Sermon: The Man in the Tree (2025)

Delivered at Few's Chapel United Methodist Church in Greer, South Carolina on November 2, 2025

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The Man in the Tree

Audio Version

[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it.  A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.  When 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.”  So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.  All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”  Zacchaeus 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.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Luke 19:1-10 (NRSV)

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Break our hearts for what breaks Yours

From “Jesus, Friend of Sinners” by Casting Crowns

Jericho was, at one time, a cursed city.  When the Israelites entered the Promised Land after their long journey through the wilderness, Jericho was the first city they attacked.  Led by Joshua, the Israelite soldiers circled the fortified city once per day for six days.  On the seventh day, they circled the city seven times; the priests blew their horns; the soldiers shouted; and miraculously “the walls came tumblin' down.”¹  The Israelite soldiers then invaded the city and slaughtered all of the people and livestock, sparing only the family of the woman who harbored Joshua's reconnaissance team.  They took no spoils but instead burned the entire city to the ground.  Joshua then declared that anyone who dared to rebuild the city of Jericho would be cursed by God.  At the cost of his oldest child, he would lay the foundations, and, at the cost of his youngest child, he would build the city gates.²

Centuries later, a very wicked king named Ahab came to power, and, along with his wife Jezebel, he turned the people of Israel against their God.  At that time, a man named Hiel oversaw the reconstruction of Jericho, perhaps as an act of rebellion against Israel's God and heritage.  Just as Joshua had prophesied, Hiel lost his oldest son when the foundations were laid and later lost his youngest son when the gates were built.³  After the city was established, the people of Jericho found themselves with a serious problem.  Contaminated water made people deathly ill, caused miscarriages, and rendered the soil unfit for growing crops.  Perhaps, rattling around in the people's minds was Joshua's curse.⁴  When the people turned to the prophet Elisha for help, he dumped a bowl of salt into the city's spring and pronounced the water clean.  Miraculously, the water no longer made people sick or caused the land to be unfruitful.⁵

By Jesus' day, Jericho has become prosperous.  Dates and balsam trees from the city are exported throughout the Roman Empire, generating a lot of revenue, and the location of the city within the Jordan Valley makes it a gateway to Jerusalem and to the lands east of the Jordan River.⁶  This city also happens to be one of Jesus' last stops on His way to Jerusalem.⁷

In the once-cursed city of Jericho, there lives a man named Zacchaeus, whom most of the residents probably regard as a curse.  An old children's song tells us that “Zacchaeus was a wee little man... and a wee little man was he.”  This “wee little man” might have a below-average height, but he has an above-average bank account.  He has amassed a great deal of wealth, presumably by working as a tax collector, and a prosperous city like Jericho is a great place to work as a tax collector.⁸  In the days of the Roman Empire, tax collectors bid on a district, and the one who can promise the most money to the Empire will be assigned to the district.  Any money he collects in excess of the amount he has promised the Empire is his to keep.  This system, which obviously lends itself to abuse, allows tax collectors to line their pockets quite nicely.  Some speculate that this broken system has been retired by the time of Jesus, but it has still shaped people's opinions of tax collectors like Zacchaeus.⁹

The Jewish people resent their Roman oppressors, and, because Zacchaeus is an employee of the Roman Empire who has presumably profited greatly from the Roman occupation, he is naturally regarded as a traitor by his fellow Jews.  Zacchaeus is not just any tax collector but rather the chief tax collector of his region, meaning that, if he profits from his own collections, he surely also receives a cut of the profits of all the tax collectors who report to him.¹⁰  As chief tax collector, he is, in the eyes of the people, chief scumbag.  In the eloquent words of scholar N.T. Wright,

One can only imagine the reaction of neighbours, and even of friends and relatives, as Zacchaeus's house became more lavishly decorated, as more slaves ran about at his bidding, as his clothes became finer and his food richer.  Everyone knew that this was their money and that he had no right to it; everyone knew that there was nothing they could do about it. ¹¹

Zacchaeus has undoubtedly become the most hated man in Jericho.

As the town pariah, Zacchaeus longs for something that all the money in the world cannot buy.  It is this longing that draws the chief tax collector to the traveling teacher, healer, and prophet known as Jesus of Nazareth.¹²  Perhaps he has heard something about Jesus' strange stories of lost sheep and wayward sons.¹³  Perhaps he has heard that Jesus routinely risks uncleanness to heal people whose medical problems have made them untouchable.¹⁴  Perhaps he has heard that Jesus has a heart for people with bad reputations, like the “sinful woman” who crashed a Pharisee's dinner party and made an awkward scene at the dinner table.¹⁵  Perhaps he has heard that Jesus shares meals with undesirables like tax collectors as if they are some of His best friends.¹⁶  Perhaps he has even heard rumors that Jesus has chosen a tax collector like him to be one of His closest pupils.¹⁷

Whatever Zacchaeus has heard about Jesus, when he learns that Jesus is passing through Jericho, he knows that he has to catch a glimpse of Him.  When he goes out to see Jesus, he cannot see because of the crowd.¹⁸  Naturally, he cannot see because he is, as some people say, “vertically challenged,” but it is also quite likely that the crowd does not want him to see Jesus.  All things considered, Zacchaeus demonstrates a great deal of bravery by going out among the crowd.  The size of the crowd would offer any angry resident of Jericho the opportunity to give him an anonymous shove, kick, or punch.¹⁹  Determined to see Jesus, Zacchaeus employs a skill he might not have used since the days of his childhood: he runs ahead of the crowd and climbs a tree.²⁰  He probably just wants to catch a glimpse of the mysterious Jesus of Nazareth and maybe even glean some words of wisdom as He passes by.  He surely has not anticipated what will happen next.  As soon as Jesus arrives at Zacchaeus's location, He stops at the tree, looks up at Zacchaeus, and says, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”  As Zacchaeus gleefully climbs down the tree to welcome Jesus into his home, the people in the crowd begin to murmur with disgust that Jesus would associate with such a clearly despicable person.²¹

Zacchaeus is profoundly affected by his encounter with Jesus.  According to the New Revised Standard Version, he announces, “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.”²²  According to the Jewish Law, anyone who confesses to fraud or theft is only required to repay the amount of the damages plus one fifth.  Fourfold restitution is reserved for deliberately destructive actions.²³  Zacchaeus seems to be confronting the destructive nature of his actions, taking ownership of all the ways he has wronged the residents of Jericho, and committing to set things right.

So what does Jesus say to Zacchaeus that affects him so profoundly?  All we really know Jesus says to him is, “Hey, Zacchaeus!  We need somewhere to stay tonight.  Mind if we crash at your place?”

Jesus has a way of making the excluded feel included.

In the Gospel of John, we read that one day, while passing through a Samaritan town, Jesus sits down beside a well to rest while the Disciples go to the market to buy food.  When a woman comes to the well to draw some water, Jesus asks her for a drink.  Women normally draw water in the morning, but this woman has waited until noon so that she can avoid her peers, for a string of broken marriages in her past has given her a bad reputation.  It is remarkable that Jesus, a Jew, would even ask a Samaritan woman for a drink, since Jews and Samaritans generally hate each other, but Jesus is speaking with an outcast among outcasts.²⁴  Jesus takes the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her that leaves her a changed woman.  She forgets all about her shame and tells everyone in town about the man she has come to believe is their long-awaited messiah.²⁵

Never underestimate the power of a simple act of inclusion.  Simply sitting with someone, talking with someone, sharing a meal with someone, asking someone for help and gratefully accepting their help, or doing anything that says to someone, “I'm with you, and I'm for you,” has the potential to make an impact in a person's life.

During my first two years of college, I was, for the most part, a loner and a hermit, mostly because I was a commuter.  Though I occasionally hung out with some of my high school friends who also attended the same university, I typically drove to campus every day, attended my classes, and then went home.

At the beginning of my Junior year, I learned about the Wesley Fellowship, the Untied Methodist group on campus.  The young men and women in this group knew how to make a person feel welcomed, included, and loved.  During the fall, I joined the group for a retreat at Lake Junaluska, and, during the retreat, we had a healing service.  When my turn came to sit in the middle of the circle, everyone placed their hands on me, and I felt the love of everyone in the room.  On one Friday evening, I went to the campus chapel to attend a lecture.  I saw some of my friends from the group sitting together on one of the pews, but, because the pew was full, I took a seat on the pew behind them where I would still be able to talk with them.  Three of my friends – Kim, Ginger, and John – stood up and moved back to sit with me.  I doubt they even remember doing this, but this small act of inclusion meant a lot to me.  Another friend turned around and said, “We could have squeezed you in.”

Being involved with the Wesley Fellowship changed my life.  For years, I had known that I needed to be a Christian, but this group made realize that I actually wanted to be a Christian.  I began to see church less as an event I attended every Sunday morning and more as a community built on love.  I think that maybe the inclusive nature of the group is part of what gave me a desire to make sure that the people around me feel included.  Is there any wonder why I would remain involved with the group for a few years after I graduated?

Theologian Paul Tillich describes God's grace as that which reaches out to us in our darkest moments, when we are at our lowest, and says, “You are accepted.  You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know...  Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”  According to Tillich, in the moment we are “struck by grace,” nothing might seem different, yet somehow everything is changed.²⁶  To receive God's grace is to accept that we are accepted by God, and to extend that grace to other people is to accept them just as they are.

Does it sound offensive to you that someone as criminally unacceptable as Zacchaeus should be accepted just as he is?  If you find such an idea repugnant, you would be in good company among the crowd in Jericho that day.  Grace can be offensive to us when we become a little too sure of our own presumed goodness or a little too fixated on someone else’s supposed badness.

What if the people of Jericho are dead wrong about Zacchaeus, and what if we have been misreading the story of his encounter with Jesus?

Ancient languages like biblical Hebrew and Greek have ambiguities that require translators to make judgments regarding how to best translate a piece of ancient writing.  For example, there is a particular Greek word used throughout the New Testament that may be translated into English as either faith or faithfulness.  Reading a passage of the Bible from two different translations can show us how different translators have made different judgments.²⁷  Because so few of us can read the Bible in its original languages, most of us are dependent on the work of translators.  The judgments translators have to make directly affect how we read the Bible and how we interpret what we read.  There is one such ambiguity in the story of Zacchaeus’s encounter with Jesus.

According to the Common English Bible, when the people of Jericho begin expressing their outrage that Jesus “has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”  Zacchaeus announces, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor.  And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”²⁸  Maybe Zacchaeus is telling Jesus what he has decided to do, or maybe he is telling Jesus what he already does.  Maybe Zacchaeus is turning over a new leaf.  Maybe he is leaving behind a life of greed and extortion and starting a new life of honesty and generosity.  Maybe Zacchaeus is already honest and generous.  Maybe he already makes it a habit to give to people who are in need, and maybe he already goes above and beyond what is necessary to make restitution to anyone he has accidentally overcharged.  Since names and their meanings are very important in the Bible, it is worth noting that the name Zacchaeus means “innocent” or “pure.”²⁹

One thing that is not at all ambiguous about the story of is the character of Jesus.  He sees Zacchaeus in the tree, knows who he is, and cares about him, regardless of what he may or may not have done.  Jesus says, regarding Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”³⁰  Maybe Zacchaeus is lost because he has strayed from his faith, or maybe he is lost because he has been forsaken by his community.  Maybe he needs to be saved from his own worst impulses, or maybe he needs to be saved from other people's mistreatment of him.  Maybe Jesus’ acceptance saves him because it inspires him to become a better person, or maybe it saves him because it gives the people of Jericho the opportunity to see that they are wrong about him.  In either case, Zacchaeus’s life is forever changed by the grace Jesus shows.

It is not our job to change people, for that job belongs to God, and to God alone.  Our job is to follow Christ’s example by loving our neighbors and even our enemies as Christ loves us.  Loving other people and accepting them as they are has the power to change them, because it gives them a safe space to take a good hard look at their lives and reevaluate their choices, and it inspires them to become more loving as well.  Loving and accepting other people has the power to change us as well, because it enables us to see them in a different light.

We cannot change people, and, if we attempt to change people, we will only do more harm than good.  We can only love people and accept them just as they are.  Ironically, knowing that we're loved and accepted just as we are can change us in profound ways, and loving other people and accepting them just as they are can change our perceptions of them.  We, who have received the love and grace of God, must extend this love and grace to others.  When we love other people as Christ loves us, allowing God to work through us, there is no telling what kind of miracles God might work in their hearts or in ours.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.


Notes:

1. From an African-American spiritual
2. Joshua 6
3. 1 Kings 16:29-34
4. Rob Bell.  “Salt in the Water.”  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 05/02/2010.
5. 2 Kings 2:19-22
6. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke.  2001, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 276
7. Luke 19:1
8. Luke 19:2-3
9. Barclay, pp. 76-77
10. N.T. Wright.  Luke for Everyone.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 222
11. Wright, pp. 222-223
12. Barclay, p. 278
13. Luke 15
14. Luke 5:12-16; Luke 8:43-48; Luke 17:11-19
15. Luke 7:36-50
16. Luke 5:29-32
17. Luke 5:27-28
18. Luke 19:3
19. Barclay, p. 278
20. Luke 19:4
21. Luke 19:5-7 (NRSV)
22. Luke 19:8 (NRSV)
23. Barclay, p. 278  (See also Leviticus 6:2-5 and Exodus 22:1.)
24. Adam Hamilton.  The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus.  2012, Abingdon Press.  pp. 127-128
25. John 4:1-42
26. Paul Tillich.  The Shaking of the Foundations.  ch. 19
27. For example, see how Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16 are translated in both the Common English Bible and the New International Version.
28. Luke 19:7-8 (CEB) (emphasis added)
29. Blue Letter Bible: “zakchaios”
30. Luke 19:9-10 (NRSV)

Zacchaeus was painted by Niels Larsen Stevns in 1913.