Comments for Jim

Sunday, October 25, 1998
Rev. James A.Todhunter

"MEDITATION ON THE STORY OF ZACCHAEUS"
Luke 19:1-11

Your name is Zacchaeus. Jericho is your hometown. You are not happy and you and not quite sure why. There are some reasons that are clear, of course. You’ve got a dirty job and you take the heat for it. You are the tax man. You collect revenues for the Romans from your own people. They spit at you when you walk by and call you names. Everybody knows the whole system is corrupt from top to bottom. You take a cut of what you collect. Technically, it may be wrong, but that is just how it is. Nobody could do this kind of job and not expect to get something extra. So let them curse you. Who cares?

This is not to say that you like the Romans either. Who could? Their arrogance. Their sense of superiority. They are bleeding your country dry. But what can you do about that? You are a little guy - in more ways than one, in fact. A middle-man just trying to get by. You are content to leave the theatrics to John the Baptist and his crew. A while back some of those guys from the zealot party tried to recruit you, but you are certainly not a revolutionary. No way. You go along to get along. And if your Jewish brothers and sisters hate you, well, too bad for them. At least you have a good bed and bread on the table. A man has to take care of his family, by whatever means are at hand. Your kids are all right. Your wife doesn’t have to work. You are doing your best. Of course, your hands are dirty, but whose aren’t these days. None of us is perfect. Don’t those fools who mock you understand that? We all muddle through, trying to get by. That is the way it is and always has been. Always will be, too. You’ve got it figured out as well as the next guy.

But there is this thing. There is this funny feeling down in the pit of your stomach. It is hard to describe. There is nothing wrong, of course. What could be? You are doing your best. You are in control. You have it figured out. But what is this feeling? Sometimes it feels like a heaviness down there. Maybe it’s indigestion. Something you ate. Sometimes it’s like something gnawing away from the inside out. You are not much at putting your feelings into words. Heartburn, maybe? That’s a funny word. Heartburn, maybe that’s it. Something you ate.

You wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and can’t sleep. At first you thought it was your wife’s snoring. She says you snore. But you wake up for no apparent reason and your mind just gets to running away with itself. You want something to be different in your life and what really can be? You are locked in. This is your life. But that heaviness is always there now. Now you carry it with you when you are awake or asleep.

Today you wanted to sleep late for once. Your wife is up and out. The kids are with her father. Now what is this noise? A large group of people seems to be coming down your street. The women are making those high-pitched shrieks. That’s right; you remember now. Another one of those preachers was coming to town. Sort of like John, you heard, but somehow different. Who knows how to figure out all that religious stuff? Seems like it would be better for people to get together in what they believe than to argue about it. It doesn’t matter to you, because none of it makes any difference anyway.

Then something interesting happens. Something changes in you. That feeling in the pit of your stomach makes a little turn, a turn into something different. What it turns into is curiosity. Not longing or yearning or anything like that. Just curiosity, interest.

So you get up and throw some clothes on and go out into the street. More and more people are beginning to pass by your door, and you get the feeling that whoever this guy is, he is nearing now. But you can’t see a thing. Everyone is towering over you. You are used to this, of course. No big deal. But this curiosity is still there. The heaviness isn’t there so much, just this funny new feeling. You are curious that you are curious because you always knew that, like the Bible says, there is nothing new under the sun. Still, this new feeling.

So you run ahead of the crowd, down the street. And that is curious, too, because you haven’t run in years. Why run, you always say? Chill. Take it easy. Yet now you are running and your heart is pounding. You see a big sycamore tree, growing between two low mud-baked buildings. A limb grows right out over the road. Without a moment’s hesitation, you are up the tree trunk and out on the limb, over the road. You haven’t climbed a tree since you were a kid. Kid stuff. Foolishness. Yet here you are doing it. Now you seem eager with anticipation. You haven’t felt that way in a long, long, time. What is this feeling? What is it you want to see?

Now the crowd is below you. Just another mob, you say to yourself. Nothing unusual there. Where is the guy who is supposed to be so important? All of the sudden, one of them stops dead in his tracks. The people behind him are caught by surprise and bump into each other, one after another, like in that Roman comedy you saw years ago. It wasn’t particularly funny then, but now you laugh. What is happening to you? You haven’t laughed in years. After all, there is not much that is funny in the world today. But here this guy stops dead in his tracks, and these others are falling all over themselves. So you laugh out loud and your heart feels merrier than it has ever felt.

The man must have heard your laughter. So he looks up and laughs. He laughs back at you. Not at you really (you know that feeling), but he is laughing with you. Like what you have in common is how funny the whole situation is. A guy with his followers falling down and a man up in a tree laughing. The whole thing is so funny, a joke you share together. Then the man asks the guy next to him a question. Then he looks at you again and cries out "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." And without a moment’s hesitation, you are down from the tree and leading this man, whose name you don’t even know yet, back to your house. It is all so strange. You never do anything impulsively. This is all so uncalculating and spontaneous. Somehow you feel good inside. Playful. Trusting. You are having fun. Nothing seems heavy at all.

Well, to make a long story short, you quickly learn that the man’s name is Jesus of Nazareth. You really have no idea what his rap is, what he believes, and what he is after. You are pretty good at figuring out other people, but he just seems to be who he is. But the great thing is that he really enjoys being with you. He really does. He seems to know you, and know all about you. In fact, you heard some of his followers (the same guys who tripped over each other) complaining about you. They seemed to be angry with him that he would be interested in you. But that didn’t seem to faze Jesus a bit. You have a great meal. What strikes you is his laughter. It seems to come right from his belly. And then you notice that in your stomach, there is no longer any of this heaviness, this lump. Instead, there is laughter. A kind of merriment. A merry spirit, like the Bible says somewhere. And together with this merry spirit, you suddenly feel like you want to do something nice. Like to invite more people into the laughter. You want to give something away. You want to share this spirit somehow. You don’t know why, you just want to. And so you do. And you keep doing it. And you just keep doing it. The laughter has replaced the lump of heaviness. And even after Jesus has gone on his way the next morning, the feeling continues. And over time it continues. And as it does you think, maybe some things need to change in my life. Maybe some things can now be different.

Isn’t there a bit of Zacchaeus in each of us? Frankly, we’ve all got something wrong with us - too short, too tall, too medium. And none of us is doing it quite right, and we all have our excuses. We all have our reasons for what we do and why we live the way we live. We’ve convinced ourselves that the way it is is the way it has to be. We do that very well. But still this heaviness. Well, climb the tree. Let curiosity touch you. Raise your gaze. Look up from what you are sure you know, and have a look at something new. Do this, and you may find yourself welcoming a guest. Jesus may just pay a call on you this day. Amen.

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