One of the steps in preparing a sermon which they have taught me in
seminary is playfully called Interrogation…
There are many important steps, of course…
(prayer,
choosing a translation,
more prayer,
discussing the text in community,
more prayer…)

But one of the very important early steps is Interrogation.
It can be just as intense as it sounds.
We learn to sit the Bible in a chair alone in a darkened room,
then we point a bright, hot spotlight its face,
and we bombard it with questions
as we slam our hands on the stainless steel table between us
(Where were you on the night Jesus was betrayed…?!)
Ok, that’s only about 25% of the real picture.
Namely, the bit about the questions.
In sermon prep, to interrogate the text is to ask it everything that seems
fruitful to ask.
Every question that comes to mind.
No matter how goofy or even irreverent it may seem.
I have been taught that this step of Interrogation is especially
important when we are working with a passage that already feels
familiar. A story we have heard (or sung) in Sunday School a hundred
times perhaps…

(I didn’t grow up with many of the classic Sunday School songs many of you might have, but I think a know tune…Zacchaeus was a wee little man…”You come down!”)
Did you notice that? Do you remember singing that line with a finger wag
and a scolding voice? Have you ever wondered about that moment?
What did Jesus’ voice really sound like when he called to Zacchaeus?
What other question can we bring to Interrogate this text?
Here are a just few of the many that came up for me…
What does it matter that Zacchaeus is a ‘tax collector’ / ‘and rich’?
Why has the author bothered to include the species of the tree?
How does Jesus know Zacchaeus’ name?
IS Zacchaeus really guilty of all the crowd seems to assume he has done?
And what don’t I see in this story because my cultural lens is 2,000 years
and a few continents removed from its original setting?
With help from a scholar named Kenneth Bailey—an American who lived,
wrote, and made his home in the Middle East for over four decades—I
would like to offer a few answers and several more questions.
Let’s begin with the conditions of life in the city of Jericho when Jesus came
through.
The people of Israel were living under the oppressive thumb of a vast
imperial machine called Rome—in which any notion of a healthy middle
class had been obliterated.
Think: 3% of the population were extremely rich,
while the vast majority lived in extreme poverty.
Close to 1⁄3 of the population lived below a subsistence level.
Meaning that each day, they didn’t know if there would be enough bread,
or clean water, or warmth, to help them survive to the next.

So, Zacchaeus. A tax collector— a Jew employed by the occupying
empire. Is very rich. Beautiful home. A table dripping with pomegranates
and filet mignon and organic kale.
Though his height makes him physically vulnerable,
his position has betrayal, and abuse of power written all over it.
This is not the way of tzedaka—righteousness.
Zacchaeus has a great deal of financial power, but he also lives under the
heavy shadow of his community’s judgment: He is unclean.
Around town, the story about Zacchaeus would have been familiar.
He’d heard it himself a hundred times…
Aide to the oppressor.
Friend of the bullies.
Wee little scoundrel.
A sure target for taunting, if only the opportunity would present itself.
“Most Likely” to get quietly shoved around in the crowded hallways of
his highschool, when the Roman guards aren’t looking.
No wonder he ran—
ahead of the throng that had gathered to welcome Jesus.
No wonder he scurried up the trunk of that Sycamore tree.
Into the dark, shaded haven of its thick branches and broad leaves.
Quiet and safe,
and (because of city ordinances)
planted on the outside of town.
The text gives us every reason to believe that Zacchaeus is both
trying to get a good view of Jesus
and hoping he will not be seen.
But of course, he is seen.
And the text hints that maybe it is the crowd who sees him first.
Perhaps it is their taunting that helps Jesus learn his name.
Look! There’s that weasel, Zacchaeus! Caught up a tree!
(Dignified, powerful Middle Eastern men do not climb trees…)
AH. This would be their moment.
Insults are hurled up into the branches.
The dark shadow of humiliation thickens.
The crowd is hungry for justice.
Imagine their bubbling glee as Jesus approaches the scene.
Oooo. Now he’s gonna get it.
Time for one of Jesus’ famous ‘Woe to the rich…’ speeches.
Or a nice, juicy public audit.
(slam hands down)
Ok, pal, let’s see those tax returns.
That’s an awfully nice boat you’ve got back there…
Maybe the crowd is hoping for an interrogation.
But instead…
Jesus welcomes the hostility of the crowd on himself
by doing something terribly unexpected.
He has passed through Jericho, which means he has passed up offers of
hospitality from the community’s most prominent and respectable
members.
And he stops here? With this guy?
He invites himself (to dinner) / (over for some of that nice, juicy kale).
Jesus calls Zacchaeus back down onto the ground and into the light.

Let’s talk about light.
The reading we heard this morning from 1 John
implores Christ followers to walk in the light,
to bring our sins out of their dark hiding places before God,
who is described as light.
So, let’s talk about light…
If you have ever attempted to
get a decent photo of your family
during golden hour on an autumn evening,
or tried on a pair of pants
under the cold fluorescents of a K-Mart fitting room,
you know that some light can flatter us
and some light has the remarkable ability to illuminate every flaw.
There is the gentle glow of birthday candles
in a room full of family and friends.
And there is the hostile spotlight of interrogation.
Have you ever been in a spotlight before?
Perhaps not in a police station, but on a stage…?
When you are in a spotlight, what can you see?
Not much, really. Only yourself.
Everyone else in the room is in the darkness, hidden from view.
Is that what it feels like to walk in the light of God?
What if it’s more like…
the clear, natural light of a Saturday afternoon in the Wildcat Hills.
I went for a nice, long hike yesterday—
(a necessary step in the sermon prep process,
which they really should teach in seminary).
After hours hunched over the retinal glow of my laptop this week,
the sunlight breaking through the pines,
warmed my face and restored my soul.
As I walked in the light, I could see myself.
I could see my family—my children chucking pine cones,
other hikers and their pets on the trail.
I could see growth and life and all kinds of feathered and furry creatures.
As I walked in the light,
I was reminded of the biblical image of the first light of creation—
spoken into existence by the voice of God,
who then looked upon everything and said: Tov Me’od. Very Good.
This is the same voice that calls Zacchaeus down from the tree.
The same light in which Zacchaeus is called to walk.
Not a lonely spotlight of shame,
but a kind and truthful light by which all of us
can re-read the stories we think we know about ourselves.
Failure.
Scoundrel.
Fraud.
(‘reading’…) No. What does it say there? … Very Good.
I must stay at your house today.
In this happy light, something remarkable happens.
When called to emerge from his own hiding place,
Zacchaeus is compelled to reckon with the harm he has done.

He asks himself some hard questions.
He takes an honest inventory
of what his life of privilege has actually cost his neighbors.
He pledges to do better with his resources,
to seek repair in his community.
If we walk in the light… we will have fellowship with one another.
Friends, ( ~ despite the clouds in the sky)
I hope you can feel the light of God warm on your faces today.
I hope you can see yourselves and each other
with the same crystal clarity of our Creator (Very Good).
And I wonder,
as you find yourself revealed and held in the kind light of God,
what are the honest questions you are compelled to ask?
What harm needs to be owned?
What have your words or lack of words, the recent use of your energy and
resources… What have they cost? Who have they cost?
What needs to be repaired?
As you ask, as we ask—may we, like Zacchaeus,
be reminded and assured
of our belonging in the family of God’s promise.
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He calls by name.
Zacchaeus’ name, by the way—it means Innocent. Clean.
This is the name by which Jesus calls him into the light.
Friends, as we fall in step, as we walk in the light. May we hear our own
names spoken with the same kindness. May we be seen and found. Amen.