Homily from St. John Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg PA, Sunday Feb. 5, 7532 (civil calendar Feb. 18, 2024)
Zacchaeus was the chief publican, and Jesus took him prisoner, as the Blessed Theophylact notes in his commentary on today’s Gospel. As chief publican, Zacchaeus made his wealth through the tears of the poor, Theophylact notes. How common that is today still. Publicans then in the Roman Empire were tax collectors but also historically public contractors, making profits from government contracts, including tax farming. Often that work was overseen by limited liability share-holding corporations, not unlike corporations today. It was the entwined power of government coercion and corporate greed that made publicans such as Zacchaeus, the chief in the region of Jericho, rich. Yet Zaccheaus was, as Theophylact notes, captured by Jesus. He sought to see Him, Who He was, and as he was short he climbed up into a sycamore tree, which in that part of the world would have been more like a low-lying mulberry tree here.
Jesus seeing him in the tree called him down and went to his house. Indeed, Zacchaeus is mentioned in the prayers for house blessing. For like him we should run to have hour homes blessed by the presence of Christ at this time of year after Theophany when we look toward Lent. The rich and influential Zacchaeus humbled himself by climbing a tree, highlighting his small stature while making a spectacle of himself in being in effect a would-be public fan of Jesus. Yet receiving Jesus joyfully to his dwelling meant more than just being a sudden fan. It in a sense prefigured the Eucharist, in which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the dwelling place of our body. Zacchaeus was never the same man. He said he bestowed half his goods to the poor, and would restore fourfold that which he had taken falsely from any man. Although others murmured at Jesus for going to the house of such a man, Jesus said salvation is come to his house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Zacchaeus surrendered his position of wealth and power not only to help the poor and those whom he had cheated but, according to Church tradition, to follow the Apostle Peter, and himself to become later Bishop of Caesarea in the early Church. He had become a disciple of the Gospel, as Theophylact notes, for he loved his neighbor more than Himself. For the Great Commandments had their origin in the Old Testament and include loving our neighbor as ourself. But Jesus added to this that we should love one another as He loved us, reminding us that no greater love is there than for a man to give His life for His friends, as He gave His for us. To love our neighbor more than ourselves is what Zacchaeus shows us. And this is the gateway to the Lenten Triodion, the liturgical period that begins next week with the three Sundays that form the front porch to Great Lent, so to speak. They all begin in a sycamore tree.
Now Zacchaeus proved himself a son of Abraham through his righteous faith and through his generosity or freeness shown to the poor and those he had wronged, even though Zacchaeus had worked for and made his fortune from the Gentiles of the Roman Empire. “Giving up on himself” became his freedom. Now salvation has come to his house and he is a son of Abraham, Jesus says, not by his biological ancestry but by his likeness to Abraham in character. God’s promise to Abraham’s seed extends in the New Testament to the Gentiles, the Church as the continuation and renewal of Israel as potentially including all, even former chief publicans like Zacchaeus. He climbed up the tree to be able to see beyond all the hectic worldly business that had engulfed his life heretofore. That tree became to him the Cross of His Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, Whom ultimately he came to serve as one of the first Bishops of the Church. He climbed up the Cross and then came down from the Tree of Life as an Apostle.
Like Abraham going out from the land of his father, Zacchaeus leaves behind his old life. He went out of himself and changed, Theophylact notes. The Byzantine Orthodox commentator also suggests that the fourfold payment that Zacchaeus gives to those he has wronged can be taken as symbolizing the activation of what the Fathers of the Church call the four universal virtues in his life. These are the virtues of Courage, Prudence, Righteousness or Contemplation, and Self-Control.
Notably, Zacchaeus according to tradition, went from Jericho, a center identified with the establishment of the old Israel, to serve as bishop of nearby Caesarea, a center of Roman rule in the region and a port that served as a gateway to the Roman world. In that city occurred what is sometimes called a kind of second Pentecost for the Gentiles, in the conversion of the Roman Cornelius the Centurion. The city, formerly home to a splendid winter palace of Herod and to Pontius Pilate’s headquarters, became another avenue for the Church of the New Testament to reach the world. It has reached us here in the middle of Pennsylvania in the 21st century. With Zaccheus we can say, adapting the words of an old song, “Love was out to get me, that’s the way it seemed, disappointment haunted on my dreams. Then I saw your face, now I’m a believer.” Like the former chief publican, let’s climb a tree above the hubbub of our daily lives to behold Christ and humble ourselves in our public devotion to Him, tumbling down humbly to receive our Lord in our dwelling with joy, and changing our lives to be an Apostle in the Orthodox Church’s mission to America today. Unworthily it has happened even to me the sinful priest. The Lord will call to us and sup with us, and we with Him, as God willing we shall in His Eucharist today.
Glory to God for all things!
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The Reading from the
Holy Gospel according to Luke,
§94 [19:1-10]
At that time, Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who He was, but could not for the press of the crowd, because he was short in stature. And he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said unto him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.’ And he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that He had gone to be the guest of a man who was a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore to him fourfold.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘This day is salvation come to this house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.’