“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.”

At that time, Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.
Now a man there named Zacchaeus,
who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man,
was seeking to see who Jesus was;
but he could not see him because of the crowd,
for he was short in stature.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,
who was about to pass that way.
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said,
“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.”
And he came down quickly and received him with joy.
When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying,
“He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.”
But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord,
“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,
and if I have extorted anything from anyone
I shall repay it four times over.”
And Jesus said to him,
“Today salvation has come to this house
because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek
and to save what was lost.” Gospel LK 19:1-10

Zacchaeus is a brave men.

He has courage risk his status and good name among other tax collectors just in order to see Jesus.

Let’s think for a second about situations in our live when we were called to do something challenging- how much struggles is there usually involved with it?!

We struggle thinking about what people may say, or what if I fail?

Or what if I’m not enough good to do it?

Don’t think that it was such simple thing to climb the tree. The sycamore tree is very difficult one for climbing and second he was short in stature.

But he dose it any way.

The outcome is many more times bigger than what he expected.

He wanted only to see Jesus. The one who was so popular and also very controversial too.

Jesus offers him much more- he stays at his house and announces that “today salvation came to this house”.

Let’s think for a second,

• is there anything more important than our salvation?

Our lives are all about it! About true relation with God who loved us first.

Being saved means being true friend of Jesus. Zacchaeus became one of them.

 

But let us think also what could have happen if Jesus would not be so open to meet another sinner and dine with him?

Zacchaeus is risking hearing from Jesus:

“Hi you, aren’t you big sinner?! Is it that not time to do something with it? Go and change you life brother and then we will talk more about your salvation!”

Nothing like that happened.

But I’m afraid that this is what we do quite often.

We who are righteous and try to make others righteous people too.

We who try to make others better people despite that they are not ready for that.

We who cover our sins by talking about others…

Jesus gives us very clear example of what to do:

To love the sinner. Don’t let somebody’s sin isolate people from you.

Isn’t that result of sin any way? Shame, isolation, loneliness, darkness, lack of hope?

 

So let’s think about who is Zacchaeus in my life?

Who is that sinner that I cannot accept?

Who is that sinner that I’m trying to convert and make better person?

What if we take a risk to put aside all our holy attempts and start simply love others where they are giving them space to breath, to be accepted, to find out that we are sinners too?

What if we let Jesus do his job?

 

This is not all jet. One more thing. The sycamore tree.

It was calling Zacchaeus to climb on it. It brought him to unexpected place in his life.

The things we are afraid of doing. Our forgotten dreams, passions, inspirations- those big and the small one.

Lets not bury them forever. They are like Sycamore tree. They have for us much more than what think. God is waiting there to come with his presence, love, mercy and salvation. If we just dare take a risk to fail, to leave our comfort zone, to fight harder for grace that is at reach of our hands.

 

Blessings