Daily Scripture:
Luke 19:1 Yeshua entered Yericho and was passing through, 2 when a man named Zakkai appeared who was a chief tax-collector and a wealthy man. 3 He was trying to see who Yeshua was; but, being short, he couldn’t, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed a fig tree in order to see him, for Yeshua was about to pass that way. 5 When he came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zakkai! Hurry! Come down, because I have to stay at your house today!” 6 He climbed down as fast as he could and welcomed Yeshua joyfully. 7 Everyone who saw it began muttering, “He has gone to be the house-guest of a sinner.” (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
Jesus openly bucked social boundaries, saying, “Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.” He offered this outcast man personal friendship and kindness, made real as he accepted Zacchaeus’ hospitality. No doubt when Jesus stopped under the tree and called his name, many thought, “Now Zacchaeus is going to catch it.” They grumbled when, instead, Jesus just went to eat at Zacchaeus’ house (verse 7). But Jesus' knew love and kindness, not harsh condemnation, were more likely to redirect Zacchaeus’ life.
- In verse 3, Zacchaeus “was trying to see who Jesus was.” By verse 6 (maybe after nearly falling out of the tree in surprise when Jesus spoke to him!), he was “happy to welcome Jesus.” What role, if any, did curiosity play in drawing you to consider Jesus' claim on your life? What can you do, individually or through your church’s ministries, to create healthy curiosity in others about your faith? In what ways can you and your congregation make it clear that we serve a Lord who welcomed (and welcomes) “sinners”?
- Zacchaeus, “a ruler among tax collectors, was rich.” That wasn’t the result of hard, honest, productive work. “Zacchaeus would hire those who collected taxes and would set collection policies. These factors would have made him wealthy even had he behaved ethically—but he had not (v. 8).”* Tax collectors paid Rome a secret, fixed amount—everything else they collected was theirs. What does it tell you about Jesus that he would risk his reputation to reach out to an unlovely, unloved man like Zacchaeus?
Lord God, at whatever points you call my name, help me respond as Zacchaeus did, happy to welcome you into another aspect of my life. Amen.
* HarperCollins Christian Publishing. NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Kindle Locations 234085-234087). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Jennifer Creagar is the Financial Care Program Director in Congregational Care at Resurrection Leawood. She is married and loves spending time with her family, and she enjoys writing and photography.
In our currently polarized and contentious world, who is your Zacchaeus? I think most of us have one--I realize I may have more than one. This is someone we may not even know, but whose public image, politics and/or actions have made us feel we know all about them, and we don’t like any of it. This person is the one that, in our minds and hearts, is definitely “A SINNER!” A terrible person. Someone who couldn’t possibly be trying as hard as I am to follow Jesus, because if that is true, why does my Zacchaeus behave that way?
The Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-7 was a rich, ruling class tax collector. He was known for taking advantage of people and was hated for it. He was a product of his culture and successful in it. He was curious, though, about who Jesus was. He was so curious that he climbed a tree just to get a glimpse of this teacher everyone was talking about. For a man who held an important and dignified position, this was a decidedly undignified thing to do, but his heart told him there might be something more than the life he was leading. His heart told him that radical change was walking past him in the form of this carpenter-turned-teacher, and there was something different and important coming his way. Regardless of anything he had done up to that point, right now he wanted to see Jesus, and Jesus wanted to see him.
Jesus always wants to see us when we want to see him. He even wants to see us when we want to hide from him--if necessary, he will wait us out until, like Zacchaeus, we are willing to climb a tree or admit our ignorance and need to just see Jesus. We know this and are blessed by it, but it’s still a little hard to think of it being true for the individual or group who is our modern-day, personal Zacchaeus.
I’ll tell you something even harder. Jesus wants us to reach out to our Zacchaeus, just as he did. He wants us to go to our Zacchaeus, or someone who represents them, and ask them out for coffee. He doesn’t want us to change our position necessarily, but he wants us to change our hearts. He wants us to listen. He wants us to try to understand, and to love always. He wants us to seek justice and mercy and walk humbly, and give up the angry words and even angrier thoughts directed towards our Zacchaeus. Jesus looked at Zacchaeus up in that tree, and took some time to get to know the man, not just the evil, rich tax collector.
Lives were changed because of this. Lives can be changed when we look at others the way Jesus looks at them, even those we truly dislike because they symbolize everything we believe is wrong. Lives can be changed even more if we listen and speak gently, and always with love. Jesus changes lives. Ours. Theirs.
So, what are we going to do with our personal Zacchaeus? Can we try to change our world and our culture through love and personal relationships like Jesus, or will we remain polarized, refusing to listen to the sinners in our midst (while they refuse to listen to us, because we might be their Zacchaeus)? We might start by praying every day for our Zacchaeus. Not a prayer like, “Lord, please straighten out this sinner and set his/her mind straight,” but "Lord God who looks up into the tree, sees each sinner and invites us to know you, please help me reach out to my personal Zacchaeus in your name, with your love. Open all our eyes to possibilities for healing, hope, and community fueled by your love and peace. Amen."
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You might also like:
- The parable of the good tax collector
- “Even tax collectors”
- Prayer Tip: Rich, Lost & Searching
- Jesus' legacy: the gift of peace
- A legacy of generosity toward Jesus
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
Daily Scripture:
Luke 18:9 Also, to some who were relying on their own righteousness and looking down on everyone else, he told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Parush and the other a tax-collector. 11 The Parush stood and prayed to himself, ‘O God! I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, immoral, or like this tax-collector! 12 I fast twice a week, I pay tithes on my entire income, . . . ’ 13 But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes toward heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God! Have mercy on me, sinner that I am!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home right with God rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
In Jesus' day, tax collectors were among the last people expected to live in God’s Kingdom. But Jesus’ story said a tax collector’s humble faith (“struck his chest” was a gesture of sorrow) was more spiritually powerful than a Pharisee’s swollen ego. Luke said Jesus told this story “to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust.” The Pharisee in this story didn’t trust in God’s mercy. It never crossed his mind that he needed it!
O God, Hebrews 4:16 invited me to come before you “with confidence,” not because I’m good, but because you are. Help me live confident of your grace, but never arrogant about my goodness. Amen.
Read today's Insight by Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
I’ve been attending Church of the Resurrection for about 13 years, and it’s very different from my background. I spent most of my adolescent life in a small evangelical Southern Baptist church in small-town Florida. In some ways, I’m glad for that upbringing in the faith—mainly because of how seriously they take Scripture and holy living. But one downside to that was that any social or political conversation quickly turned into a theological conversation with the intent of determining who’s right and who’s wrong. Sometimes, these conversations were enlightening; many other times, they were mind-numbing.
I’m not proud of a lot of these conversations. We talked about whether people who walked away from the faith had ever really believed at all. We talked about whether people of other Christian denominations were really pleasing God with their worship. We even talked once about whether tithing electronically using a credit card meant as much as dropping cash in the offering plate. These are silly things to get caught up on, but even worse was the intent: to prove that we were right and they were wrong. I can’t remember a single one of these conversations that ended with, “Oh, I guess that’s wrong—we should change our lives.” Every one of these conversations ended with, “And that’s why they’re wrong.”
Church of the Resurrection was a breath of fresh air after living in that environment for 11 years. But after breathing in that fresh air for a while, I slowly began to realize that even though I wasn’t in an environment that revelled in moral comparisons, that was still something that seems kind of hard-wired into just about everybody. Without taking conscious steps to make ourselves uncomfortable with truths we don’t agree with, we tend to surround ourselves with people who believe the same things we do, who cherish the same things we do, and who despise the same things we do. Our brains like it when we hear positive feedback on what we’re doing, but it’s easier to find people who already agree with us than to seek out deeper truths even when they run contrary to who we are. I see people do this with other people, but it’s even more damaging when we do it with God.
If we like to pick our friends so we can believe that most of humanity is like us, it’s not a far stretch that we also distort our concept of God so we can believe that he’s also like us. If all of your religious friends think just like you, very soon you’re going to start thinking that God hates all the same people you do. If all you ever hear about religion affirms your pre-existing ideals and conceptions, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of seeking out reasons other people are wrong rather than seeking ways you can improve. Without input from people who disagree with us, it can be a natural progression to eventually create God in our own image rather than continually re-shaping our image to more closely match his.Going back to today’s passage (Luke 18:9-14), the tax collector was justified before God because he focused on the uncomfortable gap between himself and God while the pharisee stopped at the similarities. It’s important for our mental health to find friends who agree with us, but it’s also important for our spiritual and emotional health to befriend people who disagree with us, who shine some light on that uncomfortable gap. If you don’t have any friends who disagree with you on some pretty big issues, it would probably be helpful for you to find some. They may hold pieces of the truth that you weren’t even aware of.
In Jesus' day, tax collectors were among the last people expected to live in God’s Kingdom. But Jesus’ story said a tax collector’s humble faith (“struck his chest” was a gesture of sorrow) was more spiritually powerful than a Pharisee’s swollen ego. Luke said Jesus told this story “to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust.” The Pharisee in this story didn’t trust in God’s mercy. It never crossed his mind that he needed it!
- Are you more often like the Pharisee, sure your goodness lifts you above most other people, or like the tax collector, feeling a deep inner sense of need for God’s mercy? How can taking in God’s love and grace help you maintain a healthy awareness of your spiritual need without having contempt either for others or for yourself?
- At today’s end, spend time in prayer reviewing the day through God’s eyes. Use these questions to guide your prayer: at what points today did I feel better than someone else? How did that affect the way I related to them? Were there any times today when I felt badly about myself? Did I determine to handle that myself, or did I realize my deep need for God’s grace? Did I turn to God to seek the grace I needed?
O God, Hebrews 4:16 invited me to come before you “with confidence,” not because I’m good, but because you are. Help me live confident of your grace, but never arrogant about my goodness. Amen.
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
I’ve been attending Church of the Resurrection for about 13 years, and it’s very different from my background. I spent most of my adolescent life in a small evangelical Southern Baptist church in small-town Florida. In some ways, I’m glad for that upbringing in the faith—mainly because of how seriously they take Scripture and holy living. But one downside to that was that any social or political conversation quickly turned into a theological conversation with the intent of determining who’s right and who’s wrong. Sometimes, these conversations were enlightening; many other times, they were mind-numbing.
I’m not proud of a lot of these conversations. We talked about whether people who walked away from the faith had ever really believed at all. We talked about whether people of other Christian denominations were really pleasing God with their worship. We even talked once about whether tithing electronically using a credit card meant as much as dropping cash in the offering plate. These are silly things to get caught up on, but even worse was the intent: to prove that we were right and they were wrong. I can’t remember a single one of these conversations that ended with, “Oh, I guess that’s wrong—we should change our lives.” Every one of these conversations ended with, “And that’s why they’re wrong.”
Church of the Resurrection was a breath of fresh air after living in that environment for 11 years. But after breathing in that fresh air for a while, I slowly began to realize that even though I wasn’t in an environment that revelled in moral comparisons, that was still something that seems kind of hard-wired into just about everybody. Without taking conscious steps to make ourselves uncomfortable with truths we don’t agree with, we tend to surround ourselves with people who believe the same things we do, who cherish the same things we do, and who despise the same things we do. Our brains like it when we hear positive feedback on what we’re doing, but it’s easier to find people who already agree with us than to seek out deeper truths even when they run contrary to who we are. I see people do this with other people, but it’s even more damaging when we do it with God.
If we like to pick our friends so we can believe that most of humanity is like us, it’s not a far stretch that we also distort our concept of God so we can believe that he’s also like us. If all of your religious friends think just like you, very soon you’re going to start thinking that God hates all the same people you do. If all you ever hear about religion affirms your pre-existing ideals and conceptions, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of seeking out reasons other people are wrong rather than seeking ways you can improve. Without input from people who disagree with us, it can be a natural progression to eventually create God in our own image rather than continually re-shaping our image to more closely match his.Going back to today’s passage (Luke 18:9-14), the tax collector was justified before God because he focused on the uncomfortable gap between himself and God while the pharisee stopped at the similarities. It’s important for our mental health to find friends who agree with us, but it’s also important for our spiritual and emotional health to befriend people who disagree with us, who shine some light on that uncomfortable gap. If you don’t have any friends who disagree with you on some pretty big issues, it would probably be helpful for you to find some. They may hold pieces of the truth that you weren’t even aware of.
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You might also like:
You might also like:
- “Even tax collectors”
- Prayer Tip: Rich, Lost & Searching
- Jesus' legacy: the gift of peace
- A legacy of generosity toward Jesus
- Living out Jesus' self-giving legacy
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
©2017 Church of the Resurrection. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
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Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
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