“Zacchaeus Was a Great Big Loser…” Luke 19:1-10

Apologies first off. Without my Tuesday morning Bible Study I just looked up the Gospel reading for Pentecost 23 which is the whole Zacchaeus thing and worked on that all week. It was only Friday morning that I looked at the bulletin and realized you expect something about All Saints. Too late then to change. But not to worry! Figuring out the deal with Zacchaeus actually helps us figure out exactly how it is that Christ makes us all saints… which is all good.

If you want to have a good rep, one of the surest ways to achieve that is to get them to write a cute little children’s song about you and have the kids sing it to death. If it has a melody that sort of bores into your head and cute lyrics that focus on some endearing little thing about you, then man, you’re in. A certified good guy no matter what else is wrong with you.

So it is with Zacchaeus. We all know the song. I’m not going to even try to sing it for you either. Forget it. I may do the occasional voice impression, but you won’t catch me singing solos in public. Not any time soon, God willing. But you know the song: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man/ and a wee little man was he/ he climbed up in a sycamore tree/ for the Lord he wanted to see…”

As far as it goes, hardly great poetry. I find the repetition in the first lines pretty unimaginative, and the rhyme scheme more than a little contrived. But it’s got a good beat. And it goes to show the song they write about you doesn’t have to be a great song for you to be fondly remembered. It just has to be cute, kid-friendly, and repeated endlessly. And you’re good to go.

So we remember Zacchaeus as a basically good guy, because of his song. Life hasn’t dealt him a great hand, but he plays it well. If he can’t see over the heads of all the more vertically favored, well… he’ll just use some ingenuity and scramble up a tree. He’s not the tallest guy in the world, but he’s agile. And not afraid to look a little silly up in the tree. A very endearing figure for kids especially, who can relate to the frustrations of not being able to see over taller people’s heads. Excellent song material.

But it blinds us (as poetry good or bad so often does) to the real deal. If I was writing the song, I wouldn’t start out with “Zacchaeus was a wee little man.” Nope, I wouldn’t go there. Because that’s not the real truth about Zacchaeus.

Here’s the real truth: “Zacchaeus was a great big loser—a real disgrace, a total jerk.” That’s the truth; and that would be the first line if I was writing his song—despite the meter and rhyme challenges it would create for me.

Because it’s the truth. Actually “traitor” is the precise term. See, Luke tells us Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and rich. No clearer way to tell 1^st century folks that Zacchaeus was a traitor to his people. Because in those days, Rome was an occupying enemy of Israel. They had subjugated and taxed the beejeebers out the Jews for nearly a century.

True Israelite patriots in those days resisted the Romans. Only traitors—serious losers—collaborated with the Romans. They served in their government, informed on their neighbors, and were about as low as you could go in terms of character, patriotism, and stature. Zacchaeus was one of the collaborators. Dirty word. Dirtier deed. The Romans were too smart to go out and collect the tax money themselves. That made them look bad. So they hired local talent like Zacchaeus to collect Roman tax money from their fellow Jews. So they would hate them more than the Romans. And it worked.

Yes, it worked for Zacchaeus. He’d made a pile of money out of collaborating—which had made him a capital “L” loser, a real disgrace…

He had to climb the tree because no one would move out of the way for a loser like Zacchaeus. They pretended he wasn’t even there. But Zacchaeus was used to that. He’d gotten good at climbing trees (literally and metaphorically).

But, as someone who was at the bottom of the moral and social scale, Zacchaeus was looking to move up. Money can’t buy happiness. Zacchaeus had discovered that. He was sick of all that money, truth be told. It couldn’t even buy you friends. After the big houses, zooty country clubs, and slick cars had gotten old, Zacchaeus was looking to increase his stature. He wanted to be someone of character. Someone of worth. Someone who counted with the people who really mattered.

But it would take a miracle to get there. And that’s when he heard about Jesus. This Guy could do miracles! He’d made the blind see. The lame walk. The deaf hear. He’d even raised the dead. Maybe, just maybe, he could make a loser like Zacchaeus into a decent human being. It would be His best miracle yet.

Zacchaeus is up in the tree just to scout it all out. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He has no plan at all. What’s he going to say? “Hey, Jesus! I’m a capital “L” loser! Could You make me a real boy?” I mean really—how do you approach this? So when Jesus sees him first (like He’s searching just for him or something), takes notice of him, makes the first move, and tells him to come down out of that tree, because He has to come stay at his house, that he’s been looking for Zacchaeus all his life, well… he doesn’t know what to say. From zero to hero just like that. If the Lord of All cares so much about you, is just dying to hang out with you, well then, I’d say you’ve arrived. And for the first time in his life, Zacchaeus stood tall among his fellow Jews. Felt great.

See, this is the deal with all the saints: Jesus doesn’t find good people and reward them. Nope. Jesus goes seeking the lost sheep, the big losers like Zacchaeus (and you and me—I’ll leave it to you to list your own failures and betrayals here of friends and family) and calls us to hang with Him. Because Jesus doesn’t see us for who we are. He sees us for what we could be. As Luther says: “The love of God does not first discover but creates what is pleasing to Him”.

By calling us to hang with Him, by coming to our house and making Himself at home like we’re His best friends, the love of Jesus makes something new of us. “Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.” If the King of Kings wants nothing else but to have you as His best friend, then how can that not make you someone? Just so, the love of Jesus makes us stand tall as His saints, His friends.

So Zacchaeus sheds that ill gotten loot. He’s found something, Someone better—whose company makes him rich in love, in character, in all the things he’d never had before. And that’s what Jesus is all about—seeking and saving the lost by making His home with us.

By His Gospel Word, the miracle happens to you. All your sins are wiped out in an instant by Jesus’ Word, so you stand tall among God’s saints. When the King of the Universe says “Come down from that tree! I’ve been looking for you… I must stay at your house—today and always!” Well, you come out of the tree. And you step into a whole new world, where the love of Christ upholds you, and the Peace that passes all understanding guards your heart and mind—with all the saints—in Christ Jesus. Amen.