Do you have memories of tree climbing?  I bet most of you do.  My dad had a peach tree we would climb, especially during peach season.  The peach tree wasn’t really a climbing tree and my father was quick to let us know that he didn’t want his precious blossoms broken off.  We had two great climbing trees in the front yard.  They were acorn trees.  We made forts in those trees and spied on people and yelled at them too.  Sometimes I went up in the tree to hide, to be alone, especially if I was in a bad mood, sad or upset.  I also remember having to climb a couple of trees to get away from dogs.

          My father used to take us to the Rose Parade in Pasadena every New Year’s Day.  I remember the first time he stuffed me up in an old oak tree so that I could see.  I was a little embarrassed, a little scared, a little excited.

          Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see God.  Zacchaeus was a feisty rich man that nobody much liked.  Kind of like Ross Perot.  Except he was a tax collector.

My mom and dad were audited one year.  The agent may have been a perfectly kind and wonderful man, but my father dreaded his visit.  I am sure that on the list of people you want visiting your house, even if you have been honest on your tax form, IRS Agent  is right up there with Barry Manilow and the Grim Reaper.  And we pay taxes to our own democratic government and we even understand the benefit of paying taxes.

In the first century Palestine, tax collectors collaborated with the foreign occupier, Rome.  The money collected went to Rome who did not even have a legitimate or just claim to be there, much less to be extorting tribute.  Tax collectors received their wage by extracting more from the peasants than what Rome required.  And in small villages where people have lived all their lives, Zacchaeus could not be anonymous like today’s current IRS agents.

So Jesus is coming into Jericho and there is a crowd.  Zacchaeus can’t see, so he runs ahead and climbs a tree.  Jesus comes along and yells, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I want to stay at your house today."  Se he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.  All who saw it began to grumble.  "He is gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner."

Whenever the crowds are upset with Jesus in the gospels, it is because Jesus is extending grace to someone.  What if Zacchaeus was gay instead of a tax collector?  How about a gay tax collector?  Now wouldn’t that put our conservative Christian friends in a tizzy?  You can just hear them now.  "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner."  Jesus knows how to pick his places to stay.  Not only would it be a nice house, it would be clean and well decorated.  Queer Eye for the Jesus Guy. 

But this is too easy in Berkeley.  We must picture the eternally cool, politically correct Jesus walking on the UC Campus or down Telegraph avenue, long hair, toga and a pair of Mexican sandals.  There up in the tree is Martha Stewart and Colonel Oliver North.  "Hey Martha and Oliver, come on down, I must stay your house."

Let’s make it worse:  Rush Limbaugh.  "Rush, come on down, I must stay at your house."

"That is more than I can handle.  No way I am going to follow, let alone worship somebody who hangs out with Martha, Oliver or Rush.  No way in Hell.  I don’t care if he is Jesus, son of God.  To hell with him and his friends.  That is enough to make me become atheist or pagan, or align me with those who put him on the cross, "Pontius Maximus."

How am I going to write myself out of this dilemma?  Zacchaeus climbs a tree.  Do Martha, Oliver or Rush think there is anything else more to like than their own brilliance and wealth?  Check the facts.  In the Gospels, Jesus offers grace to those with humility.  Both Oliver and Rush profess to be Christians.  "Talent on loan from God" is Rush’s slogan, but, as he spends his day ragging on the strange and the poor, does he understand that Jesus is a God of the poor and the outcast?  On loan from God to do what?  Where is repentance? Oliver is pure ego and self-assuredness.  Champion of the Roman Empire as if the empire were God itself.  North paid Zacchaeus to do his dirty work in Nicaragua.  "Where is repentance?" we might ask.  "Where is the tree climbing act of humility?"

But repentance comes after grace in this story.  We can’t get around that.  Thank God we can’t get around that.  Because the question is not "Will Martha or Oliver or Rush cling the tree to seek out God, but will we?"

Perhaps we are already in the tree.  The tree is a safe place.  A place that gives us a little distance from this person, from all the other persons, from those who might cast us out if they had a chance, if they knew it was us up there. "I will just cling up here and look at God from a safe distance.  She couldn’t possibly want me close anyway.  I will look at God from my intellectual tree.  From my political tree.  I’ll climb the social justice tree; after all, the end of the story is Zacchaeus making material restitution.  I’ll will climb my musical tree, my mathematics tree.  I’ll climb a redwood, an organic tree.  I’ll ride a tree in the ocean.  I hope for something more; there is some humility in me.  I am looking, but not too close.  This tree should keep me at a safe distance from relationship.

But it doesn’t.  God sees us up there and calls us down.  You see, God needs a place to stay and he wants to come into our home.  Jesus is not just somebody you go to look at, but somebody who wants an intimate relationship with you.  It is this relationship with the Spirit of all life and love that gives us the power to change.  We know all too well why such a relationship is objectionable, why good people have the right to be appalled.  But it is true none the less.  Jesus recognizes and calls us.  "Hey Anitra, Hey Fred, come on down, I want to stay at your house.  Hey Gloria and Bob, Shirley and Charlie.  Hey Andy and Dennis and Anna, Phoebe and David and Martha and Roy, come on down, I want to stay at your house.  Hey Max, come on down, I need a place to stay.  I want to stay with you."

Grace comes before repentance.  Can I really live in a new way?  Is this for real?  Is God’s love for real?  Yes, it is for real.  God does want to dwell with you and God’s grace does give you the power to change.  Zacchaeus, in humility, climbs a tree to look beyond himself toward God for the answers.  God calls him.  The he comes to step eight in the twelve steps:  "Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all."  He resolves to give half of what he has to the poor and to repay anyone he has cheated four fold.  "The son of Man comes to seek out and save the lost."