Some of you may remember the Sunday School song about Zacchaeus. Catchy – very singable – a triumph of Christian education, since it managed to get a gospel story planted in us. But what is this story about?  I grew up with that song rattling around in my brain, and discovered I know nothing about the story it pretends to tell.

First – why would Zacchaeus care? He’s a cog in the government system. His role gives him a kind of status and maybe even power. Here is a guy (if I understand the situation correctly) who could operate legitimately in the halls of power and in the streets. He was known – maybe feared a little. He stood out from the crowd socially. A useful convert from among the Jewish people who found his place in the Roman system. What does he need of Jesus?

We are led to imagine that Zacchaeus needs nothing. The brief biography that the gospel provides gives us just what our prejudice requires. Chief tax collector. Very rich. But then the gospel moves us in a direction that we’d rather not go, for Zacchaeus is a seeker too. To us it seems like he needs nothing. But he knows better than we – and this day, his curiosity is directed towards Jesus.

Now in our experience, when rich or powerful people want something, what do they do? They go get it – don’t they. They use their wealth and influence to jump to the front of the line – to convince the object of their curiosity to join them for a private audience. They beckon, and astonished, we oblige. Zacchaeus behaves differently – and this is our first clue that his story is about more than we imagine.

The appearance of Jesus – a wandering man of wisdom – stirs something in this tax collector. And rather than force his way to the front (as his office may have allowed – who in their right mind is going to refuse this guy a front row seat?) he climbs a tree. Zacchaeus wants – and gets – a bird’s-eye view. We are about to discover that we, along with the crowds (and perhaps the gospel writer) have misjudged our man Zacchaeus.

The final nail in his biographical coffin? He’s a sinner.  He holds a position feared/hated by everyone. He is very rich. And a sinner. No song that we sing can scrub that image from our minds, because  we know all about sin and sinners. Don’t we?

Where language is concerned, we are often undone by the best of intentions. Translators faced with this particular ancient Greek word (occurring around 45 times in the New Testament) settled on “sin/sinful/sinner” as an appropriate rendering. For it does bear the weight of an action (or a legacy of choices) that is not ideal. The sense of the Greek word however is of having fallen short – missed the mark. The baggage we bring to this particular English word (having used it for particularly religious purposes for over a thousand years) often overwhelms us.

In the Judaism of the New Testament, Zacchaeus was someone who has ‘missed the target’ set for any observant Jew. His vocation required him to honour something other than God. Not ideal, but not entirely uncommon either. (The power of this three-letter word in our imaginations cannot be overstated)

The Zacchaeus we think we know – from the Scripture and the cute, catchy song – has become a pantomime villain. But he is a complex and very relatable human being. A curious, generous and (it turns out) genuine child of God. Caught by first impressions and mis-guided expectations. His encounter with Jesus (who refuses to judge him for any of his behaviour, by the way) reveals what we have always missed. Here is a man whose character includes surprising layers of goodness and grace. Jesus helps us to see a different person that the one so long represented – and we must figure out what to do with that information.

There are always going to be people in our lives – in our communities and in the world – who have earned our contempt through attitudes and actions that are very difficult to excuse. I cannot pretend that all of that can be excused. I will – reluctantly –  concede that many of my first instincts about some of those people have been dead wrong. We all read books by the cover – and our instincts prove us right just often enough that we forget how ineffective that can be.

The most difficult thing about following Jesus is in recognizing the things that Jesus can reveal – both in us and in the people around us.

We don’t know how long Zacchaeus may have been waiting or longing to make his announcement about restitution. We don’t know how long he may have been torn between his work and his basic humanity. Jesus reminds us that even this ‘sinner’ is a child of Abraham, which means he is, like it or not, loved and cherished by God.

Every time we make a decision about someone else in our midst, this story reminds us that God stands there too – loving, caring, forgiving and waiting…Waiting for us to recognize the struggle in our opponent (and the struggle within ourselves) that keeps us from being all that we might be in the light of God’s love.

Sinner, we say (dismissively) as if our judgement was all that mattered. But Jesus recognized one whose aim was off – who simply needed another shot at the target. Not a ‘sinner’ to be reviled, but a ‘misser’ who needs coaching or guidance to find the way again.

I can’t hope to untangle over a thousand years of linguistic baggage, but I can assure you that Jesus’ reaction to sinners is gracious, gentle and so much more appropriate than ours. This alone would make Jesus worthy of our attention and adoration. This would be reason enough to ‘follow Jesus.’

I do hope that the lessons offered in Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus might be enough to transform the whole sorry lot of those who would call themselves followers of Jesus. I pray that the grace that Jesus helped Zacchaeus display might be found in more of us…better still, in all of us.

With God’s help, may it soon be so.