I am a die-hard Mac guy.  For some of you PC people, that may be a bold and offensive doctrinal statement on my part.  But in keeping with the inclusive postmodern nature of our church, I hope that we can find a constructive way to dialogue and co-exist together.

Consumer computer technology is changing all the time, usually thanks to Apple.  This week Apple announced some new features of their new operating system to be released next year.  One of the most amazing is a feature called “Time Machine.”  It will be a slider on the desktop that when slid to the left will allow the user to bring the entire operating system back to any point in its past.  So if you mistakenly delete a valuable document or file, you can simply go back to any previous point in your computer’s life, before the mistake was made.  Then you can restore the file and bring it back as if the mistake never happened.  Technology has given us the expectation of an infinite amount of undo’s.

In Jesus’ day, people had different expectations about what could be undone and what could not.  They had definite expectations about what and who could be restored.  There were people for whom, it was thought, there was no undo button, no time machine, no hope of restoring the person.

Zaccheaus was one of them.  He was a little on the short side.  But contrary to what we may have learned in Sunday School, that is not the point of the story.  I think we teach this story and the little song that goes with it because we figure, “Well Zacchaeus was short.  Kids are short.  It’s a great match.”    In reality, this ancient narrative is about something much more profound.

Zacchaeus lived in the town of Jericho and was an unpopular figure in his community. In fact he was despised. His situation was not like the lepers or a mentally-ill persons who were perceived as demon-possessed in those days.  Those people were outcasts through no fault of their own.  They were ostracized because of the fear and ignorance of their culture.  Zacchaeus, however, was an outcast, not because he was short, but because of his own actions and his own life choices.  He was despised because he was a tax collector. Why was that so despicable? 

The people of Jericho came from a rich tradition of stories and memories about their Israelite past.  Stories of their special relationship with God  and God’s promises through people like Abraham.  In fact they even called themselves children of Abraham.  It was how they proudly defined themselves. But over the past six or so centuries, they did not have a lot to be proud of.  The land of Israel had been repeatedly defeated and occupied by various kingdoms, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and now the Romans.

As an ancient religion, Judaism was respected by the Romans.  But they never let the Jews forget who was boss.  Roman soldiers now occupied Judea, as it was now called.  Roman authority was not popular with the average Jew of the first century, especially their taxation policies.  Some scholars estimate that the tax burden on a person living in the first century might have been as high as 80%.  Think about it.  80% of your income being taken away and worse, a huge chunk of that being given to a foreign government.  Imagine if 80% of your paycheck went to Saudi Arabia. 

As in any time of occupation by a foreign power, there were always those who find a way to profit by it.   In Nazi-occupied France there were French citizens who collaborated with the SS, to better their own position.  In Judea there were Jews who collaborated with the Romans in various ways.  Some of them, like Zaccheaus, collected taxes for them.  Often they would do it through extortion.  Or they would overtax their Jewish neighbors and pocket the difference.

The disdain his fellow Jews would have felt for Zacchaeus would far exceed the comical insults that we may hurl at an IRS employee.  Instead it was more like the feelings we may have if we found out someone in our Warwick was collaborating with Al-Queda.  If you asked anyone in Jericho, Zacchaeaus had long since forfeited his right to be called a child of Abraham.

The day Jesus came to Jericho, there would have been people in that crowd from whom Zaccheaus extorted money. Worse yet, he was rich.  Rich from selling them out.  There was scarcely a person in the crowd who would not, if given the chance, stabbed him on a dark street one night.  They would have, except that Zaccheaus had powerful Roman friends who would protect him and retaliate.

Zacchaeus most likely had a family. Think of what how the town must have treated them. Imagine the stresses and arguments at that family dinner every night.   Can you just hear his wife,  “Zach, you know what the neighbors said to our kids today?  You should see the looks I get at Shop-Rite, Zach!” 

Any good God-fearing person would condemn Zaccheaus and his family.  A godly person would certainly not befriend him or go to his house.  God knows what ungodly stuff went on there!  A man who would turn on his own people would be capable of anything.  No, a righteous person would avoid Zaccheaus entirely. Zaccheaus was beyond redemption.  As far as the town went, there was no undo button for him.

Can any of us identify with Zaccheaus?  We all seem like nice people but some of us are probably despised by someone.  Some of you may even despise each other.  We have friends, co-workers, and family members that are not speaking to us.  In many cases the reason for the rift in the relationship is our own fault.  People we owed money to and never paid back, trust in relationships we have broken, communities and people we have sold out.  If we haven’t cheated someone out of money, maybe we cheated them out of their reputation by gossip.  If we don’t steal money, we steal other people’s ideas.  We steal the credit for things others have done.  Like Zaccchaeus we manipulate people to our own advantage.

Even if we are honest enough to admit these things, we still play head games with ourselves to avoid doing anything about it. If our actions cause us to be outcasts, some of us relish our outcast status.  We play the role of the social pariah.  Our legitimate guilt leads us to self-loathing and self-pity.  So then whatever offense we committed to feel this way we figure, “Well I’m no good anyway so I might as well do it again.”

It becomes our undoing. So we ask ourselves, is there any way out of this spiral of guilt, self-loathing and hurting others?  Is there any way we can feel whole again?  Where’s the undo button in my life?  How do I get restored?

Zaccheaus was wondering that same thing the day Jesus came to his town. The story says not just that he wanted to see Jesus, but that he wanted to see who Jesus was.  It was more than just wanting to see a local celebrity pass by.  Zaccheaus was genuinely intrigued, “What’s all the fuss about this Jesus guy?” 

So in order to see over the crowd, he climbs a sycamore tree.  He wanted to see Jesus.  Maybe somewhere deep down he wanted Jesus to see him.

Jesus in fact does see him up there and says, “Zacchaeus, hurry up and get down from there because I must come to your house today.”  That’s more than just a line from a cute song some of us sang in Sunday School.  It was a radical thing for Jesus to say. 

I must come to your house today.  The Greek words have the sense of “it is destined for me to come stay with you.  This is an important moment in your life Zacchaeus, whether you know it or not.”

The crowd goes nuts.  They have all come out to see Jesus, the new popular folk rabbi, the latest thing, the flavor of the month.  Now they are thinking, “What kind of holy man is this?  He’s wants to spend the night at the house of that little weasel!”  If they knew the song they probably would have broken out in a chorus of Randy Newman’s “Short People.”  “What kind of man accepts hospitality form a guy like Zacchaeus ­ a traitor, a sell-out.”

But Jesus looked at Zacchaeus he saw beyond his mistakes, and he sees beyond ours too.  Through Jesus, God comes to us, no matter what horrible things we have done to other people.  If you have done things that have taken you far from God and you are thinking that God could never love you, you are wrong.  There is no place you can put yourself that is outside of God’s ability to transform you through Jesus. 

When God looks at you and me, God sees what we have done, but also sees what we are capable of becoming. Jesus had the unique ability to look at the world and at people, and see what God saw.  Jesus saw something different in Zacchaeus than what the crowd could see.  Jesus saw the possibility of a new life for him, but this transformed life was going to be costly.

What happens next is somewhat mysterious in the text.  A conversation takes place between Zacchaeus and Jesus, but it is unclear whether it happens in front of the crowd or in Zacchaeus’ house. 

Zacchaeus says, “Look Jesus.  I will give half of my possessions to the poor and if I made any money by defrauding people, I will pay them back four times over.”  His behavior is extraordinary.  His giving and repayment far exceed even the strictest interpretation of Jewish law.  In language he uses it is even unclear whether this is something he is going to do or something he has already done. 

Jesus’ response to him is equally remarkable,  He says  “Salvation has come to this house today.”  Not salvation has come to Zacchaeus personally and he gets to collect the reward after he dies.  But salvation, healing, wholeness, restoration has come to this household, this whole family - today.  It is not just an event in an individual’s life.  It is communal. When Jesus pronounces salvation, the restoration of Zacchaeus, it extends not just to him, but his family, his community and his checkbook.

Jesus proclaims Zacchaeus a child of Abraham.  He is restored to his previous identity.  No longer is he who people say he is, he is awakened to who God says he is.  But Zacchaeus’ personal restoration in God is interdependent with him making restitution to his community - when he acts to undo his past actions.  Zaccheaus is not restored until he restores to others what he took from them.  Restitution is part of restoration.  It brings about true salvation, it makes one truly whole and saved.

So at the risk of sounding like a door-to-door evangelist let me ask you, are you saved?  When you examine your life, are your relationships with God and with others whole and restored, or are they fragmented and damaged?  Do you find yourself having the same conflicts and inflicting the same hurt on people again and again?  After inflicting the damage, do you try to put a Band-Aid on the wound by merely saying an apology?  When you wrong someone, do you apologize out of true regret and a desire to heal the relationship? Or is it just to keep them quiet, to keep them from nagging you, or to feel better about yourself, or just because you got caught?

If we say to someone, “hey look, I’m sorry I stole that money from you.”  They would definitely ask us, “Well are you going to pay it back?”  If we respond, “no but I’m really sorry.”  It would not carry a whole lot of weight.

Salvation costs something. Being whole costs something.  It cost Zacchaeus a lot of money. If we want to be whole, it will cost us something as well.  It may cost us undoing the things we have done.  Not just so we can feel better about ourselves, or so we can sleep easy at night, but so those we have wronged can begin to heal too.

It may mean having a tough conversation with someone, admitting we were wrong, apologizing and then taking active steps to restore what we took from them.  It may mean repaying money, or having the patience to do the hard work restoring their trust.  If you told someone something bad about someone, apologize to the person you gossiped about and then go tell people five good things about that person.  If you stole the credit for something, give away the credit for something you did to the person you stole it from.  Parents, if you said something to put your kid down, apologize and tell them ten things to build them up.  Kids, if you have disobeyed your parents, apologize, don’t do it again, and do some extra work around the house.

Right now you may be thinking, well what about the things we cannot undo?  Maybe we there is someone we have cheated, but we don’t have the resources to repay them.  Maybe there is someone we have wronged, but they have died and so any restoration of that relationship is impossible.  What do we do when there is a huge gap between the damage we have inflicted and our own ability to make things right?

The ultimate example of that is what do we do when the one we have wronged is God? What can we do to make up for that?  I mean, what do you get for the God who has everything?  That is where Jesus comes in.  The life death and resurrection of Jesus bridge that gap.  It is a gap that is bridges when we live as followers of Jesus, as agents of the Kingdom Jesus spoke of.  An ancient Hebrew prophet once said, you give God your life.  You give your life by seeking justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God.

Sometimes, we when we cannot make up for how we have wronged someone, the best gift we can give them is our own transformed life.  I have a friend who had Christian parents who did their best to instill God’s values in him.  After high school, he went through a stage when he rebelled against that.  He lived his life in a way at odds with God’s message of goodness and love. During those years he said some horrible things to his parents, about them, and their faith.  Things he now wishes he could take back.   But now his parents are dead and he can’t.  He told me that the best restoration he can make is to now live a transformed life, a life of walking with God.

Besides having an undo command, computer software also has a save command.  No matter how many times you hit undo, if you hit save, the undo’s are permanent.  It is as if the mistakes never happened. 

The love and forgiveness of God that we meet in the person of Jesus is like an undo button for our lives. It is as if our mistakes never happened. We have been restored and we in turn, as individuals and the church can bring restoration to others.  It was Jesus called the Kingdom of God.  Through that reign and dream of God, we are not just undone.  We are saved.

Being a follower, a disciple of Jesus, means undoing the wrongs we have done, making restitution when we can and relying on Jesus to bridge the gap when we cannot.