A Creative Attempt

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
- Luke 19:1-4
 
Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. The text doesn’t tell us why. All sorts of things motivate people to seek Jesus: a longing for meaning, a desire for community, curiosity, financial interests, peer pressure … the list goes on and on.
 
Zacchaeus knew that he’d have to risk something to see Jesus. If he pressed through the crowd, he’d risk being trampled. Or, worse, he’d risk being assassinated by knife-wielding Sicarii who regularly killed those who they considered collaborators with Roman corruption. Climbing into the tree also would have been a risk. Being above the crowd would also expose him to the crowd. They could see him, mock him, throw stones at him. No one particularly seemed to care for tax collectors.
 
Zacchaeus didn’t try to leverage his wealth to gain a special audience with Jesus. And he didn’t preemptively exclude himself from Jesus’ presence, assuming that Jesus wouldn’t want anything to do with the likes of him. Instead, Zacchaeus did something creative.
 
What do you do when you see someone making an effort to see Jesus? How do you respond to a creative attempt?

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