You may have heard the story in the Bible about Zacchaeus.  The context is important.  Zacchaeus was a tax collector in the city of Jericho.  Keep in mind, tax collectors were despised by fellow Jews because they cheated people by overtaxing them.  So in the story of Zacchaeus, remember he would be considered the villain, the sinner, and certainly considered an outcast by the Jews.

But Zacchaeus was curious to see this man, Jesus, as He entered Jericho but there was such a large crowd and Zacchaeus was short, so he climbed up into a tree.

Out of the entire large crowd, Jesus saw Zacchaeus and called out to him, saying “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”

The crowd’s reaction was one of disgust, muttering “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”   But for Zacchaeus, this one event changed his life.  He said to Jesus, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”  And Jesus replied “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Most summaries of this event seem to focus on how Jesus forgives and changes lives, or about the importance of not being greedy.

But maybe we need to spend more time reflecting on the fact that out of that entire crowd, Jesus saw Zacchaeus.

Any self-respecting Jew would have walked right on past Zacchaeus, in disgust, not giving him a second glance, and yet Jesus saw him.  But he did more than that, he spoke to him, and chose to spend time with Zacchaeus of all people!

Who are we NOT seeing, either intentionally or unintentionally, as we claim to be leading people to experience God’s love and know Jesus Christ?

There are many people we might be tempted to just label as “sinners” and condemn and decide they are not worth our time, and maybe because of our own prejudices, we don’t even see them.  We can even feel really good about how loving we are, as long as we overlook the ones who we would rather not even interact with, the ones we condemn as sinners.

It’s important to remember, Jesus saw Zacchaeus.

An insightful quote by Donald Miller worth sharing and reflecting on:

“Sometimes I think it is easier for you and me to believe Jesus is God now that He is in heaven than it might have been back when He was walking around on earth. If you would have seen Jesus do miracles, and if you were one of those who were healed by Him or if you were one of the disciples, then it would have been easier, but for most people, especially the Jews, Jesus would have been a stumbling block.

At the same time, however, we are at a disadvantage because the Jesus that exists in our minds is hardly the real Jesus. The Jesus on CNN, the Jesus in our books and in our movies, the Jesus that is a collection of evangelical personalities, is often a Jesus of the suburbs, a Jesus who wants you to be a better yuppie, a Jesus who is extremely political and supports a specific party, a Jesus who has declared a kind of culture war in the name of our children, a Jesus who worked through the founding fathers to begin America, a Jesus who dresses very well, speaks perfect English, has three points that fulfill any number of promises and wants you and me to be, above all, comfortable.

Is this the real Jesus? Is Jesus sitting in the lifeboat with us, stroking our backs and telling us we are the ones who are right and one day these other infidels are going to pay, that we are the ones who are going to survive and the others are going to be thrown over because we Calvinist, Armenians, Baptist, Methodist, Catholics; because we Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, or liberals; because we attend a big church, a small church, an ethnically diverse church, a house church, or is Jesus acting in our hearts to reach out to the person who isn’t like us….the oppressed, the poor, the unchurched…….and to humble ourselves, give of our money, build communities in love, give our time, our creativity, get on our knees before our enemies in humility, treating them as Scripture says, as people who are more important than we are?

The latter is the Jesus of Scripture; the former, which is infinitely more popular in evangelical culture, is a myth sharing a genre with unicorns.” – From “Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller