From the Pulpit:

 
                                                                   Just Imagine Danny DaVito playing Zacchaeus!

There was a movie that came out in 1988 called Twin and it starred Arnold Schwartzneggar and Danny DaVito as twin brothers separated at birth. They were born after some sort of medical experiment went very wrong, and Julius – Schwartzneggar -- was raised on a tropical island by a philosopher, given the best education and all the privilege money could buy, while Vincent – the mistake -- was shipped off to an orphanage,
which he escaped as early as he could to begin his life as a small time crook.

I imagine you know where I’m going. If there was ever an actor made for a role, I can’t imagine anybody but Danny DaVito playing Zacchaeus.
Even his scum-bag role as Vincent the bad twin fits just right. He simply is never going to get cast as the handsome hero, but, boy, can’t you see him shoving his way through that crowd, the same people he pushed around and manipulated day by day in his job as chief tax collector? Not just tax collector. Chief tax collector. The worst of the worst.  Think Bernie Madoff. There may be some who hang around him because he serves the best food and the most expensive wine in town, but I guarantee there’s nobody who respects him and there’s nobody who likes him even a little bit.
He’s the last person they’d expect to see anywhere near Jesus, and the last person they’re going to let shove his way in front of them today.

Zacchaeus doesn’t even really know why he’s there, either. He looks down his nose at the people in the crowd. They are poor and dirty – they smell bad, and he really doesn’t want to get too close to them – and they are stupid, too, taking off work to just to see this guy, who they think heals the sick and raises the dead. Let me tell you, Zacchaeus knows power, and he doesn’t even pity these ignorant peasants, but still something makes him climb up that sycamore tree. Imagine Donald Trump shimmying up the tree  in his thousand dollar Italian loafers. He’s hanging on for dear life when the parade comes into sight. It’s nothing but a bunch of other poor guys and even some bedraggled looking women, and they are kicking up dust  -- Zacchaeus is not impressed -- but the crowd is absolutely roaring.

Well, you just heard what happened. Certainly not what Zacchaeus had imagined  when he shimmied up that tree. When Jesus called him out and the whole crowd turned around to see him up there hanging onto the branches like a cat you’d have to call the fire department to rescue, suddenly he saw the contempt in people’s eyes, their sadistic delight that he’d been exposed in this ridiculous position. Do you think maybe that was the beginning of his transformation? Seeing himself reflected in their eyes? Do you think he felt the first glimmer of shame? And what about Jesus?  Jesus, who was saying something unbelievable: “I’m inviting myself to your house, Zacchaeus. Come down and show me the way and tell me what you’re going to cook for me.”

Those looks of contempt vanished. Zacchaeus was excited. But what did Jesus have up his sleeve? Suddenly Zacchaeus wondered if he was going to get a rashing. The walk to the house seemed to last forever as he thought about all his really expensive fancy stuff and all the ways he had finagled people’s money away from them, poor people’s money, the people who had given up their day’s wages just to be there to see Jesus, and here was Jesus going home with him. He’s thinking, This can’t be good. Is this when the transformation happened as he began to feel a little bit afraid of what was coming, or was it maybe just a tinge of genuine remorse?

Wouldn’t you just love to have seen the details? What did Jesus say? What did Zacchaeus whip up for lunch? All Luke tells us is that by the time they got home Zacchaeus was a new man. Jesus didn’t ask him to do anything. We don’t hear Jesus say the first word about repentance, but maybe Jesus doesn’t have to say anything, because by the time you’ve let Jesus in, this Jesus who invites himself into our lives when we least expect it, maybe by the time you’ve let him in you have already repented. By the time you are in his presence all of a sudden the only way you can see yourself is how you are reflected in his eyes, and something happens there. You are transformed into someone who looks a whole more like Jesus.

Suddenly you are extravagant. I’ll give to the poor half of all I have, and if I’ve gypped anybody in my business I’ll pay them back four times what I owe them. You are going over the top and it is exhilarating, and it feels safe because Jesus is standing there beside you, and it is safe because you know he’ll never leave you even when he closes the door behind him and walks down the road towards Jerusalem . You know you can’t go back to business as usual and that you’re not going to be as rich as you were yesterday, well, not as rich in money, but you feel like a million dollars.

It’s a great story, but Luke never meant it to stand on its own the way we heard it today. No. It’s the second chapter of a somewhat larger story. We hear this story right after the story of the other twin, after the Arnold Schwartzneggar story, the big, handsome, well-educated philosopher prince. We commonly call it the story of the rich young man. He went out of his way to find Jesus. He had a longing in his heart. He’d invested all his life in exemplary living, but he knew something was missing. “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him to obey the commandments, but he’s done that all his life. He is anything but a slacker.

Jesus looks into his eyes and into his heart, and he sees what is getting in his way. It is his stuff, but not just his stuff. It is his love of his stuff, his attachment to his stuff, his mortal fear of letting go of his stuff. If Jesus could just get that fear away from him this handsome young man would truly have it all. But all Jesus can do is invite himself into the young man’s life, and we know how this story ends, and it is sad. Fear wins. The young man, the extremely privileged and sincere young man is offered the greatest happiness in the world, but he lets fear win.

On Glee this week Coach Sylvester is making a TV report that is as fear mongering as all the incessant, awful political commercials that I can’t wait to go away. She tickles the hearts of two TV producers who come to see her, and they say, “We’re from Cable News. Good news is about information.  Great news is about fear.”

Most marketing is based on making us afraid. Afraid to be poor. (Buy gold!) Afraid to be ugly. (Color your hair! Get rid of wrinkles!) Afraid to be unpopular (Take all your friends to Olive Garden for the endless salad and breadsticks. Buy your clothes at Old Navy and you will dance around the store with cool people!)  or to have inferior children (Your Baby Can Read!)

And, as I said, the politicians are the experts in fear-mongering hands down. Be afraid, they tell us, be very, very afraid! The other party – pick one -- is dead set on getting your money away from you because all they want is for you to die poor. Hang onto it with all you’re worth.  Fight back. Nobody’s going to tell you what to do…except us! It is everywhere, and I can’t wait for it to go away, if only for a little while.

But what does Jesus say? ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

Do not be afraid, little flock. Jesus does not even need to say the words. That was the moment of transformation for Zacchaeus, the moment his fear left him. Maybe it was when he found himself looking so ridiculous up in the tree. Maybe it was when Jesus invited himself into Zacchaeus’ life. Maybe it was when Zacchaeus saw Jesus’ eyes meet his. Maybe it was when he realized that he had nothing to fear in Jesus. Maybe it was when he saw himself as Jesus saw him. Maybe it was when he heard himself say he was going to share his wealth, that he was going to share it extravagantly, recklessly, joyfully. And in that moment Jesus declared that Zacchaeus’ entire household was blessed, and Zacchaeus understood for the first time that being blessed only meant anything if he passed the blessing along in every way he could possibly think of.

Did he go back to work on Monday? I can’t tell you because Luke doesn’t tell us, but if he did, he was a whole new man and it would have been a whole new kind of work, and the people who had looked at him in contempt when he was up in that tree had to be looking at him with all new eyes as well.

Amen.