The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (19:1-10)

Our Lord Jesus Christ was traveling and ended up going through the ancient city of Jericho. Those who have read the Old Testament will remember that Joshua and the Israelites conquered the city of Jericho by following the guidance of God. Through their faithfulness, a great miracle took place as the walls of that city came down. Yet today we are witnesses to an even greater miracle as the walls of one man’s hardened heart came crashing down.

We do put walls around our heart. This happens both intentionally as well as unintentionally. We put up walls intentionally through choosing a life of rebellion, a life of sin, a life apart from God. We might not think of it this way but in fact sin is a wall that separates us from God. When we choose to live in sin, we are in fact building a fortress around our hearts and setting a guard to keep something or someone out. That someone is none other than the Lord Himself. But when we build this wall due to our life of sin, we keep out God and we keep out our loved ones, friends, everyone. We keep everyone at a distance.

The fathers of the Church often speak of sin as not simply a choice, it is also an illness, a condition into which humanity has fallen. So when we see that someone has fallen into sin, it is not good to judge or condemn the person. We can judge the actions or behaviors as wrong, but we must see the person as truly sick with the sickness that afflicts everyone, everywhere, at all times. It only afflicts them to differing degrees and with differing severity. This is why the Lord teaches us not to judge others, because we are immediately judged by that same judgement.

Zacchaeus the tax collector was also a man who had fallen into sin. We do not know exactly what his sins were but we can gather from the reading that since he was a tax collector, he had been greedy and perhaps he took more taxes than he should have since he held a position of great power within the Roman Empire. It was normal at that time for the tax collectors to collect extra from their subjects than was necessary. They did so because they had the power to do it and because it helped them become wealthy men. If they were going to be hated for being tax collectors, they might as well get wealthy doing so.

Zacchaeus’ heart was hardened, but the entrance of the Lord Jesus began to change everything in his life. The presence of Christ and the commotion of the crowd caused Zacchaeus to become curious. The founder of the company Apple, Steve Jobs once said “Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” For human beings curiosity can be directed to either what is good, true and beautiful, otherwise it may be directed to what is ugly, evil, false and destructive.

On this particular day in the great city of Jericho, Zacchaeus curiosity led him to explore the person of Jesus Christ for himself. And he did so with such a great and childlike effort that he was rewarded with something quite priceless. His house become the temple of God. His heart become a place of rest for the Lord Jesus Christ. His curiosity had opened up the slightest crack in his hardened defenses but this was enough for the grace of God to enter and begin the work of changing him completely. He had noticed the crowd, but he needed to see the Lord for himself. And he saw Him, and more importantly, was seen by Him.

Likewise, the Lord honors our intentions and desires. He blesses our good intentions and desires and multiplies them for us. He waits to see a little effort, and He overwhelms us with spiritual riches that we can’t comprehend. We make a bit of effort to pray, and the Lord begins to help us pray. We make a bit of effort to study and learn about Jesus Christ and He himself grants us true wisdom. We make an effort to obey the commandments and the teaching of the Lord, and we find grace assisting us to do so more perfectly and completely.

At the request of Jesus, Zacchaeus immediately welcomed the Lord into his home. He said to the Lord, “Lord this is no longer my home but your home and your kingdom.” Christ had conquered his heart completely. He led the man to heartfelt repentance. He led the man to a real change. These are the signs and indicators that a man has had a true experience of Jesus Christ. He is changed over time. He may not be perfect. He may still stumble and struggle, but he will slowly be growing into the man that God had always intended. This is a promise that is also given to each of us. So when the Lord calls on us to open our hearts to Him, let us do what Zacchaeus did and make haste to receive Him joyfully. For there is no greater joy than to have Christ dwelling in your heart and in your life.

On the opposite side of this we see that sometimes God calls us but we barely respond. We might be lazy or negligent. We might think that other things require our attention and our focus. We might think that we don’t need an active life with God. And because God is love, He will often give us the space to do what we desire, because this life is given to us as a gift of God’s love. Yet this makes the actions of Zacchaeus all the more impressive. He used his freedom to climb the tree and seek our Christ.

He used his freedom to welcome Christ into his home and to feed Him at his table. He used his freedom to repent, not a little bit, but fully and completely. He was prepared to give up everything in his life once Christ was with him. Because Christ became his only treasure and everything else became like rubbish to him. This is exactly the sentiment shared by St. Paul when he writes to the Phillipians saying,

“7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Php 3:7-14

May we also be like St. Paul and Zacchaeus and leave everything else behind and press on with courage and hope in the promises and the riches of fellowship with Jesus Christ our God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons