I don’t mean to offend anyone, I’m just reporting the research. But it appears that they have proven this scientifically. They asked ordinary people just to take a look at a series of people who walked into a room and then left again, saying nothing, all dressed pretty much the same, and just looking at the people who came in, these ordinary people were asked to estimate the annual income of the people they had just seen. And I guess you could have predicted this, the short people were estimated to earn on average $30,000 less per year than the people who were taller. And not only has this turned up in research that people estimate they earn less, but in reality it’s actually true, that among people who have the same education and training the shorter ones do get paid less. I’m sure this doesn’t apply in the priesthood, which of course explains why Fr. Tim enjoys such material success.
Short people are always good for a laugh, and God knows this. Today’s story of Zacchaeus, though, is more than comic relief here in the gospel, and in fact it has a much deeper twist to it than we usually like to hear. Zacchaeus is important because he’s short, but it’s not the only reason.
To start with, it seems that God does favor, seemingly always, always, the people who don’t look the part, the people from whom not much was expected. David the King, the runtiest and youngest brother, the barren woman told that she will give birth, the illiterate fisherman, the prophet with no experience and no job. We look at all of them and say, not possible. But if we know anything about God, we have to know this: that God always wants us to remember that the way we see isn’t the way God sees, and all the lines we like to draw and the people we like to picture when we think about who knows about faith, about who has the truth, about who is holy, about who might have a good point, are probably not the lines and not the faces that God sees at all. God has other lines, and faces we probably don’t know, and it’s hard to imagine anything that God has tried to drive home harder than that. Thus, God gave us short people.
But the real point isn’t that God chooses odd people just to be random. God isn’t saying, I think I’ll pick Zacchaeus, this unlikely-looking little guy and prove to people that I can do anything with him. That isn’t what saved him.
What brought Zacchaeus salvation is the life that he lived, the generosity with which he lived it. It turns out that the little man everyone assumed was not only short, but as corrupt as people with his job usually are, would do everything that his Law and his tradition required of him in this life. In fact, even more, and depending on the translation you read of this gospel, it even appears that he’s been doing it long before he took his place in the tree. He gives away half of what he earns, and if he determines that anything has come to him illegally, he does the maximum of what the Torah could ask, giving back four times the amount involved. No one would do that. He isn’t particularly humble about it, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s doing it. He’s not just a curious onlooker, singled out randomly by Jesus for salvation. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would do it, but his salvation was already assured.
Here’s the point. This story of Zacchaeus takes place immediately after the famous story of the rich young man, where that man, probably a tall and well-dressed one, we just know it, asks Jesus what he has to do to gain eternal life. He already fulfills all the commandments, all the laws, he says, what else does he need to do? Jesus tells the rich young man to sell everything, and he walks away. Then who can be saved? the disciples ask. Then, right away, we find out: Zacchaeus can be saved, another rich man, who only gives away half of what he earns, not everything, but does Jesus say to Zacchaeus, half’s OK, but now sell the rest? It doesn’t seem to really matter — half, everything, the percentage isn’t the point. What matters is that Zacchaeus knows that living his responsibility is the point, and his responsibility as a faithful Jew is to put what he has at the service of other people, to find people that the world forgets about and exploits and lift them up, to take people who deserved better and make it up to them.
Zacchaeus is more than a comic figure. For most of us here in a prosperous, busy parish, he could be the closest thing we’ll find in any gospel to a real role model. We should have his picture up everywhere, make him our favorite saint, played by Danny DeVito in the film version. He doesn’t drop everything and become a wandering disciple, he doesn’t leave where he is, he doesn’t impoverish himself. Instead, he does something much more directly threatening, because it is something a lot of us could actually do. He brings salvation to his house through sheer generosity. Not building monuments to himself or lavish official public gifts, in fact, not getting any public credit for it at all, not caring what people think about him, but simply giving to people who need it, and giving them much, much more than seems reasonable.
It’s a mistake if we start to think that anyone, even Zacchaeus, earns their salvation. We can’t earn it, and we certainly can’t buy it. God gives it to us, and to all sorts of people, for reasons that we will never understand, and that’s a good thing; we need a God who is willing to embrace all kinds of people who don’t measure up. But if we can’t earn salvation, we still have to follow Jesus. How do you do it? It doesn’t matter what you look like, it seems, only what you’re willing to give away.