31st Sunday OT
I spent most of my early adult years teaching literature to college students. When it came to teaching them how to read poetry, esp. modern and contemporary poetry, I usually failed miserably. Eliot, Stevens, Lowell, and Levertov are acquired tastes, admittedly. But teaching short stories was always a hit. Plot, characters, action, dialogue. These the students understood and loved. A good story does a lot of work. And when read in full, so does the reader. But when the reader reads a story with a lesson already in mind, or reads the story in order to prove a point . . .well, then the story is no longer doing its work. This is why I told my students back in the day: details matter. Pay attention to the details not just the broad strokes of the narrative. Case in point, the Story of Zacchaeus. The broad stroke here is that Jesus invites himself to stay at the house of a wealthy tax collector, a traitorous sinner. The finger-wagging moralists in the crowd condemn Jesus for staying with a sinner. The moral of the story is: Jesus ate with a sinner, therefore, the sinner's sin is not really a sin and moralists are horrible people for noting that sin is sin. Not quite. Remember: details matter. And the missing detail here is that Zacchaeus repents and does penance.
Not only does Zacchaeus repent and do penance, he actively, eagerly seeks the Lord out, going so far as to climb a tree to see him. (More on that tree later. Details matter.). Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the tree. What causes the Lord to notice him? The story doesn't say. Zacchaeus doesn't shout or wave. Luke write, “When he reached the place, Jesus looked up. . .” Maybe Jesus felt Zacchaeus' eagerness to see him. Maybe he just spotted a grown man sitting in a tree and thought, “I need to meet that guy.” But notice – details matter – Jesus calls him by name. Jesus already knows who and what Zacchaeus is. And calls him down from the tree by name. Knowing himself that he's a sinner and knowing now that Jesus knows he's a sinner, we might expect Zacchaeus to reluctantly climb down and slink over to Jesus dejectedly. Instead, “[Zacchaeus] came down quickly and received [Jesus] with joy.” Why is Zacchaeus joyful? Does he think Jesus is going to affirm him in his sin, giving him a thumbs-up b/c he steals from his own people? Tell him to keep on stealing b/c stealing is a legitimate lifestyle choice? No. Zacchaeus is joyful b/c joy is an effect of love. And Christ is the embodiment of divine love.
This is the detail the finger-wagging moralists in the crowd misses. They are scandalized b/c they see a rabbi polluting himself by visiting with a sinner. What they don't yet get is that Jesus is no ordinary rabbi. He cannot be made unclean by associating with sinners. In fact, he makes the unclean clean again. All he needs is for the unclean to want to be clean. And Zacchaeus radiates the desire to be made clean again. His desire to be made clean is so intense that he pledges to donate half his wealth to the poor and repay any extorted taxes four-times over! How does Jesus respond to this act of contrition? Details matter! He says, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.” IOW, Z. has shown himself to be a true son of the Covenant through repentance and sacrifice. Jesus continues, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus seeks out the lost and saves those who want to be saved. If no one is lost, then no one needs to be found. Zacchaeus is lost in his sin; he seeks out the Lord; the Lord sees a sinner and calls him to himself. Zacchaeus repents and now he is saved.
Details matter. So, we need to talk about that tree. This is perhaps the only gospel story where a plant aids in the salvation of a sinner. Zacchaeus climbs the sycamore to escape the crushing crowd and watch Jesus pass by. But this is no ordinary tree. The sycamore is a species of fig. It has heart-shaped leaves; grows only in rich soil; and produces fruit year-round. The ancient Egyptians called it the “Tree of Life” and used its timber for royal coffins. It was a measure of wealth and prestige. Ancient readers of this gospel story would know all this, so they would smile and nod knowingly at the symbolism. Zacchaeus climbs the Tree of Life to seek out the Son of God. The sycamore points us to the tree in the Garden of Eden; the building of the ark; the wood of the Cross; and the timber to be used in the making our own coffins. Zacchaeus wants to live in Christ, to be redeemed in the Covenant, so he takes refuge in the Tree of Life, and is found there by his Savior. Details matter. First, he saw Jesus. Then Jesus saw him and called to him. Then came joy from love, repentance of sin, and recompense for sin. The details of characters, setting, etc. might change, but the plot of our salvation story never changes.
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