Why The Sycamore Tree?

Watch the video version of this sermon here!

            Hello and welcome (or welcome back) to Making Waves! Thank you so much for joining us this week as we continue to dive into the Word. We just wrapped up a series, and now we find ourselves in kind of a strange spot. For starters, it’s the end of the month, which is always a weird time to start a new series or to do anything new really. Not to mention that next Sunday is homecoming at the church which I am currently serving, so things are just kind of up in the air for the whole church family right now.

Normally, I like to prepare series at a time, and I like to connect sermons over the course of several weeks in order to allow for a deeper, more spread out message. But, due to the nature of this month and its crazy amount of Sundays, I am doing things a little bit differently than usual. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the lectionary, it’s a series of biblical texts that are clumped in a three-year rotation that are shared throughout the world. Similarly to the first sermon of October and World Communion Sunday, the lectionary puts churches all on the same pieces of scripture at the same time. I am quite skeptical in terms of this method, but doesn’t God like to use us at our most skeptical? It’s almost when we aren’t looking that God comes out of the woodwork and beats us over the head with His powerful message.

Anyway, without any more unnecessary look into my behind-the-scenes exegetical work, let’s dive into the Word today. We are going to be reading from the gospel of Luke, chapter 19, starting in verse 1 and reading to verse 10.

He (Jesus) entered Jericho and was passing through it. ² A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 

⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵ When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 

⁷ All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

⁸ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” 

⁹ Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

-Luke 19:1-10 (NRSV)

Will you pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together, be acceptable in Your presence, for You are our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Jesus knew his name.

We’ve all heard the cute songs about Zacchaeus. We’ve likely made finger puppets of him, danced around to his song, climbed trees with him in mind, giggled at his short stature. But, believe it or not, Zacchaeus is one of the characters of the Bible that I find the most relatable out of everyone else. We don’t get to learn much about Zacchaeus. Having a background in the field of movie production, it kills me how brief the details are in the Bible about so many of the characters that we encounter. But, being an improvisationalist, I love the brief nature, because I get to fill in the blanks.

We know from the text a few short factoids about Zacchaeus. We know that he is the leader of the publicans. He is the chief tax collector. We know from the rest of the gospel writing that the tax collector is not very loved or appreciated by the community, let alone the chief tax collector. Just moments earlier in the gospel of Luke, we read of the Pharisee praying in the temple, thanking God for not making him a thief, a murderer, or-worst of all- a tax collector! Yet, here he is, Zacchaeus: the head honcho of the most despised group of sinners in the town.

Not only is he hated due to his career, Zacchaeus is also LOADED! Stacks on stacks of cold hard cash. And this money likely comes from his lucrative and backwards job of taking money from other people in the town.

Then, finally, we all love our favorite fact about Zacchaeus, he’s a wee little man. I’m not sure if it’s just because of our culture’s love of adorable things, but people always love that Zacchaeus is so small.

So, this is what we know of Zacchaeus, and for those of you that know me well, you might wonder why I relate so much to Zacchaeus. First off, I’m 6 foot 4 inches tall, so I don’t really relate to the vertically-challenged wee little man. Second, I’m a pastor, so I wouldn’t say that I have the most despised job in town. And third, I’m a pastor, so we all know that I don’t have stacks on stacks of cold, hard cash.

So, what is it about Zacchaeus?

Let’s look back at the scripture. We see that Jesus is coming to the town of Jericho. Jesus was an absolute celebrity by this time and everyone wanted to see Jesus. But not Zacchaeus. No, Zacchaeus didn’t want to simply see Jesus, he desired from the depths of his heart to see who Jesus was. He wasn’t concerned with literally seeing Jesus’ cloak, or touching it for some form of healing. Zacchaeus was trying to see Jesus for who he really was. Some translations of the text don’t say that Zacchaeus was simply trying to see Jesus, but they say that he was seeking Jesus. He was trying to pursue this guy for more than just what he looked like or said, he wanted to know Jesus for what he was: the Messiah.

Aren’t we, also? Why else would we be here? Like the writer in Habakkuk, we see brokenness in this world, and so we try to seek Jesus. We see Jesus in the Bible, some of us may see Jesus in our day-to-day lives or in the kindness of others, but we truly want to seek Jesus. We want to find Him and know who this Jesus guy really is.

So, Zacchaeus desperately wants to see Jesus. He tries so hard to see the Savior but he cannot. He can’t see over the crowd. Zacchaeus can’t even manage to look over the crowd, because he’s just so short. Now, the Bible doesn’t give an actual description of Zacchaeus’ height here. We know he’s short enough that he can’t see over the crowd, but maybe that isn’t the point of the passage. The scripture states that his stature is an issue, but the problem is the crowd. The crowd completely overtakes Jesus and blocks him out entirely from Zacchaeus. The religious elite, the people who are seeing Jesus are so thrilled to see Jesus that they push the Savior away from the very people who are trying to seek Him.

Jesus didn’t come out swinging on a white horse, ten feet tall, brandishing a sword of the finest and sharpest steel. He came as one of us, as just a member of the crowd. He humbled himself to the point that He can’t even be seen over the crowds of people around Him. And the crowds around Him abuse His anonymity and push Him further from those who seek Jesus. Jesus can’t even be seen over the congregation filling the pews, over the televangelists proudly proclaiming the forgiving power of Jesus for the cheap price of ten easy payments of $49.95, over people on Facebook boasting that a vote for their candidate is a vote for Jesus Christ. Somehow the very people who love Jesus and crowd around Jesus distort and sometimes-even cover up Jesus so much to the point where Jesus can’t even be seen.

But Zacchaeus is desperate to find Jesus. He so wants to seek out the true message of Christ that he is looking around for the nearest thing to help him. And what does he find? A sycamore tree. Except not exactly. Due to a transliteration issue, the text says sycamore, but it’s actually fig tree, much more common in the middle-eastern part of the world. I can remember always getting stuck on that piece of scripture whenever I would read the Bible as a kid. How strange that Luke, who is not very known for his specificity, especially in regards to geography, would go so far as to describe the type of tree that Zacchaeus climbed? None of the gospels say that when Jesus is buried after the crucifixion that the rock seal of the tomb was a large limestone crafted from the hills of Jerusalem. No, it’s just a rock. So, why was the tree so important here? What on earth is Luke trying to tell us with this tree?

Many will tell you that it is because the fig tree has low sturdy branches that are easy to grab onto. Since we know Zacchaeus to be a small man, the low branches were quick to grab and easy to climb, but I think there may be a deeper meaning here, due to Luke’s intentional listing of this exact tree. It comes from the actual name of the tree.

There is symbolism in the name. There is actually irony in Zacchaeus’ climbing of the sycamore tree. As I mentioned earlier with the transliteration issue, the original language used was that the tree was a sycamine tree (also known as the mulberry fig tree), which rooted from the Greek word sukomorea. Now, this word shares it’s prefix suko- with another familiar Greek word of the Bible sukophantes, which means “defrauder or extortionist,” in other words, tax collector. This term sukophantes, which in modern language is known as a sycophant, comes from the Greek days where the export of certain fruits was banned. Certain individuals would sell the fruits and export them against the rule of the emperor and would normally charge far more for the fruit than should be fairly charged. So, these sycophants would be extorting not only the people whom they sold to, but also the government, which allowed them their role. And what fruit did they export illegally? Figs.

Now, you can take that how you want to take that. You can tell yourself that this guy is just making a crazy stretch, but I find some kind of incredible power that Zacchaeus so badly wants to seek the true nature of Jesus Christ that he climbs ups above – literally surmounting- the very symbol which so perfect represents his very own sin. Zacchaeus overcomes and climbs the branches of his own brokenness to seek Jesus, because he so badly wants to see Him.

Finally, Zacchaeus has pushed himself to the point where he has overcome his very nature and can finally see Christ, and so desperately wants now to seek and pursue Him. I’m sure that, of all people, Zacchaeus didn’t expect to be noticed. But Jesus points to Zacchaeus from the crowd and He says his name! I’ve always found this so powerful, Jesus sees this sinner and not only does He see him, but He calls out to him, and not only does He call out to him, but He calls him our by his name.

Then, Jesus does the unthinkable and invites Himself into the home of Zacchaeus for a meal. Zacchaeus is flattered and feels guilty and what does he do? He makes this bold claim. He says that I will give all my money that I extorted, and I will tithe and I will always stop and give that homeless man on the side of the road a bag of food, and I will make sure that I sing my hymns in church and close my eyes when I pray.

But then Jesus does what Jesus does best, He blows our minds once again and doesn’t. even. acknowledge. it. Zacchaeus has laid all of this out on the table that he wants to bring forth, and Jesus simply says that salvation has come to the house of Zacchaeus. Then Jesus says something that makes this really hit home with me. This final piece of our scripture is exactly why I love Zacchaeus so much.

After all of this has happened, this whole crazy story of Zacchaeus trying to so hard to seek Jesus, and after finally receiving approval from Jesus, who has just claimed salvation for Zacchaeus’ house, Jesus attributes the salvation to who? He doesn’t say, “Wow, Zacchaeus just did such a good job seeking me.” or “Well, Zacchaeus gave the most to the church, so he is clearly the most holy man around.” No, Jesus doesn’t mention Zacchaeus at all. He says that salvation has come to this house – why? – because the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost. After all this, Jesus was the one ALL ALONG who was looking for ZACCHAEUS. We tend to look at this story from the perspective of Zacchaeus, but the one who really made the journey wasn’t Zacchaeus, it was Jesus. Zacchaeus climbed a tree, but Jesus became human for our salvation and climbed His own tree and came to seek US.

Folks, we are too small to even see through the crowd. Our faith doesn’t even reach near the level needed. And the world will try everything in it’s power to overcrowd the message of Christ – to keep us from seeking Him. But PRAISE be to God, we don’t have to. Because He has already sought us out and saved us, and the good news is, the faith and love Jesus is sufficient, so that we don’t have to be.

Think about it.