In four weeks’ time we will begin Lent. Today is the first of the Sundays that prepare us for this renewal of our Christian life.

Just to recap the background of the story – in the Roman empire tax collectors were members of the local population who were recruited to collect taxes from their own people. Tax collectors were hated as traitors and agents of oppression. In addition, they were none-too-scrupulous about their calculations and notoriously wealthy. Jericho itself was a wealthy and strategic city with a lucrative trade in balsam. Zaccheus was “chief tax collector”, so at the top of this particularly hated and despised “tree”. When he climbed the sycamore tree to see Jesus, he certainly wasn’t an ordinary or anonymous member of the crowd.

And suddenly, Jesus does something totally unexpected. He stops under the tree, calls Zacheus by name, and says that he must “eat at your house today”. The shock and disapproval of the crowd is completely understandable. Zacheus receives him with joy, and testifies to the complete change that Jesus brings to his life by promising to give half of his wealth to the poor and restoring fourfold anything that he has got dishonestly. Renewal indeed!

At this point I’d like to enlarge on the story of Zacheus and look at an event recorded in a different Gospel – when Jesus is asked whether the Jews should pay taxes to the Romans at all. This is a trick question. His enemies hoped to catch him out by forcing him either to condemn paying taxes to the Romans or to approve it. In either case he’d be in trouble - either with the Romans or the religious leaders. Jesus avoids the trick by calling for a coin and asking whose head and inscription are written on it. “Ceasar’s.” So, says Jesus: “Give to Caesar that which is Ceasar’s and to God that which is God’s.”

The Gospel doesn’t tell us what the inscription said. But scholars tell us that it said: “Caesar is now the Son of God and the True High Priest.” Shocking! For a Christian or Jew this is real blasphemy! In this story is also really ironic – as the Son of God and True High Priest is standing right there!

Despite the shocking nature of the inscription, Jesus wasn’t telling his followers to adopt the Zealot stance; to disappear into caves, live entirely self-sufficiently and plot the overthrow of Roman rule. Now, as then, this would be a challenge for the super-fit and hyper-resilient. Most of us simply can’t do that.

What Jesus is telling people is to give to God what really belongs to him, which actually is everything.

But there’s another thing, besides the words of the inscription, that all Jesus’ listeners would have known: “In the image of God he created them.” We have the image of God stamped on us, just as coins all over the world have the stamp of the local rulers stamped on them. Human beings, according to God’s design, are meant to reflect his goodness, beauty, glory and love. We are meant to reflect it back to God, and to the world in which we live. Lent is the time to renew this image, and to co-operate with God in restoring it.

So, to return to Zacheus - to Zacheus as he is given to us a model for the renewal we seek. In the “foolish act” of climbing the sycamore tree Zacheus was already recalibrating his relationship to the Empire and society. His repentance was practical and honest. The joy that he experiences as he welcomes Jesus into his life is unmistakeable. Jesus’ presence in his house brings joy. Their meal together is one of the countless Biblical images of the Paschal feast to which we are heading. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Given by Mother Sarah