But this is not just a clerical exhortation. Like
so many of the phrases in the Liturgy, it shows how our worship grew directly
out of the life of the Church described in the Scriptures themselves. For it is
the injunction of St Paul himself, encouraging his not long ordained helper and
successor St Timothy, as we have heard in today’s Epistle. (I Timothy 4.9-16) “Until I arrive,” he
says, “give attention to the reading, to exhorting, to teaching”.
It is just as well that St Paul advises us to be
attentive, because the Epistle and the Gospel, at first glance, seem to be
saying opposite things. In the Epistle, St Timothy’s example is to be one of
love, faith and purity in what he says and how he lives his life. Yet in the
Gospel, the example of salvation we are given is a man reviled for what he
does. (Luke 19.1-10) Note carefully
that nowhere in the Gospel does St Luke say that Zacchaeus actually was an
extortionist and defrauder, just that his job had made him rich. In the thinking of the time, a person’s wealth
is seen as a sign of God’s blessing on their righteousness; we still madly
re-invent God as the One Who will bestow success if we pray, or believe, or act
right, and we still try to strike bargains with God for benefits in return for
good conduct. But Zacchaeus is assumed to be corrupt and blamed for his wealth
by his fellows Jews, because the office he holds and the business he conducts serve
an occupying power that is pagan. He is called a sinner because he is the agent
of sinful Roman pagans.
Zacchaeus, who St Luke tells us has come looking
for God, will have seen his fortune, however, as a gift from God. In truth,
Zacchaeus knows he is rich, but unfulfilled. It is his spiritual emptiness that
turns his heart to the Lord. The people’s contempt for him as an enemy
collaborator, however, has a veneer of self-righteousness because of the
religious dimension. And so he stands before you accused of sin. But really, it
is his neighbours who are jealous, envious of what he has.
They have no cause. For, because Zacchaeus desires
to look upon the Lord, and because of an open-hearted that eagerly responds to
the loving call of Jesus to receive Him, he gives half his possessions away. The
bitter and righteous did not attract this out of him, and they have nothing
positive to say. But salvation is seen shining in generosity out of a man who
has been moved not by condemnation but inspired by the sight of Jesus - the
Glory of God in a Man Alive, as St Irenaeus says, adding that the life of man
is the vision of God. (Adversus Haereses, IV, 20, 7).
In The Idiot,
Dostoyevsky has Prince Myshkin admiring the portrait of Nastassya, whose
reputation is tarnished. He is asked why he appreciates such beauty, and he
replies that a face like that is beautiful because there is suffering in it.
One of those nearby is having none of it. She says, “Beauty like that is bold.
That kind of beauty could turn the world upside down.” In the end, Prince
Myshkin’s instinct is to be merciful and to see that the visual beauty he first
admired comes not from rectitude, or even from moral conversion, but out of
suffering that has turned a person inside out so there is nothing left, a
beauty to which the Christlike response can only be forgiveness and
unconditional love. Thus the theme of Dostoyevsky’s tale - after all the
erratic behaviour and betrayal, the suffering, testing and forbearance, the
brokenness and yet the desire for wholeness and purity of love - is famous:
“Beauty will save the world”.
Look at Zacchaeus as Christ did, like Prince
Myshkin looked at Nastassya. Look not for the sinner, but the beauty of a soul
whose suffering has changed its heart. Let us be attentive to the reading. In
the Epistle, St Paul tells a St Timothy who is evidently struggling to command
respect and teaching authority, “Let no one look down on your youth.” Now see
the paradox of the Gospel: Jesus comes by the tree and looks up at Zacchaeus.
The Son of Man is drawn to the man in the sycamore and desires to commune with
him.
Where else have we noticed this? Think of
Zacchaeus in the tree again. See what Jesus saw: “a man despised and rejected,
a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah
53.3) Think back to the words we so often sing at the Liturgy, the first
words that Jesus taught for all to hear, words that Zacchaeus had come to hear
for himself: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven.” (Matthew 5.3). Think of
Dostoyevksy’s Christ-figure, the “Idiot” prince, looking up at the picture of
that beautiful face, not despising its low reputation but seeing a suffering soul
in a beautiful light as it desires nothing more than to cast off its burden,
the “ancestral condemnation” of which we sang in today’s Troparion. (Resurrection Troparion, Tone 4)
Now look at the icon of this Sunday. We see Christ
pointing at Zacchaeus up in a sycamore. But he is really indicating the Tree
that He Himself will one day likewise climb, the Tree to which He will be
fixed, as another “Man of Sorrows, despised and rejected, acquainted with
grief”. It is an image of the mystery of the Crucifixion. Jesus is drawn to Zacchaeus on the sycamore by the beauty of the
longing emptiness in the rich tax collector’s life. He indicates that He will
likewise “draw all people” to Himself when He is lifted on the Cross, that the
beauty of the image of God in man will be transfixed and disfigured, but only
thus reveal the beauty that will save the world. Zacchaeus sees his own poverty
of spirit and looks to see the Kingdom. The gaze of Jesus finds him and makes
him into the very picture of salvation. He recognises the Tree that will claim
His life, yet gives to Zacchaeus up in the sycamore not a pre-emptive revenge
but the Resurrection itself. As we have considered Zacchaeus arising from the
ground into the tree, from our own perspective in today’s Kontakion we have
sung, “God has raised out of bondage the children of the earth.” (Resurrection Kontakion, Tone 4). So let
us be attentive. The central figure of this Sunday’s gospel is not Zacchaeus,
but the Tree, the Cross. The central event is not so much repentance but moving
from a living death to Christ’s Resurrection.
Before we leave the scene that Christ has set,
almost in passing, there is something more to dwell upon. In showing us the
Tree of salvation as the sign of victory, Jesus has shown not only His future,
but the state of our lives. The image He has planted is not of Himself on the
Cross, but an inadequate, imperfect, struggling, anguished soul – Zacchaeus,
you, me - who has turned to Him in exhaustion, emptied of all that earth has to
offer. You will remember that, after St Peter and the apostles professed their
faith that Jesus is the Lord’s Anointed, in the light of King Herod the Tetrarch’s
menaces, Jesus had said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9.23). So Zacchaeus is shown professing his faith in the
Christ, taking up Christ’s Cross by mounting the sycamore tree. Jesus saw his
suffering, his broken spirit, his desire to see the Kingdom. This is where
Christ will see it in us too.
The throngs of people who crowded round Jesus were
really hiding themselves behind their show of righteousness. Jesus knew their faith
was fickle, that it would let Him and them down when put to the test. We were
thinking earlier that, when they turned on Zacchaeus, they were jealous. But
really they were hypocrites. They condemned Zacchaeus for working for the
Romans and doing well out of the proceeds. But they were no different. They
traded with the pagans and prospered; the economy depended on it. Their priests
and kings were happy to operate a system with the foreign “sinners”, as long as
it gave them earthly power. Their influence even reached throughout the empire.
But Zacchaeus alone had the courage to put himself upon the Tree and ask to see
instead the Kingdom of God. He was despised not for being a sinner, or on
account of the motive of jealousy. He was despised because he attracted the
attention of mercy and the sheer beauty of the Lord. The people hiding in numbers
in the crowd wanted to see Jesus; they were less keen for any light to shine on
them, so that Jesus could see who and what they were. Their cover of hypocrisy
was blown. “God has shattered the gates of Hades,” we sang. (Resurrection Kontakion, Tone 4).
When St Paul encourages Timothy, he says, “Do not
neglect the gift in you.” He tells him to be attentive to the reading, and to
put love, faith and purity into words, and those words into practice. Let us be
attentive to this. For in our case it means putting ourselves on a Cross daily
to seek a greater sight of God’s Kingdom, so that there the Lord will find us
exposing how poor in spirit we are without Him, how nothing in the world brings
us lasting fortune or happiness, and how whatever inner beauty we have has come
from hurt and adversity, from unsatisfied longing to see the Lord as He passes
along our way. From our place on the Tree, like our Lord before us – let us be
attentive, as He is raised up -, daily we see Jesus in His transfigured, agonising,
crucified glory seeing us in our suffering and our need to be completely free through
turning to Him. And we find that it is on our
Tree that what comes forth from us is the gift in us that is not to be
neglected. Forth come, from us like Jesus, generosity, adoration, goodness,
love, full self-offering, forgiveness without reserve, salvation and mercy that
never end. This is what it is to be the one the Lord finds; this is how His
beauty will save the world.
