The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 26), November 2, 2025

The Person We Avoid

We can all likely think of someone whom we will do anything to avoid—someone in whose presence we’re never quite at peace because, for whatever reason, we fear them, distrust them, detest or even despise them.

In our story from Luke’s gospel, that someone is Zacchaeus. He’s one of those people you go out of your way to avoid. If he knocks on your door, you shush the children and pretend to be away. If you see him on the sidewalk, you cross the street just to dodge him. Even mentioning his name in public is enough to silence and scatter a crowd.

Beyond the Sunday School Song

Perhaps you remember the old Sunday School ditty about Zacchaeus:

“Zacchaeus was a man, a wee little man, a wee little man was he…
He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.”

It’s a cute lyric about a sweet little man so vertically challenged that he had to climb a tree just to see his precious Lord. Poor Zacchaeus, you think. A little wee man lost in a big mean crowd, knocked around every day by a sea of sharp elbows.

But there’s nothing endearing or innocent about Zacchaeus. He’s about as rich and adorable as Elon Musk, and about as ruthless and calculating as Tony Soprano. He’s not wee little man, but a huge villain in Jericho—a wealthy man in one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world who has attained his massive wealth by the most unscrupulous and socially destructive means imaginable.

The Tax Collector’s Empire

As a chief tax collector for the occupying Roman Empire, Zacchaeus is a Roman collaborator who profits off the oppression of his own people—a traitor of the worst kind. His name means “the pure one” or “the righteous one” in Hebrew, which is ironic, because Zacchaeus is anything but pure or righteous.

As a chief tax collector, he could stop any citizen at any time and assess duties on nearly everything in his possession. And if he spotted you on the streets of Jericho, you could be sure that you would pay your taxes.

Zacchaeus is a first century mob boss whose tax collection business resembles the modern-day mafia. The Roman governor gives him a quota that he must meet every month; anything he collects over that required amount he is free to keep. Given his great wealth, there are no limits to Zacchaeus’ exploitation and no shame in his methods of extraction. And for this he is hated.

Zacchaeus is not a wee little man. He’s a miserable man who levies great misery upon his entire community.

The Encounter in the Tree

According to Luke, one day Jesus comes to Jericho and Zacchaeus climbs a tree to catch a glimpse of this popular traveling rabbi. Maybe he climbs the tree because he can’t see, as the story suggests. Or maybe he climbs the tree because a tree seems like a safe place to hide from a rabbi whom he figures would condemn him if he ever laid eyes on him—because, after all, how it is possible to live your life knowing you’re responsible for the misery of so many people? How long can one go on living as a traitor and a thief among his own people? When your conscience awakens you in the middle of the night, what’s the quiet verdict that the silence hands down to you? When you awaken in the morning to the same empty house, to the same empty life, estranged from everyone because of the choices you’ve made—what can you do except sneak through the crowd and climb a tree to avoid all people who’ve spent their lives avoiding you?

But it seems as if Jesus has come to town just for Zacchaeus, because Jesus goes right to him in his tree and already knows him by name: “Come down, Zacchaeus. I want to have dinner at your house tonight.”

Zacchaeus wastes no time scrambling down from his tree. He “welcomes him gladly.” I’m sure he did, because no one ever talks to Zacchaeus, they only talk about him; and houseguests are a rare exception to his lonely life. While everyone goes out of their way to avoid Zacchaeus, Jesus comes right to him.

Transformation Through Encounter

We don’t know what really happens at Zacchaeus’ house, but something in that encounter with Jesus changes the way Zacchaeus sees the people in his community. At some point during the meal, he comes to see his fellow citizens as subjects rather than objects, as real people instead of money bags. Jesus changes his perception. Whatever he says to Zacchaeus over dinner, Zacchaeus finally comes to see the people he’s been hurting as real people worth loving.

This revelation immediately changes his life. He makes a two-fold pledge: to give half his yearly income to the poor, and to return any stolen funds four times over. Jewish law only requires restitution of the money plus twenty percent, but Zacchaeus pledges four hundred percent interest.

It all happens because Jesus walks straight toward the one whom everyone else goes out of their way to avoid.

Community Redemption

This is more than a Sunday School lesson about Jesus redeeming a lost sinner named Zacchaeus. It’s a story about how Jesus redeemed Zacchaeus in order to redeem an entire community. Jesus understood that if he could liberate the oppressor, he could liberate the oppressed. And liberation always comes via persuasive love, not by coercion or force.

“Today salvation has come to this house,” says Jesus. Perhaps a better word for salvation here is “wholeness” or “wellbeing.” But this wellbeing isn’t intended just for Zacchaeus. It has come to the entire household of God—to all the citizens of Jericho. Because Zacchaeus has been made whole, the community he’s been terrorizing can be made whole. Life will be more wonderful for everyone. No one will ever again have to live in fear of this man.

The Web of Mutual Influence

Alfred North Whitehead suggested that we are always prehending others in a way that internalizes the feelings they have for us. A child, for instance, who does not feel the love of a parent or caretaker will internalize this lack of love. As in Zacchaeus’ case, to be surrounded by a community of people who hate you—perhaps deservedly so—nevertheless leads to destructive and crippling pain and conduct that can only be overcome and healed by experiencing and internalizing the love of another, and of God.

Jesus seems to understand here that our feelings about others enter into the feelings others have about themselves and that, connected by a web of mutuality, our influence upon others is profound. As Whitehead noted, we prehend one another, and what we prehend are the feelings of others—namely, the subjective emotions that they have for us. When we feel those emotions directed toward us, they are immediately included in our experience, sometimes so intensely and effectively that our own emotions actually conform to the emotions we prehend in others. In this way, when we feel the hatred of others, we are prone to hate ourselves, and we when we feel the love of others, we are empowered to love ourselves—and ultimately, more able to love others.

The power of divine love, offered by Jesus, makes our human response to God’s call, or initial aim, possible. In Zacchaeus’ case, the prehension of the loving feelings of Jesus breaks through his destructive and tyrannical identity, patterns, and actions, making possible a response to God’s aims that leads to wholeness and wellbeing for his entire community.

The Challenge for Us

Perhaps the opportunity for the preacher here is to invite the listener to think about that one person they go out of their way to avoid, and to ask themselves: “Would I ever consider going toward them in love, if it meant that, by doing so, it might somehow make life more wonderful for everyone? Would I be willing to even invite my enemy to sit down at a table, to eat bread and drink wine with me—if it meant that, by doing so, I might be saving the whole world?

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Mark Feldmeir is Sr. Pastor at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Highlands Ranch, CO, and the author of five books, including A House Divided: Engaging the Issues through the Politics of Compassion (Chalice Press, 2020) and his latest, Life After God: Finding Faith When You Can’t Believe Anymore (Westminster John Knox, 2023). Learn more about Mark at www.markfeldmeir.com.