What matters to God - Luke 19:1-10

Have you ever stopped to wonder why God ever created this world and why he ever chose to share his creative breath and give us life and self-awareness?  For me that is a question I will want answered in full one day.   For now, I can only imagine what the fullness of that answer will be by searching the Scriptures and seeking to understand what motivated God to do what he has done. We do know that it was in the heart and mind of God to create a world filled with beauty and promise. Out of what appeared to be total chaos, He brought order and purpose. Carefully, methodically, he put the pieces in place until the time was right to form someone who could care for the creation because this caretaker would be created in the image of the Creator and have a mind, a heart, and a soul. And so, we have the creation of man and woman – two yet one – one created from the very ground from which sprang the created order and the other created from a piece of the first one. They were given to each other as partners to be stewards of the creation and blessed by God with a rich, fertile and safe place in which to dwell.

And while it is never spoken of before Adam and Eve leave the garden, we can infer that outside of the garden, there was still chaos in the world. Within the bounds of the garden, there was safety. This was a place where God could protect them from all dangers. But there was one danger that God had not foreseen. An intruder was within the garden – a traitor if you will. Whether in the beginning this was a rival of God or not, we may never know but we do know that he brought doubt into the minds of Adam and Eve and caused them to transgress the commandments of God. And as much as it grieved God to do so, he had no choice but to expel Adam and Eve from the garden. Outside the safety of the garden, they encountered all manner of things that God had sought to protect them against. They had come to live in a place where they had to fend for themselves. But God never left them. Yes, they were mortal and would not live forever; yes, they would feel pain and cold and have to work for their daily bread, but God would remain available to listen to them and to watch over them.

And so began the new journey of mankind – a journey that saw them exercise their freedom of choice.  At times that freedom of choice brought them closer to God and other times it took them further away. And yet through it all, God remained constant. And yet, as close as any human being could get to perfectly capturing the vision of God for creation, there always remained a gap – a space that just could not be bridged. And so, God determined that the only way to bridge the gap was to become the bridge between himself and his creation. He would come in the form of the one he had created and live among the people in a way never before imagined. Not as an adult assuming the form of a spy as other cultures’ gods had or interfere in their lives in a mischievous way but rather live a life like theirs from the very moment of conception until death. He would experience the life they lived and encounter the challenges that faced them. He would feel their pain, their anguish, their joys and their sorrows; He would work like they worked and participate in their society. Yet through it all, He would seek to redeem their lives, touching them at the heart of their being and become for them the bridge that would enable them to once again join him in perfect communion and peace.

When we examine the stories recounted in the Gospels, we see this pattern of God in the person of Jesus who is ever sharing in the lives of the people. He spends time with the religious leaders but quickly discovers that, for the most part, their hearts are not inclined to receive him or his message. They have become closed to any new revelation and are fixated on the past. They have spent their time interpreting a law that was designed to give guidelines for living but appeared to leave no room for exceptions, for responding to the moment as needed. The basic laws of love for God and neighbour were always to take precedence but by the time when God came in Jesus, the religious culture of the people had been codified to the point where many felt unable to fulfil God’s commands and even imagine that God could care about them, forgive or redeem them.

Perhaps Zacchaeus was one of these people. Perhaps he had been something else before he had become a tax collector. Perhaps he believed that the only life he could ever have was the one he made for himself. Whatever drove him to it, we know that he was quite successful. And, of course, the local people resented him.

Yet on this day, Jesus was coming to his town, and he wanted to see this person as much as anyone else. But Zaccheus was short and couldn’t see over the crowd and probably couldn’t get a front row place even if he paid for it. And so, he climbed a sycamore tree to see this Jesus for himself. Now imagine if Jesus came to our town and we were all on the street to welcome him, each one of us hoping that we could have him visit our home and prepare him a meal. But he stops and chooses the most unlikely person in our town. That is exactly what happened when Jesus declared that he was going to stay at the home of Zacchaeus. The crowd could not believe their ears or their eyes. Why on earth would this great teacher and miracle worker choose to spend time with the one person who was – in their minds – the greatest reprobate their town had. There were so many better people to choose from. Not that any of them were perfect but at least they were trying to follow God’s ways.

Sensing their displeasure at his choice, Jesus answers them and gives them the reason for all h,is teaching and miracles. “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. You see, the son of man came to seek and save the lost.”  Zacchaeus knew he was a lost son of Abraham, one of God’s creations who had moved far away from following the laws and commandments of God. He may have even given up praying but the coming of Jesus had awakened something in him. He knew not if Jesus’ coming would make any difference in his life, but he wanted to see what Jesus looked like.

Jesus’ coming did make a difference in his life. Jesus’ acknowledgment of him caused a change in his life. He immediately declared that he would give half of all he had to the poor and repay four times over whatever he had defrauded from others. He may still have been left with a good sum to live on but this encounter with Jesus had changed Zacchaeus. His heart was touched; his soul was awakened. He probably didn’t understand fully what Jesus’ coming meant but for him it was enough to know that he still mattered to God.

To know that we matter to God; to know that God never gives up on any of us; to know that God feels something is missing when we are separated from him; to know that he was willing and able to sacrifice himself in order to provide us with a bridge to cross over that final gap and be in everlasting communion with him. This is good news!

AMEN