I know Zacchaeus. He's hopping around, trying to see over the heads
of the crowd, frustrated. He's heard about Jesus, rumors about a
prophet who eats with sinners and even invited a tax collector to
follow him. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, this chance to see
Jesus, and Zacchaeus can't see through the crowd.
I know Zacchaeus, because I am Zacchaeus. Finally at seminary, a once
in a lifetime opportunity, a chance to see Jesus…and instead I am
hopping around, trying to see over the heads in the crowd, unable to
see Jesus. Sometimes it's Old Testament. When the words "For unto us
a child is born, unto us a son is given", … are transformed from an
astonishing prophesy into Isaiah encouraging King Ahaz to stand firm,
hold out for help from the Assyrians.
It happens in ethics, two weeks studying process theology; everything
is part of God. In this model, God isn't powerful; God doesn't
intervene, but instead whispers possibilities. I look and look, and I
cannot see Jesus in the model.
It happens sometimes at my con ed placement, at the hospital. I know
I'm supposed to see Jesus when visiting the sick in the hospital. But
they don't look like Jesus. A patient shares that she is an
alcoholic, and bipolar, and cuts herself on her arms because she feels
empty inside and just wants to feel something, then I ask, "where are
you Jesus, I don't see you."
I look for Jesus with the older people in the geriatric ward. A few
seniors sit in the lounge. I turn off the tv and start singing old
hymns, What A Friend we have in Jesus, and patients shuffle out of
their rooms and join in the singing, not sure what is going on but
there's something familiar about Amazing Grace; maybe they also hope
to see Jesus.
This time I showed them pictures cut from old magazines.
They look at a picture of a boy with a baseball cap, and talked about
the games they played sixty and seventy years ago—they didn't play
baseball, they played stickball in the street. They kicked the can,
and they pretended to be cowboys and chased the Indians.
They look at a picture of a toddler in straw hat too big for his head.
Anna said, "He's working in the garden, that's why he has a straw
hat". Willie added, "That's his granddaddy's hat. He's wearing his
granddaddy's hat." They agree. That has to be granddaddy's hat.
Another picture--a girl on hilltop. The sun is shining, and she
stands with arms outstretched. They remembered summer days when they
held out arms and spun around and around until they were too dizzy to
walk. They remembered rolling down the hill, over and over, and then
afterwards being itchy from the grass.
We talked about how when a child smiles, you know that the child is
happy, and that makes everyone else happy. When a child is sad, you
can tell, and it makes you sad too. You can see straight through to
the inside of a child.
I asked them, where is God in this picture? Someone said, "God loves
the children." B.J. said, "That's what God sees when he looks at us.
God sees what we are really like, he sees us the way we are inside."
That's right, says Willie. He sees us on the inside. He loves us
just how we are, just like the children." I tell them about
Zacchaeus, climbing a tree, wanting to see Jesus.
I tell them about Zacchaeus, who leans out from a branch of a sycamore
tree trying to get a better view of Jesus. He's been working hard to
see Jesus, out of breath from racing to get ahead of the crowd,
scratched from climbing branches, eyes burning from late nights
studying, writing colloquy papers and just trying to see past the
crowd and understand what exactly is going on here…and Jesus, on his
way to Jerusalem, sees Zacchaeus the way he really is, a sinner in
need of a physician, a blind man longing to see, and most of all, a
son—no, a beloved son of Abraham, and Jesus calls out to him and says,
Come down. I've been looking for you.
