It’s the campaign season, and that means there are some time-honored rituals that are being re-enacted every day. One of them is the supposedly informal campaign meal, where the candidate, accompanied by plenty of cameras, eats and chats at a diner, or the food tent at a state fair, or even an ordinary home. It’s meant to show that the candidate is a regular person, like us, even though sometimes all this backfires just a little, like the candidate a few years ago whose staff told him that in Philadelphia he had better be seen eating a cheesesteak, even though in the pictures it was clear he had never seen a cheesesteak before and wasn’t too excited about actually touching it. What’s important, however, is that the person is seen eating and talking with people no one particularly knows, and who aren’t going to cause any trouble or controversy. What’s also important is to bolt out of there as soon as possible.
Jesus, of course, was on a campaign, but he was not that kind of a campaigner. In the gospel of Luke he too is often eating with people, both publicly and in their homes, but his goals seem to be entirely different. Instead of cultivating popularity, he wants to cultivate relationships, and he doesn’t care so much about who he is seen with as long there is a chance there is someone there who is looking for him. Even, as in today’s gospel, a tax collector.
We all know that tax collectors, or publicans as we used to call them in our translations, were at best compromised figures. They worked for the Romans, the occupying power, and what’s worse, got wealthy from it. They were in charge not only of collecting taxes but snooping around constantly, keeping an eye on everyone’s business, making sure that no one was making money without the Romans knowing about it, and never leaving a dime on the table. It’s hard to think of who would be a person like this in our time, maybe a combination of a house forecloser, car repossessor, IRS auditor and Enron executive. Zacchaeus was entangled in every sort of imperfection and divided loyalty. As we say today, he didn’t have clean hands.
But here’s the point. This story of Zacchaeus takes place in Luke’s gospel immediately after the famous story of the rich young man, where that man, probably a tall and well-dressed one, not a short and unpopular one, 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 sad, frozen and stuck where he is. 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 responds with enthusiasm and curiosity, not keeping his distance in indecision and sadness and inaction.
How much gets given away doesn’t seem to matter so much. Instead, climbing the tree matters, getting up somewhere where you can see Jesus matters, the joy matters, the eagerness to be with Jesus and do something matters. That encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus, that immediate connection they seem to make between the man in the tree and the man on the ground that encounter is what Zacchaeus is looking for. It’s what we are looking for, too.
Zacchaeus is more than a comic figure, a short rich man making a fool of himself. For most of us here in a parish like this, he could be the closest thing we’ll find in any gospel to a real role model. We should have his picture up everywhere. He lives a complex life and is entangled with money and power in some ways that aren’t very attractive. And yet after he chases Jesus, he doesn’t drop everything and become a wandering disciple, he doesn’t leave where he is, he doesn’t completely 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 enthusiasm and generosity.
People probably laughed at him, everyone from the crowd in the gospel to his Roman bosses, who might have thought he went a little soft and maybe took him off the fast track. But he stopped caring about that, and just gave his money and himself to people who needed it, and gave 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 can’t buy it. But it does start, apparently, with finding a way to get up into a tree. The trees in that part of Israel apparently aren’t so tall, so for us it could start with a retreat, or a book on prayer, or being present with someone sick or angry who needs us, or finding out something about the immigrants who are so near to us, or beginning that process of getting rid of some of the commitments and possessions that weigh us down and keep us from climbing. When we respond to these nudges, we are like Zacchaeus, we become searchers who want to see, and despite all our imperfections, we will soon find someone just as eager to see us.