But Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Luke 19:1-10
The story of Zacchaeus is rather spectacular: offering kindness to a tax collector- ie, an oppressor of the people, disregarding local protocol of ceremonial cleanliness so that one lonely man feels particularly loved, a 360 degree change of lifestyle in response to Jesus’ extension of mercy. But with this last reading, one detail snagged my attention.
Zacchaeus is up in a tree. No respectable man in the Middle East would ever climb a tree…and if he did, he would certainly take GREAT effort to ensure that no one would see him. Clearly he was seen. Plan failed. I thought it was interesting that Jesus knew Zacchaeus’ name. But then I started imagining the town walking along the road…One person spots a shoe hanging down and starts laughing. He nudges the guy next to him and points out (probably using colourful language) that the number-one-town-enemy looks like a dinglebomb up in a tree. Soon everyone is jeering at Zacchaeus, calling out taunts, maybe hinting that he’s in a tree, easy enough to accidentally string him up. Jesus is an astute guy- it doesn’t take long to catch on to the murmuring and the scowls and the mean-spirited laughter.
So Jesus says, Hey, I’m going to your house for dinner. That’s it. He says something nice to Zacchaeus. He doesn’t explain the path to salvation using the Romans Road. He doesn’t delineate on the finer points of the Four Spiritual Laws. Jesus just says something kind and goes out of his way to make Zacchaeus feel special. Which is enough to move Zacchaeus to change, no- not even that, to move Zacchaeus to WANT to change. In those two minutes Zacchaeus doesn’t actually give every single person four times what he owes them- he just makes a statement about needing to live his life differently. And that WANT to change is what Jesus affirms. What Jesus affirms as salvation.
Which reminds me of that song lyric: It’s His kindness that leads to repentance. Which reminds me that it’s my kindness that acts as an extension of God’s kindness, which then leads to repentance. It’s me pointing out something good in a person, or being impulsively NICE (which, you know, is sometimes quite the stretch) that leads people to want to change their lives. It’s not me pointing out major flaws in their worldview schema that leads to change (which, you know, is sometimes exactly what I do).
