A few years ago, Vance Packard wrote a book he called The Staus Seekers. From him and others like him we learn that having an office with a window and a carpet might be more important than getting a raise.

So what encouragement is there for those who make sandwiches for a cafeteria? Or who fill mail orders at Wards? Or who make boxes at Hoerner Waldorf? Or who are retired - whose job history is in the past?

Martin Luther King Jr. coined a word that says what we all hunger for: somebodiness. It seems to me that’s one way to describe what was driving Zaccheus, his urge to be somebody. Let’s use our imaginations to see how this ambition might have been spurring him on and what his encounter with our Lord did for him and what it might do for us.

I

I’m going to call this first part Dreams. I’m guessing the parents of Zaccheus must have built some castles in the air. I say that because of the name they chose for him. In their language, Zaccheus means, "The one who is pure and just."

I’m guessing Zaccheus might also have had some dreams, flights of fancy about overcoming his handicap. Luke says he was "small of stature." We know how cruel children can be when somebody’s a bit different. "Shorty" and "Runt" are just two of the names they hurl around. It wouldn’t have been strange if more than once Zaccheus might have muttered to himself, "You just wait; I’ll show you!" So he got into the tax business where he could show them because there was money in it. But of course he’d had to start at the bottom, say in some jerkwater village like Nazareth or Bethlehem, where he served as a clerk perhaps. We can imagine he had his dreams there too. "Some day I’m going to be the superintendent of taxes! And I’ll have my headquarters in Jericho. Wow! With all that fertile land and all those springs of water, think of the dates I can tax. And the oil from the balsam trees, oil they make into medicine - the balm of Gilead - oil worth twice its weight in silver, oil that scents the air like perfume. (I hear that’s how Jericho got its name: "the place of perfume.") Yes, that’s what I want to be, superintendent of taxes. At Jericho, where I can tax all those caravans from Syria and Arabia that cross the Jordan there. At Jericho, where I’ll be at the top of my profession!"

When we meet him that’s where he was. Whatever in those days corresponded to an office with a window and a carpet, Zaccheus must have had it.

He was really showing them now. They weren’t laughing at him any more; they were shaking in their boots. With the spears of the Roman army to back him up, he could stop any family in a donkey cart and bellow, "How much did this wagon cost you?" If they answered, "$20," he knew they were lying; it was probably closer to $40. "Don’t kid me. I’m going to assess it at $100 and what are you going to do about that? You owe me $30 in taxes." If they protested, "We don’t have it," he’d say, "Then I’ll lend it to you and the interest will be $10 a month." Zaccheus was doing all right. Not everyone will realize his or her dream but Zaccheus seems to have done it.

II

Or did he? The name-calling really hadn’t stopped. And nobody dropped in at his house just to visit. No one smiled at him on the street or called out a cheery "Shalom!" Not even his family was proud of him. Yes, they accepted the good living he provided - but that’s about all he was good for. They didn’t care to go out in public either, because people would spit on them because of him. It must have dawned on Zaccheus that all he had was money.

He has some cousins in Minnesota, who can afford salted peanuts and cold beer and herring cutlets in sour cream while they lounge in front of the TV. "It’s a good life," they’d say, in between the "Shaddups" and the door slammings. Long hours accumulating these goodies - at the neglect of persons and the disregard of graciousness.

Zaccheus may have other cousins in Minnesota too. Not all of them with as much money but like him, they look out for Number One. Constantly scheming how to make people do them favors. So they don’t have many dropping in on them either. But when somebody does, they latch on to them and tax their patience and make them feel guilty for not doing more. Nagging, complaining, being walled-off - is that how you become somebody? Surely they didn’t plan it that way. Did Zaccheus ever wonder about the aspirations his parents must have had for him when they gave him his name? "The one who is pure and just"? Look at him roosting on his perch. Did he ever think he’d be sitting in a sycamore tree, one of the richest men in the financial center of Judea, squatting there on a branch like an urchin of the street? No matter how short he might have been, this was a grown man. Luke doesn’t say what motivated Zaccheus but it must have been something pretty strong. Whatever it was that pushed him to scramble up that sycamore, I’m calling this second part "Shattered Dreams," the dull sense that his life was empty, that for all his striving to be a somebody, he was still a nobody. Was the crowd laughing at him? Let 'em laugh. He was sick and tired of himself. He’d heard of this man who befriended sinners. He wanted a peek at him.

III

Was he surprised! Jesus stopped and looked up and said, "Zaccheus!" (Jesus knew his name!) And then he said, "Be quick and come down." What for? Did Jesus also think it was silly for the superintendent of taxes in the top district of the country to be perching in a tree? If he’d said no more, you might assume that, but he went on to say, "For I must stay with you today." Never in the world could Zaccheus have summoned up the courage to have invited Jesus - so our Lord invites himself. This is the Gospel, that God comes to us. One of our hymns puts it this way:

I sought the Lord and afterward I knew
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No, I was found of thee. - SBH, 473

This is Christ standing at the door and knocking. This is what the prophet wrote when he was quoting God: "Before they call, I will answer." (Isaiah 65:24) This is like our baptism, where God claims us before we could acknowledge him.

The crowds murmured when they saw the rabbi walking home with the sinner. They shouldn’t have been surprised. The God of Israel had communed with Abraham the liar. (Abraham had passed off his wife as his sister a couple times; Sarah was good-looking and when he was in foreign territory, he was afraid they’d kill him and steal her if they knew they were married.) The God of Israel had blessed Jacob the thief, Rahab the harlot and David the adulterer. If the crowds around the sycamore tree had only known their own history, they wouldn’t have sniggered and hissed at this odd couple.

As Jesus and Zaccheus arrived at their destination, I can see the host rushing through the door and I can hear him hollering: "Mama! Think of it! We have company! And guess who!"

What did they talk about? The loneliness of a publican’s family? The Persian rugs bought with the bread of peasants? The deadend nothingness of their existence?

Whatever their conversation, the love of Christ transformed this poor fellow and enabled him to declare: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus affirmed his break with the past, saying: Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost.

I’m calling this third part "The Gospel Restores His Dream." He who was lacking in height had become nine feet tall. He who’d been a nobody now felt he was a somebody. He who’d been tromping on people now saw himself blessed to be a blessing. And so salvation - wholeness - had come to his house.

I’m assuming some of us - perhaps most of us - haven’t reached the top as Zaccheus had. I’m assuming some of us - perhaps most of us - still have the illusion (and I’m afraid the notion haunts me too much) that if we’d rise to the top, then we’d really be somebody. Zaccheus proves this "ain’t necessarily so." No matter on which rung we roost, would that we can find joy in knowing Christ has accepted us and that’s why we are somebody! We really are. Whether we solder the same connection on one piece after another, hour by hour, or make beds in a hotel day after day, or sweep floors or drive trucks or repair machinery - our status doesn’t come from the window view in our office or the carpet on the floor, but from the Lord who invites himself to our house and thereby gives us dignity undreamed of.

Lord, if you could find Zaccheus and help him find himself, then you can help us be somebody too.