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Grasping the Thistle Jesus and Zacchaeus 191He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ 6So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ 8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘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.’ 9Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’ In Revelation 3:16 the glorified Christ says to the Church of Laodicea, “So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” This sounds rather harsh but I think it’s more about the need to grasp the thistle than it is about punishment (which in scripture is frequently due to our reaping the reasonable consequences of our bad choices, than it is about God’s wrath.) What does “grasping the thistle” mean? It’s about being definite. God doesn’t like vacillation. I think that’s why Jesus was so fond of Peter. He was committed – mostly in the right direction but sometimes in the wrong direction too. Whatever he was doing, he took a definite stand, whether it was slicing off someone’s ear with a sword or proclaiming with sudden insight, “You are the Christ!” One couldn’t accuse Peter of sitting on the fence. God likes us to make definite choices and to stick with them. No hesitating. An illustration of this hesitance is delightfully reflected in the Flanders and Swann song about a marriage between the Honeysuckle and the Bindweed. There’s some indication of problems to come when the parents of the unlikely couple hear of the intended marriage … To the Honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock. 'The Bindweeds', they cried, 'are inferior stock, They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft; We twine to the right-and they twine to the left!' The Honeysuckle spirals clockwise while the Bindweed spirals anti-clockwise and the song speculates as to how the offspring of this misalliance are going to make any progress 'Poor little sucker, how will it learn When it is climbing, which way to turn? Right-left-what a disgrace! Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face! I think we get the picture. If you’re not clearly committed you’re likely to make little progress. Speaking of progress, this week I climbed a tree. Not for fun, though it turned out to be fun, but to harvest grapefruit for Orange Day which we’re indulging in today. I should at the time have thought of Zacchaeus but to be honest I was simply enjoying the sun and the excercise. Which brings us to our Gospel reading, where we see in Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, the meeting of two men who were definite as regards what they were about. One was bringing salvation to the world, the other lining his pockets at the expense of others. They were both clear about what they did, both committed and both successful. In the story we read that Jesus is passing through Jericho but something happens to detain him. He meets this tax collector whose business was extorting exorbitant taxes from the people. That’s how tax collectors in Roman occupied Judea made themselves wealthy. The thing about business people is they have an objective and they take definite steps to achieve it. Zacchaeus is curious about Jesus and he wants to get a good look. I say curious because had he realised his actual need of God, he’d have determinedly burrowed through that crowd and gone right up to Jesus. I don’t think extortionists are shy people. The woman with a bleeding condition managed to get to Jesus in the crowd and grab hold of his clothing. The blind men yelled repeatedly at the top of their voices, “Son of David, have mercy upon us!” (Matthew 9: 27) until Jesus took notice of them. But Zacchaeus’s objective is more limited. He wants to check Jesus out from a safe distance, so he climbs up into a sycamore tree because he’s a little man and can’t see over the crowd. That way he’ll get a look at the person everyone has been talking about: this Jesus of Nazareth. There’s something incongruous about looking down on God, but it’s what happens when a life of moral compromise has us living what Paul calls “according to the old nature” (Rom 8: 13 Complete Jewish Bible); in our own strength. Like Zacchaeus up the sycamore tree, when we’re a little short on God we tend to elevate our selves. Zacchaeus makes an effort to see Jesus, and Jesus takes that effort seriously, more seriously, I think, than Zacchaeus expected. Jesus notices him and has him climb down from his pedestal. In fact Jesus tells him to hurry down and he invites himself into Zacchaeus’s home (somewhat assertively) with the words, “for I must stay at your house today”. It’s at this point that Zacchaeus faces a choice. Whenever God’s ways confront the old nature we are faced with a choice: either we submit to God’s overtures, or we go our own way. Zacchaeus could have refused Jesus entry into his home. He could, had he wanted to, have maintained his lifestyle (uninterrupted by the ways of God) and followed Jesus’ progress from town to town so that on any Sabbath day he could trot along for another look. Just a look, mind you, nothing too committed. He could have allowed his essentially ungodlike motivations to flourish as much as ever, all the while keeping an eye on the Messiah. Zacchaeus would have, after a while, had an opinion on the Messiah. He would comment with the best of them on Jesus, what he did and didn’t do – what he should and shouldn’t do. What his disciples should do and shouldn’t do. As time went by it may even have become somewhat respectable to be someone who could hold a conversation about Jesus of Nazareth - crucially without allowing Jesus in any significant way to influence the basic motivational force of one’s life. Who knows? In time Zacchaeus may have become a major donor towards the Christian cause. He may have featured large in the first century equivalent of the brass plaque that listed the names of those who had made it possible for the first major missionary group to be sent out from Jericho in that sudden missionary endeavour which followed the martyrdom of Stephen. But that’s not what happened at all. As Zacchaeus looks down into the eyes of Jesus he sees someone who accepts him just as he is. He sees in those eyes a definite love that he has never seen before. Jesus of Nazareth is calling him by name, calling him down from his precarious perch in the branches and is doing him the honour of coming to his home as his guest. Nobody in Jericho would ever have stooped that low. He can hardly believe it. We read that Zacchaeus “hurried down and was happy to welcome” Jesus. In that split second he took a definite step. You see, God may not like luke-warmness, but he does like flexibility. God loves us to change our minds, towards embracing his ways. Is it you up in the sycamore tree? Is it you looking longingly, expectantly down the road, hoping beyond hope that what you’ve heard is true? That what you’ve heard about Jesus is true? That in spite of whatever it is in your life that sets you apart, makes you unacceptable to your family and friends - at least in your own mind - that you can find a place to belong, someone to accept you. Are you hoping to find that Jesus will hang out with you, that your life can be different from your past? Are you looking to see Jesus, as Zacchaeus was? Are you hoping that what you’ve heard about Jesus is true? Are you wondering what would happen in your life if Jesus went home with you? Are you prepared, like Zacchaeus to be definite in your welcome of the Christ? Because if you are, or even if all you are is slightly curious, Jesus will take you seriously. He will say to you somewhat assertively, “I must stay at your house today”. He will make himself at home if you let him in, and your life will be transformed like that of Zacchaeus – as long as you are definite about your intention. This is good news. Don’t we love good news? And isn’t this a cheerful story? A social reject gets embraced by the Son of God and is reintegrated into society. You see Zacchaeus goes the whole hog. He offers to pay back those he has robbed. No sitting on the fence for him. Zacchaeus grasps the thistle. Brilliant! When Zacchaeus, overwhelmed by Jesus’ acceptance of him, stands up and promises restitution to those he has defrauded, we read “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.” Jesus responds with inclusive love. Right there in the home of an utterly despised man and before all his despisers, Jesus immediately includes him as a son of Abraham. And the manner in which he does so is embracing too: “he too, is a son of Abraham”. He too. Get this straight, he is one of us, and don’t despise him any longer. He is one of the family. There are times when I sit in church and think, “What lovely people these are!” And yet we’re all in need of changing. There are certainly areas in my life which need transformation and I’m sure there are areas in your lives too. I’m constantly amazed at Jesus’ love for us. But hear this: Jesus loves us too much to leave us as we are. My prayer is that none of us would sit on the fence of life; that we would take definite hold of the Son of God and his ways. Sometimes God appears a little prickly. The divine can be disguised as the difficult. When we meet God there are inevitably going to be a few perches we’re going to have to abandon. And certainly he’s going to assertively invite himself in. It’s his rightful place. But O that we’d understand the joy, the peace, the sense of fulfilment, the healing, the sense of belonging and significance that goes with grasping the thistle that is God, of embracing transformation; and the primary means of doing so are · constant prayer, · intentional time meditating in God’s Word and · regular communal worship. You don’t need to climb up a tree to experience God’s love. But you do need to open yourself to God on a definite, ongoing and regular basis if you are to enjoy the full benefits of being a Christian. God bless you as you do so. AMEN. |
