Zacchaeus and Me

I thought we had gone to the wrong house. It definitely didn’t look like the ones we had served at before. I glanced nervously at my teammates and then back at the little house. “NO TRESPASSING!” and “BEWARE OF DOG!” signs were nailed on every other fence post, a large political flag swung from a rusted flagpole, and plastered in the windows were cardboard signs that read in big bitter letters, “LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT, YOU STUPID B—- I HAVE A DOUBLE BARREL SHOTGUN.” 

“We’re here!” Sharla, one of our team leads, chirped as she parked the car. It wasn’t the fact that this house was clearly not open to many visitors. Something about the arrogance of the signage made me sick. I didn’t want to serve this man, who so blatantly and ignorantly dishonored his neighbors. 

We walked up the driveway, where an old man and woman were sitting in a carport. The man was bone thin, body ravaged by stage 4 cancer. I introduced myself and a few teammates, choosing not to be offended by what I saw in his yard. Two tiny dogs liked our fingers through the bars of a crate. I smiled at the irony. Nothing about this dilapidated house or its owners possessed the power it advertised. The man could barely speak, and the wife helped him as he trudged inside to lay down. 

For some reason I was reminded of Zacchaeus. Luke 19 talks about a little man who was puffed up with his own importance. He crowded his life with wealth and honor, robbing the world of glory just because he was insecure about his own weaknesses. People who feel weak build walls of worldly importance so that they can feel strong and sufficient. I don’t know what turned the switch in Zacchaeus’ head, that made him realize that all his walls of wealth weren’t protecting him the way he thought they would. Zacchaeus climbed a tree, because he realized how little he was. Jesus looked at him. He looked at the offender, the prosecutor, the arrogant, the ignorant, and the hateful. He crowned Zacchaeus with the honor of dining at his home. This is honor Zacchaeus didn’t have to steal, it was given to him freely. In the same way, we reach for glory and strength, building our walls and digging our wells, but the walls will fall and the wells will run dry. We rob others of honor, forgetting that honor already lives inside us, it was given to us by a God who sees us and rescues us from the detritus we are so proud to call home. 

I looked at the emancipated man retreating into his pathetic fortress, and I felt sorry for him. He didn’t realize that he didn’t have to defend himself from a malicious world, because Yahweh Himself is our defender. He didn’t realize that his weakness would be turned into strength if only he humbled himself and looked for the Lord. He didn’t realize that he was honored and loved and didn’t have to scare people away with empty threats. We are all little, defenseless people, broken by pride we did not earn. I guess that’s why the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.