The writer of the Gospel of Luke is such a good story-teller. Luke tells stories about Jesus that one could easily stage. Luke’s stories are the ones that end up as Sunday School plays. And today’s story is no exception. I’m going to miss the stories from the Gospel of Luke when we move to lectionary year A in a few weeks at the beginning of Advent. In lectionary year A, we’ll hear mainly from the Gospel of Matthew. He has many compelling things to say, but he’s much more interested in the details of laws and teachings than in what makes a fastastic narrative – in what makes a great story.

Luke’s telling, combined with the Sunday School song that many of us learned about the wee-little man named Zacchaeus when we were wee-little children creates such a vivid picture. Can’t you just see the crowd, and the short tax man Zacchaeus muscling up a tree to get a better view? Jesus was passing through Jericho, according to Luke. Historians and archaeologists believe that the Jericho of Jesus’ time was an agricultural/commercial center. It was an oasis in the desert, a garden city with royal estates of Herod and that it probably functioned as a winter resort for Jerusalem’s elite. There were lots of crops harvested there, especially expensive balsams, so the chief tax collector would have been a busy man in Jericho. And his work must have paid off – he was a wealthy man. But tax collecting was dirty business. Tax collectors in Jesus’ time were often named in lists of bad guys – like robbers and murderers. Tax collector appears in lists of jobs that no good Jew could hold. No Son of Abraham could be a tax collector. According to the Mishnah, the impurity of tax collectors was actually contagious. They exploited poor people; made trouble wherever they went. They polluted whatever they touched. (1)

One of the great things about this story is that the name Zacchaeus means “clean” (a Greek version of a Hebrew word). It’s a nice touch – kind of funny. It’s very funny. It’s like a story of a prostitute whose name is Chastity. Or the story of a mafia hit-man whose name is Angel. Or the story of a drug dealer whose name is Prudence. You get the idea. In this Bible story, someone named Clean was doing dirty work and getting filthy rich. And he wasn’t just doing his own dirty work, he was supervising the dirty work of others. He was the boss of dirty work. A man named Clean (Zacchaeus) was the chief dirty-worker.

Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was – he must have heard of Jesus. Jesus’ reputation had preceded him. Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was but he couldn’t see because he was too short, so he climbed a tree. It makes sense. Get up higher and get a better view. Ironically he climbed a sycamore-fig tree that bore an inferior kind of fruit, the kind of fruit consumed by poor people -- ironic, because his own work was consuming poor people. Also, what he probably didn’t think about was that as soon as he could see Jesus better, Jesus would also be able to see him better! And Jesus did see him. And not only did Jesus look up and see him, Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come down right now. I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus gladly did as he was told. The Greek word is “rejoicing.” He must have been wild with excitement. But even through the excitement, I imagine he noticed the others grumbling about Jesus being the guest of a sinner. The dramatic tension of this story has reached its peak.

But this is a comedy – it has a happy and funny ending, especially if you are poor. Zacchaeus stood up and said, “Look, Lord! Right here, right now, I give half of my possessions to those who are poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything,” and of course he has, “I will pay back four times the amount!” Right there, right then, Zacchaeus lived into his name and came clean. It’s an amazing thing – and even Jesus was amazed because he responded that salvation – deliverance – recovery -- had come to Zacchaeus’ whole household because Zacchaeus had become again who and Whose he was meant to be. Zacchaeus was lost and now was found. He had come clean with his offer to make up for what he had done and left undone. He repented of the evil he had done and the evil done on his behalf, to use the words of one of our confessions of sin. He wasn’t just paying back what he owed – he was paying back four-fold! An outlandish amount! And since Jesus’ stated mission was to seek out and save the lost, he must have thought to himself, “I got one!”

You might have guessed where I’m headed next – those of you who have been around long enough to hear me preach a few times. Here it is. I have a strong suspicion that each of us has a part somewhere in us like Zacchaeus. Some part that wants to see who this guy Jesus is, what the fuss is all about. Some part that is willing to do something kind of foolish like climb a tree or come to church on a Sunday morning to get a better look (even if other parts of us are here for other reasons). I’m pretty sure that each of us has a part of our self that is sullied, dirtied – by chance or by choice – usually a combination – and I think for our purposes here, it makes no difference at all whether it was chance or choice. What would it be like to imagine that Jesus wants to receive the hospitality of that part of you today? Imagine that Jesus would like to be welcomed by the part of you that other parts of you find not very desirable. Imagine that Jesus hasn’t sought out the parts that are already clean and shiny and humming along just fine. Jesus isn’t seeking the parts that you want to show off. Jesus wants to come to the part of you that you are not very proud of – that make the other parts of you grumble. What is that part of you that make the other parts of you recoil with disgust? Maybe more importantly, what is that part of you that is unacceptable to other people and might be contagious?

Or think of the parts of this parish. Imagine that some part of this parish as a whole is willing to climb a tree and go out on a limb to see for itself something about Jesus -- some shameless part of this community (maybe you know such a part) which is longing to catch a glimpse of the Divine. And out there on the limb, the Divine catches a glimpse of that part and invites itself right in. It can happen before you know it and you can find yourself rejoicing in spite of the mutterings of irritation that this guy Jesus spends his days with sinners. Compare this to the rich man who Jesus loved, but who goes away very sad because he just couldn’t see his way clear. Compare this to the son who finds his way home, or the recovered coin or the reclaimed sheep. This is even better than any of those recoveries.