Zacchaeus, a Voyeur for Salvation

24  Pentecost, Cp26, November 3, 2013

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 Psalm 119:137-144

2 Thessalonians 1:1-5 (6-10) 11-12 Luke 19:1-10

  

Lectionary Link

 Perhaps you remember the Romantic Comedy movie from 1997 entitled,  As Good As It Gets?  In this film a reclusive, omni-phobic, misanthropic, obsessive compulsive writer, Melvin is falling in love with a waitress, Carol who is the only person who put in an effort to tolerate him.  Melvin, played by Jack Nicholson, is so pessimistic that he cannot say anything positive about anyone or anything.  With almost Tourette-like compulsion he says offensive things.  He is falling in love with Carol and he does something wonderful to help her son who has health problems; but even Carol can only take so much of his negativism.  She is at her wits end with him and she challenges Melvin to say something nice about her.

  And what is the nice and winning thing that Melvin finally says about Carol?  “You make me want to be a better man.”   And the word better means several things for Melvin.  Carol made Melvin be better by seeking some help for his panic condition; but she also made him better to understand the give and take of winsomeness that one has to practice to be successful in relationship and community.

  You make me want to be a better person.  This might sum up the dynamic of the encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus of Nazareth.  Zacchaeus was more than tolerated by Jesus; he was invited by Jesus to a relationship and the end result was that Zaccheaus was inspired and motivated to become a much better person.  Jesus said about Zacchaeus:   “Today salvation has come to his house.”

   The quest for salvation might be seen to be a selfish quest in that salvation means that we become better people.  But this is the benefit of salvation; we become better people and the community becomes better for it as well.

  I was always partial to Zacchaeus.  He was stereotyped forever as being the short guy who had to climb the tree to see Jesus.  As a height challenged basketball player, I think Zacchaeus should be the patron saint of short persons; why not we have a saint for everything else?  Some traditions tells us that Zacchaeus was surnamed Matthias and became the twelfth disciple who replaced Judas Iscariot.   

  On All Saints Sunday, we trace the notion of saintliness to Jesus Christ.  Jesus was one who made Zacchaeus and others want to be better persons.  Zacchaeus became a better person first by amending his life.  He had cheated people out of money in his profession as a tax collector and after meeting Jesus he said, “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."

  What could be the literary function of this story about Zacchaeus in the literature of the early Christian community?

  It is a classical salvation story.  A very dubious person who was caught between the Jewish community and the Roman government was able to find a new status in his life.

  When people are desperate enough they become salvation voyeurs.   They start to become peeping toms for a better way of living.  “I will sneak a peek at Jesus just to see what he is all about.”   There is another incident in the Gospel of a voyeur for salvation.  You remember the woman with the issue of blood was in a crowd around Jesus and she thought, “If I just touch the hem of the garment of Jesus perhaps I will be healed.”  And she was healed and Jesus said, “Who touched me?”  And his disciples asked why would he say that with so many people around him.  And Jesus said that he felt power go out of him.

  Zacchaeus was too short to see over people and so he climbed into a tree to see Jesus.  His eyes made contact and with Jesus.  And in the crowd, Jesus was aware of the staring eyes from the seeking heart of Zacchaeus.  Jesus looked at him and said, “Hurry down for I must stay at your home today.”

  A subtext of this and other Gospel stories is that Jesus entered into fellowship with dubious characters.   Tax-collectors Jews who worked for the Romans in collecting taxes; they were called publicans and that made them automatic sinners in the eyes of the Jewish religious establishment.

  To whom did Jesus and salvations belong?  Jesus and salvation belonged to the people in need and who wanted him and the inclusive experience of salvation.  This is why we call the Gospel good news.  People catch a vision of what becoming better means.  They look for the people, the community and situation where they can become better.  Salvation is the experience of being affirmed and received into a community who support this quest of the heart to want life to be better.

  Today on All Saints Sunday, we acknowledge that saintliness comes from Jesus of Nazareth and it is still present with us in the risen Christ who is in our community.

  We as the community of the risen Christ need to be a community where saintliness means that we want to become better people and that by being together we help to make each other better people.  As we look at the role of the Christians in the community at large we need to ask this question, “Do people see Christians and want to be better people?”  There are many voyeurs for salvation in this world.  There are people looking on without us knowing it who are looking for a place of salvation.  There are people in quest to find people who would help make them be better people.

  This is our challenge as a parish community: To help each other be better people because we are together and as we do this we can become an inviting community for others to join us as they discover our parish community to be a place of salvation, a place where they can become better people.

  Let the salvation of Christ be known today in our parish community.  And let us live in such a way that we invite other people know that we are a community where they can become better people in every way.  Amen.