Unexpected Saints

When I was a child, my family would always attend two Christmas parades: the one in Charlotte on Thanksgiving Day and the one in our hometown of Belmont a few weeks later. Back then, I had a problem I don’t often have anymore: sometimes I couldn’t see what was happening in the parade because I was too short. I remember standing with my mother and grandparents outside the drug store where my Aunt Ruth worked and being unable to see the street. I had to work my way through the crowd of adults and older, taller kids until I had a clear view. 
    That wasn’t so easy to do at the Charlotte parade because the crowds were much larger. I remember one year, my brother and I decided that instead of trying to squeeze through the crowd, we would seek a different perspective. We were on a downtown sidewalk in front of a large office building. Between us and the building was a large concrete planter, big enough to hold several trees and some bushes. We climbed up and stood on the wide outer edge, and sure enough, we had a much better, almost unobstructed view of the parade.
    Zacchaeus too found he was too short to see over the crowd. He needed a different, elevated perspective. But he wasn’t seeking to be entertained by a parade. He had heard about this prophet and healer named Jesus and he wanted to see him with his own eyes. So he scampered up a sycamore tree, hoping to surreptitiously observe Jesus from the shelter of the branches. But Jesus doesn’t just pass by. Instead, he stops, looks up and calls him by name: “Come on down, Zacchaeus, and take me to your home.” When the story began, it seemed that Zacchaeus was seeking out Jesus; but now it seems that it was in fact Jesus who was seeking Zacchaeus. As James Martin observes, “To find God, is to be found by God, who has been looking for us all along.”.
    Many of the tax collector’s neighbors grumble about all of this. After all, in their eyes, Zacchaeus is the most unlikely and unworthy person whom Jesus could have chosen to visit. They apparently see him as nothing more than a greedy, traitorous tax collector. They have put him in a box. He’s one of those people and we all know what they are like and how little we can expect of them. However, Jesus sees far more than the crowds. He sees Zacchaeus’ potential, his “latent generosity,” his hidden compassion. Grace accepts us as we are, but also sees beyond our present state to what we can become. Zacchaeus confirms Jesus’ insight and shows his saintly potential by pledging, unbidden, to give half of his possessions to the poor and promising to repay fourfold anyone he has cheated. This act of generosity, says Jesus, demonstrates that salvation has already come to Zacchaeus and his household. He’s not saved because he gives; instead, he gives his money, because he has received salvation.    
       In “Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who,” Frederick Buechner reflects on numerous Biblical characters in an A-to-Z dictionary style format. The very last character sketch is of Zacchaeus, who is presented as a summation of all the other characters:
    Zacchaeus makes a good one to end with because in a way he can stand for all the rest. He's a sawed-off little social disaster with a big bank account and a crooked job, but Jesus welcomes him aboard anyway, and that's why he reminds you of all the others too.
There's Aaron whooping it up with the Golden Calf the moment his brother's back is turned, and there's Jacob conning everybody including his own father. … [and] Paul holding the lynch mob's coats as they go to work on Stephen. There's Saul the paranoid, and David the stud, and those mealy-mouthed friends of Job's who would probably have succeeded in boring him to death if Yahweh hadn't stepped in just in the nick of time. And then there are the ones who betrayed the people who loved them best such as Absalom and poor old Peter, such as Judas even.
Like Zacchaeus, they're all of them peculiar as Hell, to put it quite literally, and yet you can't help feeling that, like Zacchaeus, they're all of them somehow treasured too. Why are they treasured? Who knows? But maybe you can say at least this about it-that they're treasured less for who they are and for what the world has made them than for what they have it in them at their best to be because ultimately, of course; it's not the world that made them at all. 
       It’s God who made them, God who loves them warts and all, and God who knows what they can become.
    On this Sunday when we celebrate All Saints Day, I think we should take Buechner’s observations a step further.  It is good for us to reflect on Zacchaeus today, because, in a way he can stand for all the saints—for all the friends, family members, and Sunday School teachers, for all the faithful women and men who have lived out God’s love, labored in Christ’s church, and shaped our faith. 
You see, sometimes, like Zacchaeus, we need to see things from a different perspective. The saints, both those who are famous and our own personal saints, known only to us, who have taught us how to follow Jesus—all of these saints are those who have seen the world and life from a different perspective. They have been lifted up by grace so that they could look at others with love and compassion; they have been raised up by Jesus so they could see the presence and beauty of God around them. They have been sought out and found by Jesus and treated to the banquet of God’s love and they are so filled with joy that they want to invite others to join them, they want to share the spiritual nourishment they have received.
    There is nothing inherently special about the saints, just as there is nothing inherently special about Zacchaeus. There is nothing that makes them uniquely fit to be saints. In fact, to look at them, well, you often would never suspect they had such potential. But Jesus sees their potential, and he calls them down and visits with them, and shares the bread of life. And they respond the only way they can, with praise and joy and works of love, spurred on by the grace they have received.
    The saint sees the world differently, because they have been seen differently. They have been accepted just as they are, called, welcomed, loved. And that acceptance and welcome has changed their hearts.
    One of my favorite examples of grace transforming an unexpected person into a saint is Sara Miles. She was a Zacchaeus—not a tax collector, mind you, but an atheistic, gay reporter who viewed Christians with a bit of disdain. Many Christians, no doubt, would have viewed her in the same way Zacchaeus’ neighbors viewed him: as an outsider, a sinner, one unlikely to ever be called a saint. But, like Zacchaeus she was curious: he wanted to see who this Jesus fella was; she wanted to see what was going on inside that interesting looking Episcopal Church. And like Zacchaeus, she received an unexpected call and a life-changing meal. Sara Miles went forward with the rest of the congregation to receive communion—when in Rome, do what the Romans do! Something totally unexpected happened when she ate that slightly stale bread and drank that cheap wine: she encountered Jesus. He found her and she was welcomed and accepted.
    And like Zacchaeus, she responded with joyous generosity. As she puts it, “I got feed and I wanted to feed others.” She became a lay minister, founded a large food pantry and meal program at the church, and has written several widely read books on putting Christian faith into action.
    That’s all a saint is: someone who has been called and accepted and then responds to God’s grace by being gracious. Saints are those who have received God’s love, and so they love. God has been generous to them, and so they give to others. God has had compassion on them, so they show compassion to others. God has welcomed them, so they welcome others. 
    Anyone can become a saint: dishonest tax collectors, atheists, and outcasts; mechanics, teachers, and bankers; spoiled rich kids and bitter poor folks; ridiculously talented people and ordinary, unremarkable people. Jesus calls to all who will hear, all who will come down from their trees, and invites them to his table, offering to them life transforming grace. Will you welcome him? Will you be like Zacchaeus? Will you be a saint?