Jesus was planning to just pass through Jericho and make his way to Jerusalem where in just a couple of chapters he will be crucified. Even with all of that on his mind, he stops in Jericho, because someone catches his attention and that someone is not who you would expect. We learn a lot about Zacchaeus in just a few words. Here’s what we know he is the chief tax collector and he is rich. That doesn’t seem like much, but it really tells us who he is. Here’s how you became a tax collector in the 1st Century. Rome would come in and take over. Once Rome had the area fully occupied and their Roman system was in place they would need some money to make it all happen. The thing is they were outsiders in a foreign land, they didn’t know where the money was in these cities. They needed local help. They needed someone who knew who had money and who didn’t. So in a rather insidious manner, they would auction off the job to a local. Whoever won the auction became the chief tax collector of that area. Rome would then give him a number that he had to collect and give to Rome, but in that collecting, he was given the backing of some members of the Roman military to take it by force if necessary. If it is not obvious to you yet this is a recipe for corruption and Zacchaeus was corrupt. He became rich by taking more than he had to give to Rome and pocketing the difference. Imagine what that means though. He’s not stealing from strangers, he’s stealing from neighbors, family members, and at this point in his life former friends. That’s the first thing we know. 

The second thing we know is that he is small in stature. This doesn’t just mean that he was a little bit smaller than average, but he had a physical deformity. We like to make that the focus we even have a song about it. (Zacchaeus was a wee little man…). I think we like to focus on that because for the vast majority of us that allows us to not be Zacchaeus in this story, but the truth is we are Zacchaeus. The problem with Zacchaeus was not that his body was deformed, but that his heart was. He had misordered loves as St. Augustine would say. He loved money over everything. He loved it over family, friends, his reputation, and everything else. He was an outcast because of it. Zacchaeus was lost in all senses of the word. We end today with a man that was lost because of his deformed heart sitting in a tree.