Sermon – Preaching in Holes: Dinner with Zacchaeus
Ezekiel 34:8-16; Luke 19:1-10
8/16/2026
Hospitality has been an important part of our experience as humans for a long, long time, and where hospitality has faltered in us as a people, where we become less and less welcoming, we have suffered. If you don’t believe me, you were not around in 2020 with COVID. As social animals, we must be able to be hospitable and welcoming and together to be healthy. Hospitality was an ancient rule back long before the days of Jesus in the Mediterranean world, as is depicted in the recent adaption of The Odyssey. I cannot speak to other cultures, but it was true that when someone showed up at your home looking for food or shelter, you were obligated to provide. This was a law unto Zeus, the king of the gods, who in the stories would from time to time walk the world in human form. You never knew if that stranger at your door was a god in disguise, so treat all people well. The Bible actually makes the same point in Hebrews 13:2 when it says we are to show hospitality to everyone because we may have angels among us, even sitting across the table, without knowing it.
Hospitality is a profoundly important aspect of our human existence, and where we have the opportunity to be hospitable and welcoming, we should be eager, just like Zacchaeus was in Luke’s Gospel.
Unfortunately for so many of us, the story of Zacchaeus is little more than a children’s song. Of course, there is so much more to what is going on in this story than is obvious. Today, I want to consider what his eagerness to host Jesus and the rest of this story means for us and our story.
If you are about to face a true test, let’s say the final exam in your final class before being able to graduate from high school, you might be feeling a lot of things. I know I tended to feel pretty nervous about those big exams. Even with prep and review and study time, I don’t think there were many exams, if any, for which I actually felt completely prepared. Of course, if the teacher showed up at my house and said, “Let’s take the exam right now,” the only way I would be excited for that moment was if I were truly ready. I need for you to see that Zacchaeus was not nervous in the least about having Jesus over to his home. He had no forewarning, no inkling that this famous Jesus person would be selecting him for a home visit, but he was more than fine with the opportunity. Jesus even seemed to be heading through town, but encountering Zacchaeus seems to have caused Jesus to hold off and make a stay here. To be clear, Zacchaeus should have been pretty much the most hated person in the town. He should have been despised, the last person to visit, and you heard the grumbling of the others at Jesus’ decision. The only way that Zacchaeus could have flung wide his doors was that he was ready to receive Jesus. How is this possible?
Luke loves to show us Jesus’ concern and love for the worst people in society, those who would never have been accepted in normal society. The crowds’ word for Zacchaeus is the standard “sinner.” These were people who lived outside norms of Jewish law and customs (lump them in with beggars, the diseased, and prostitutes – the people you would not have over for Sunday dinner). Tax collectors made a living by overcharging for the goods going through their area. They enriched themselves on corrupt tariffs, and people expected to pay them off for their goods to make it along the highways. The Romans did not care so much how bad the tariffs were as long as they received their taxes. Zacchaeus was a CHIEF tax collector and should have been receiving a cut on top of a cut. He should have been a terribly corrupt person, but that is not what he says. He clearly points out that his practice is to give his goods to the poor and repay overpayment fourfold. That was a practice in the Jewish Law when one person wronged another – restitution. Pay attention to the fact that Luke has him speaking in the present tense as if this is what he already does. He is telling Jesus that even though he is a despised sinner as a tax collector, he is already seeking righteousness. Maybe he used to be corrupt, but he seems to be working for the straight and narrow, so-to-speak now. He is a sheep already looking to find the shepherd. This is truly remarkable. He is ready to meet Jesus because he believes Jesus is special.
I do not know if you have ever had the opportunity to meet someone famous or to at least be right there to see someone notable. My parents yanked me out of the my third grade class one day to go to a campaign stop for an aspiring candidate, Ronald Regan, in 1980. I was there listening to him at that campaign stop, but I could not tell you anything he said. More recently, my family nearly bumped into the King of England right outside of Buckingham Palace. We didn’t intend to, but that story is somewhat like Zacchaeus. We noticed a small crowd and asked. We heard the King would be coming out. We could have just moseyed along, but we decided to wait just to see what might happen. We did not even have to climb a tree as he drove out right in front of us, as close as I am to the choir. He did not ask to come over to our apartment.
Zacchaeus was a little different. He knew that Jesus was coming in advance. He heard the buzz on the street, the news rolling through town, but Jesus was not just some celebrity, not just some famous Messiah-wannabe in a long line of people looking for that celebrity. He actually knew Jesus was special. He needed to see Jesus specifically. His need to see Jesus drove him to embarrass himself in front of everyone. Grown men did not climb trees. No one respectable would hike up their clothes and climb. Just doing that would have underscored and underlined how short he was, too, another embarrassment. Zacchaeus did it anyway, just for the opportunity to see Jesus. He did not have the courage to approach him, but he did have the need to put his eyes on this man who had come to change the world and God’s people. He knew that Jesus had come to restore the family of God. He was seeking the Good Shepherd, even if he did not know how to name him. He wanted to find the Savior.
Maybe Zacchaeus wanted to see for himself that this Savior Messiah was actually a real person, that he was not just a dream or a rumor. I could imagine that in that day hopes could run high. People were desperate for help living under the boot of the Romans and the oppression of the religious leaders. There was no one guarding God’s sheep. There was no one tending to God’s flock. There was no one to secure the lives of the little people. There were no leaders left who would tend to the ones that the world forgets. That is the way it had been since before the time of Ezekiel. That is what Ezekiel says. Even in his day hundreds of years before Jesus, the shepherds were gone. No one good was left who could care for God’s people. This is a common identity for the king, but it is for anyone who dares to accept the responsibility. In Jesus’ day, there was no one. No one wanted to stand up for the children of God or to fight for them and their welfare.
If you want something done right, you do it yourself. I do not wholeheartedly buy into that saying in general, but it works for the passage from Ezekiel 34. There were no good shepherds for the people of God, so God provided directly. God came personally to be our shepherd, to be the Good Shepherd and get us back to where we need to be. It is mind boggling to entertain that idea that God might actually shepherd us directly. Of course, they had no idea in Ezekiel’s day or even in the days leading up to Zacchaeus’ day that God meant Jesus, but Jesus was different and he was special and he was worth seeing no matter the cost.
The question for us is whether he is still different, still special, and still worth the cost. Is the idea of welcoming the Son of God, our Good Shepherd, just another day or a life-changing moment. We meet Brother Jesus every day in the face of those around us, especially in those who we would never think of as Jesus. Of course, we will also meet him one day face to face. Zacchaeus was looking for God’s help and salvation. He was ready to meet Jesus. Not only did Zacchaeus have a plan but it was already in action. He did not wait to beg for Jesus’ help. He worked for what was right and better. He wanted to live in God’s righteousness as he waited and watched for God’s salvation. He was ready to meet Jesus, and Jesus celebrated Zacchaeus for it. Zacchaeus should not have been the hero of this story, but he is because he wanted and worked for a better world.
As I mentioned, we do meet Jesus every day. He said the same, himself. As we do for others, particularly the ones who seem least special, we also do for him. The Spirit of Christ is all over this world helping us and preparing us and sending us and challenging us. One day, we will meet our Savior, but we get to choose today whether we will meet him with excuses or evidence of what we did to help make God’s world a better place. To God be the glory. Amen.