When I was a kid we sang about Zacchaeus, who was for us the arch-type of a “wee little man.” Zacchaeus, as seen in Luke 19:1-10, was a short guy but that’s not the point. Missional Jesus makes that clear:
The Zacchaeus story is about the kingdom of God and the Jesus Creed.
1. Missional Jesus knows that Zacchaeus had ripped people off.
2. Missional Jesus enters into this Gentile, impure man’s home.
3. Missional Jesus summons him to repentance.
4. Missional repentance is a repentance that creates a new society of economic virtue, fairness, honesty, and compassion.
5.Missional repentance backs up and undoes wrongs because it is shaped for a life that lives out the Jesus Creed.
6. Missional Jesus was for the poor, but he was also for the rich — they, too, were summoned into this new community that was unlike the System.
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore?fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’ ”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”