Can People Change?

Sermon for Sunday, November 1

Luke 19:1-10

People don’t change. The best predictor of future actions is past behavior. Once a thief, always a thief. We all know the wisdom of these sayings. We all have a suspicion of people who have wronged us, or folks who have bad reputations. Often, we don’t ever see improvements or redemption.

Zacchaeus was not just a tax collector. He was the chief tax collector, and Luke says he was rich. Now nobody here likes to see the tax man, do we? But when we see “tax collector” in the gospels we shouldn’t think IRS. We should think extortionist, mob boss, Godfather. Basically, the tax collectors of the New Testament period were racketeers, con-artists. But they were built into the Roman system of oppression, so they could do it all in plain sight. Zacchaeus was rich, and he was comfortable, and he had a nice house in a safe neighborhood. But people didn’t like him.

What does somebody like Zacchaeus want with Jesus? Like the blind man in last week’s story, Luke tells us he wants to know who Jesus is. He’s looking for Jesus, but he can’t find him, because he can’t see into the crowd. Zacchaeus is short, Luke tells us, and it’s not stretching our imagination too far to think that Zacchaeus’s neighbors aren’t interested in making seeing Jesus any easier for him. That short little swindler, trying to wedge his way through the jostling crowd. Who can tell the difference between a jostle and a shove? Who really knows whether they are being ignored or just overlooked? After all, what does somebody like Zacchaeus want with Jesus?

We make these decisions about people, because we don’t believe that people can change. When people try, often we don’t let them change. People outgrow the labels we have for them, but we can’t—we won’t—see it. Part of the problem is that the way things are get comfortable to us. I had a betta fish when I was in high school, and I would let its water get pretty nasty. My mom would come into my room and tell me to clean its water, but I would always put it off. One day the water got so bad that my mom came and cleaned it for me while I was outside working for my dad. Do you know what happened? The fish died in the clean water. I think he got so used to living in filth that he just didn’t know what to do with a better life. We are like that. We trick ourselves into thinking it’s better if things just stay the way they are, even if that means that that guy over there stays an outsider and we stay his victims. 

But Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see Jesus. Take a minute to imagine that: a grown man, a wealthy man, a mobster, climbing a tree to see Jesus. It must have been humbling. Who climbs trees? Children climb trees. But somebody said, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” That’s what it takes to come to Jesus; we have to humble ourselves! We have to become a little undignified. And Zacchaeus must have been a sight climbing that tree. I bet the folks in the crowd got a good laugh out of that. 

And then something unexpected happens. Jesus walks under that tree and he looks right up at Zacchaeus and he says, “I’ve gotta stay at your place.” See here’s the thing that happens when we are willing to look a little foolish to go looking for Jesus: Jesus finds us! Jesus invites himself over to our place. And the crowd starts to grumble; it’s all well and good for Jesus to say that a tax collector is easier to justify than one of those self-righteous Pharisees, but why on earth would he go to Zacchaeus’s house when there’s so many decent, down home folks around? See it’s a lot easier to imagine Jesus justifying a con-man than it is to imagine Jesus saving that con-man, the one who took my stuff. But Jesus goes where Jesus wants.

The thing about Jesus going to Zacchaeus’s house, intimately entering Zacchaeus’s space, is that once he’s there, he’s going to rearrange the furniture. He’s already begun to work on Zacchaeus, driving the camel through the needles eye. Zacchaeus announces that he will give away half of his wealth to the poor. If you remember the rich ruler, Jesus told him to give away everything. But Zacchaeus needs to hang on to half, because he has to pay his victims back four-fold for all of his extortions.

In the film, O Brother, Where Art Thou, there’s a scene where the three escaped convicts stumble across a baptism service. Two of the men, Delmar and Pete run down into the water to accept Jesus and have all their sins forgiven. Everett looks on, surprised. Later, it becomes clear that the two who were baptized thought that baptism would expunge their crimes. “But there was witnesses that seen us redeemed,” Delmar says. “That ain’t the issue, Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi is a little more hard nosed.” The good thing, though, is that Jesus doesn’t just want to forgive us. Jesus wants to put us right with God and with our community. 

When Zacchaeus responds to Jesus, to everything Jesus has done in his life, it changes everything. In one commitment, Zacchaeus changes his relationship to the world. He gives up the comfort he has squeezed from the work of his neighbors. Jesus says two things: first, salvation has come to his house. When somebody comes to Jesus, salvation is present in their daily life. It has a ripple effect, like a stone dropped in a pond. Your whole life is going to change shape. Second, Jesus welcomes him into the family of God. Abraham has a new child. We are saved into the community of the saved. Our new brothers and sisters may have been our enemies before. And they will hurt us again, but do we trust that Jesus can change them? Do we believe that Jesus can change us? Will we let Jesus transform our communities? Are we willing to be unsettled so a few more can come and join us at His Table?