In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today, salvation comes
to the house of Zacchaeus. In the church, the
Sunday of Zacchaeus signals to us the coming
of Great Lent. Liturgically, we are five Sundays
and four weeks from the Lenten season. Starting
next week, the Sundays will begin to highlight
different themes to prepare us for Lent and will
remain that way all the way through it to bring
us to Pascha and even afterwards to bring us
to Pentecost. Next Sunday, we will hear the Lord
speak about the publican and the Pharisee, which
when approached in the liturgical calendar, undoubtedly
unites Zacchaeus, the tax collector, to that
tax collector, praying in the temple, God be
merciful to me, the sinner. But before that,
today we encounter Zacchaeus and the Lord together.
Zacchaeus has three things working against him.
He is a publican. That is, he is a tax collector.
He is a Jewish man. who has collaborated with
Rome in order to gain wealth and a better standing
for himself in society through Roman taxation
and extortion, at the expense of his Jewish peers,
explaining why he's likely living in Jericho,
a place of immense disrepute in the collective
mind of ancient Israel. He is the chief of tax
collectors, not simply a tax collector, but the
chief. And he is rich, revealing that he is very
good at what he does, taxing his fellow Jews
well above what is required by Rome and pocketing
the rest for himself, extorting. And he is small,
or little, as the translation put it. In the
ancient world, this last detail is a literary
cue. It is a literary way to tell us something,
not only about his stature and height, but about
his spirit. Call it what you will, ableist, whatever
modern term we might put on it, but the ancient
world didn't like small people. Nothing against
small people now, of course. But it had philosophical
ways of explaining someone's small in stature.
His smallness of size, for them, went hand in
hand with a smallness of spirit, an inability
to see. You can read ancient philosophers saying
this. This is pretty much how all the church
fathers take Zacchaeus here. He has a small spirit.
a small heart, meaning there's not much space
in it. There's not much room in it. And he's
also rich, so he has no space. He has hoarded.
There is no space for anything good in himself.
But Zacchaeus has heard about Jesus, and he's
seeking to see Jesus, specifically who Jesus
is. So having heard that Jesus is in close proximity,
being small and surrounded by a great crowd,
he climbs up into the sycamore tree to see him.
And it's here, however, that the story changes.
In reality, it isn't Zacchaeus who's seeking
Jesus. It's Jesus who's seeking Zacchaeus. In
fact, he has come all the way into Jericho. to
find him. And as Zacchaeus is trying to see Jesus,
Jesus rather sees Zacchaeus. Looking up, Jesus
says, Zacchaeus, hurry, make haste, come down,
for I must, for I must stay at your house today.
In Zacchaeus's desire to know who Jesus is, Jesus
turns Zacchaeus back on himself. He finds him.
He calls him by name, Zacchaeus. He enters into
his house, the house that Zacchaeus leaves to
go looking for Jesus. Jesus is actually looking
for that house, to stay there, to abide there,
to enter into it. When the crowds are aghast
at what's going on, calling Zacchaeus a sinner,
shocked that Jesus receives hospitality from
such a man. Jesus never denies the truth of it.
Neither does Zacchaeus. Jesus sees. Jesus knows
who Zacchaeus is. This isn't a secret to him.
Zacchaeus has come to see and know himself in
this meeting between him and Jesus, who he himself
is, the sinner, the extortioner, the fraudster.
the phony, the one who has ruined people's lives,
the one who has profited off of the weakness
of people. That's exactly what Jesus comes for
him. All the way into Jericho, into the darkness,
to see him, to save him. He comes for sinners
like Zacchaeus, like me, like you, to seek us
out and find us. And in all of this, Zacchaeus
comes to see who Jesus is, the Lord, which is
what he calls him, Lord, applying the name revealed
by Christ to Moses in the burning bush so long
ago. Kyrios, Adonai, Lord, not a title, but the
divine name of the God of Israel and the God
of Abraham. Today, salvation has come to this
house since he is also a son of Abraham. In Luke's
gospel, this word salvation, salvation is a loaded
word in Luke's gospel. It is a hypostatic word,
meaning it is a word describing a person. This
salvation is the same salvation that Simeon holds
in his hands all the way back at the beginning
in the temple. What we will celebrate next week,
behold, my eyes have seen the salvation which
God has prepared. The salvation is Christ himself.
He has shined darkness into the house of Zacchaeus
and has begun the process of healing and salvation
in Zacchaeus' life and heart and sight. Like
last week with the blind man, the story of Zacchaeus
is also a story of healing, a healing of spiritual
sight, a healing of spiritual space in one's
heart. which had been hoarded out by riches,
greed, extortion, and filth that made Zacchaeus
sick, which had left no space in his heart for
God or for his neighbor. Jesus heals the heart.
Jesus enlarges it. And he sets Zacchaeus on a
journey of repentance. And notice the immediate
fruit, how Zacchaeus repents. How Zacchaeus immediately
changes. He doesn't just say he's going to change
his life. Lord, I'm going to change my life and
I'm going to try to begin to follow you. He isn't
just talking about something generically, something
nebulously. No, he gives calculated, specific
ways, precise ways that he will do so in repentance.
I will give half of all my riches to the poor.
I will restore fourfold every person that I've
defrauded and taken advantage of. For Zacchaeus,
it isn't just a matter of feelings. It isn't
just a nice experience basking in the presence
of Christ, that he feels good that Christ is
in his house. It is a real change. A real desire
has emerged. a real cost, a sacrifice, just like
the holy new martyrs of Russia that we remember
today, a sacrifice, a life. He will put his money
where his mouth is. He pronounces judgment on
himself. I have stolen. I have defrauded. I have
sinned against them, against myself, against
you, Lord. The heart changes. And the grasp that
he has on his money changes. He lets go and he
empties himself. In the now, in the present moment,
in the today, Zacchaeus makes a resolved twofold
judgment. One on his past, what he will leave
and forego. His love for the world. His love
for money. Being a fraudster, an exploiter, a
person who preys on the weak, but also on his
future. Rather than taking, he will now, today,
give himself. He will empty what he has for the
sake of others. He will give his life away. That's
salvation. What Christ begins in our heart is
changed. And it finds its completion and activity
by being worked out in the life of our neighbor,
in the life of someone else surrounding us, someone
that we might have wronged or someone we haven't
met yet or someone we know, the life of our neighbor.
This evidence is the sonship of Abraham. This
one, he, too, is a son of Abraham. As Abraham
made haste, as Abraham ran to serve and give
hospitality to the three angels when God approached
him in Genesis 18 at the sacred terebinth tree
of Mamre and received the Lord into his house,
fed him. Zacchaeus does the same. He hurries.
He listens to the Lord. He gets down from the
tree. He makes haste. He extends hospitality
to the Lord and alms to the poor. and those he's
extorted, those he's wronged. Like Abraham, he
leaves his house, but only to be called back
into the house of his own heart by the Lord himself.
Like Abraham, he leaves his former life behind.
He renounces the devil, repents, turns, and follows
God, beginning the life of salvation, letting
go of anything that gripped him before. Brothers
and sisters, in this season, the Lord comes to
our house. Indeed, the Lord has come to our house.
Salvation is literally coming into your homes
this Theophany season. As the light shines into
our darkness and the waters, the holy waters
of Jordan cleanse our homes. We think we're seeking
the Lord. That's sort of how we live our lives.
We think we're seeking the Lord. How strong are
we seeking Him? How actively are we seeking Him?
We think that way. But it's the Lord who seeks
us. He finds us where we're at. And He calls
us by name and He says, Today, today, I must
stay in your house. I must stay in your house.
What does that mean for us? It isn't simply our
literal house, though it is that too, but the
house of our heart as we prepare for this season
of great Lent. In his own words, the Lord says,
Receive me, for I must stay in your house, the
house of our hearts. So whatever we are clinging
to, can we let go of it? Can we free ourselves
of it, or at least begin to? Can we empty ourselves
of the riches of this world, of this life, and
enlarge the smallness of our spirit? As St. Paul
puts it to the Corinthians, can we enlarge our
hearts in order to make room for Christ in us?
He is holding nothing back from us. Can we make
space in our hearts for him? That's what Lent
is all about. Emptying ourselves. Putting to
death our sin. Really changing. Really changing.
Really changing. Not talking about it, but doing
with Christ's help. In order that what has died
in our hearts, what is mortified in our bodies
and our spirits, might be raised. In the power
of the resurrection to newness of life. With
Christ our God on Pascha. When we declare that
Christ is risen from the dead. Christ has trampled
death by death. Death in us. In order that he
might live in us. That's what the Sunday of Zacchaeus
announces. That's what it heralds. Well in advance
of what Christ will ask us in Lent. So today.
Now. Let's prepare, not generically, not saying,
oh yeah, we'll repent, we'll do these things,
but let's make specific, calculated, prayerful
plans for how that repentance will manifest in
our hearts. How the old man in us will die another
year in order that the hidden person of our heart
might live, in order that salvation might come
to us and fill our homes, both literally and
spiritually with new life and power that courses
only from the resurrection of Christ our God.
Amen.