". . . a wee little man was he . . ." I grew up with this song, and I remember it always being so much fun to sing, right up there with such "chin-up-chin-down, spin-around, sit-down" riots as Father Abraham. So, naturally, I cannot read the story from Luke 19:1-10 without hearing the refrain about a "wee little man" in my head. Of course, the kid's Zachaeus song capitalizes on something that all children have in common with the "little man": Shortness. Children are accustomed to finding themselves unable to see over a crowd, standing on tiptoes, climbing up onto dad's shoulders, standing on their seats during a play. Yes, all children can identify with Zachaeus's struggle to see Jesus pass by.
But Zachaeus's shortness is only one of the important things about him. Pastor Harsha pointed out in his sermon yesterday that there is a certain contradiction in Zachaeus's character. First, his was a short man would could easily be lost in and unnoticed by a crowd. Second, however, he was rich, the tax collector whose visit everyone dreaded. He could not see over the crowd, and yet, he held the power of Roman authority over the heads of everyone else in Jericho. On the one hand, his height made him unnoticeable. On the other, his job made him notorious. By noticing Zachaeus, by staying at his house, Jesus steps over both these problems. He sees the unnoticed, and accepts the unacceptable. But Jesus's acceptance starts not with Jesus himself, but with Zachaeus, making the effort to climb that tree and see over that crowd in the first place. And the story ends not with Jesus giving Zachaeus anything, so that he might now be accepted by the people around him, but with Zachaeus recognizing his own resources, the ability he always had to help other people, and deciding to finally put those resources to use for God. We all have times when we feel lost in a crowd, insignificant, too small to do anything - times when even we grownups can identify with the "wee little man." The world is huge, its need is extreme, and each of us is only one person, who can do only so much. But Zachaeus's story reminds us that when Jesus calls, it is not to have us do something beyond our capability. We are called to use what we already have, to actually reach the potential that God has already given us. Zachaeus realized that he could turn his ability to make money into help for the poor. Perhaps he always knew this, but it took a sit-down with Jesus to actually get him and his resources set on the right path. So what good might your own resources do for this world, if you, like Zachaeus, took the trouble to sit down with Jesus today?
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