it, we can only truly see him in his glory, and see ourselves for who and what we truly are: Sinners joyfully sitting in the branches of the tree of life, with salvation sitting in us! Amen.
