Blocking the View - Luke 19: 1-10

Four feet and ten inches. This is how tall I stand. I’ve been this tall (or short depending on your perspective) since middle school, so I have had many years to work out creative ways to deal with my stature. When I drive, the seat of my car has to almost be up as far as it will go, and I know that I can’t drive large vehicles, because I can’t see out of the windshield to safely maneuver the van or SUV. I have learned how to crawl up on counters to reach items in my kitchen, that I can’t even reach with a step stool. And above all I have learned when to ask for help – whether it be getting something off of a shelf at the store, of placing my luggage in the overhead bin on the airplane. I have learned to adapt when it is important.

Lest you think that there is no benefit to being vertically challenged, I have also learned how to work with my stature for benefit. I can wiggle through crowds to places that taller individuals cannot go. More than once, I have drug my taller friends with me through seas of people in order to be closer at a concert or to catch the line for a train. I know that there is no question as to where I will be in-group photos and I have learned how to ask for help, a skill our society seems to be lacking.

However, even with all of the benefits, the most annoying thing about being shorter – other then people mistaking me for someone much younger than my actual age – is around the issue of visibility. For some reason it just seems like tall people love to sit down in front of me, especially when it is at an event that I actually want to see, like a play, a ballet, or a classroom lecture. The flat world is not meant to accommodate people of different sizes – so we must be creative in how we create levels, so we can see what is going on.

I have sympathy for Zacchaeus and his short stature. I know what it is like to have to run to get ahead, weave through crowds, or arrive early just so I can see what is going on. And even then I have to hope that no one blocks my view. In today’s gospel lesson we have Zacchaeus running ahead to climb a sycamore tree along the path that Jesus was going to pass through. He knew that if he wanted to see that he had to go above (literally) and beyond what the others around him had to do in order to just have the chance of catching a glimpse of this man he had heard so much about. Visualize the courage this took – here is a grown man climbing a tree. When is the last time you saw this happen? He had to set aside his own pride and thoughts of how others would perceive him in order to maybe see what others were blocking him from seeing.

I have to believe that Zacchaeus in all of his creative maneuvering never expected Jesus to see him. When you are short you get used to being invisible. No one seems to care about obstructing your sight or making sure that you don’t get lost or trampled. Other then those who love you. And who would expect this stranger, this Jesus, to care about someone like Zacchaeus, a man who had trampled over the human dignity of his fellow Jews through his tax collecting procedures. And yet. And yet, Jesus stopped. Jesus looked up into the tree and beckoned Zacchaeus down, telling him that he was coming to his house to stay that day.

Someone saw Zacchaeus and extended an invitation that was rooted in love. I can just imagine Jesus’ eyes as he speaks these words to Zacchaeus – and I imagine that they are similar to the eyes full of relief, joy, and genuine care of my friends who had thought they had lost me in a crowd, only to find that I was right at their side. Zacchaeus thought he was just another person in a sea of faces, but to Jesus he was loved. He was special. He was not ignored.

Of course, the crowd wasn’t too happy with this. They couldn’t see what Jesus did in Zacchaeus, and from their places of high and mighty stature, they rebuke Zacchaeus, and inadvertently Jesus, saying, “He made the wrong decision. He’s going to the house of one who isn’t important.”

And then Zacchaeus did the unthinkable. He looked into the eyes of Jesus, this person who took the time to seek him out and see him, and made a promise – he would give away half of his possessions to the poor – those that others refuse to see or take care of. Further, he would pay back those whom he had defrauded; four times the amount that he had wrongfully taken from them. And Jesus blessed his response saying that salvation has come to his house today.

Blocking from seeing. Taking time to notice those whom others have ignored. There seems to be this motif weaving through our scripture passage today that leads me to ask the following question: are you helping others see God’s love, or are you blocking their view?

I have to believe that if we have the love of Christ is our heart that we would not intentionally try to keep another person from experiencing this divine Belovedness. But there also seems to be this mentality in our churches today where we are trying so hard to keep our own eyes on Christ that we try to keep the gift all to ourselves. We are missing this great link that Zacchaeus shows us, he sees the humanity of others because someone took the time to see it in him. If we try to keep Jesus to ourselves, then we stop the love of Christ from transcending boundaries into the lives of those around us.

There is one church for every 1, 841 people in Manhattan. And yet the church isn’t reaching out to seek those outside of its wall because it is trying to protect itself. Protect itself from the outsiders, the marginalized, the people with question, and who want to try something new or do something a different way. In trying to maintain the status quo the church has put on blinders to the needs of others. As a result, according to the research laid out in the book, Unchristian, the community of Christ is seen as hypocritical, forcing people to salvation, antihomosexual, overly involved in politics, judgmental, and secluded. Please listen to me, this does not mean that people do not like the message of Christ, it just means that the church is blocking the view of people from experiencing grace and love in a culture where not everyone is as brave as Zacchaeus to climb up into a tree to just catch a glimpse. I think the title of another work about the emerging generation in the United States sums it up nicely, “They like Jesus, but not the church.”

We need to get out of God’s way. When we try to push our own agenda and label it as God’s we block people from seeing grace. When we attempt to get bodies in the pews just to fill them up, we are not acting out of Divine love. When we tell people who they are instead of seeing them as God does, we block mercy. And when we keep to ourselves instead of letting Christ work through us to transform the world, we block hope. And when we insist on blocking people we spiritually die, because we are not breaking open places for others to experience what we have in our lives, the radical love of Christ.

Christian monastic and activist, Shane Claiborne, tells of the following: Whenever someone tells me they have rejected God, I say, “Tell me about the God you’ve rejected.” And they describe a God of condemnation, of laws and lightening bolts, of frowning gray-haired people and boring meetings. I usually confess, “I too have rejected that God.”

Jesus took time to seek out and save the lost. In fact that was what he was sent to earth to do. To find those that society had pushed aside and tell them that they are loved. Albright-Bethune, I ask you are we radically loving those society has pushed aside or are we blocking those around us from seeing the light of Christ? Amen.