Beloved of Sunday School teachers & children, the story of Zaccheus is very much a story for adults; full of rich imagery for discipleship.

For a start, while Jesus normally seems to pass through places rather than stop off (after all, he's on an urgent mission) he always has or makes time for people. Especially those prepared to come down from their hiding place among the branches & leaves of the various trees of life. Note the strong connection back to Eden. Z doesn't make Adam's & Eve's mistake of trying to hide (unsuccessfully!) behind fig leaves or gum trees. When Jesus spots him (& even bothers to find out his name, to call him by it) Z grasps his opportunity & shins down in record  time! Maybe a sycamore tree should join cross, empty tomb, & other Christian symbols.

Z goes up that tree a small man, but comes down a big one. Jesus is still calling us down from our hiding plaves so he can change us from little people into big people in one way or another.

I expect the crowd wouldn't let Z through so he could see Jesus. Can't we imagine them even sharpening their elbows to keep such a hated & despise creature at bay - & way at the back of the throng? Are there ways we're doing the same thing to lost people who need to be found? To people up the gum trees of life longing for something better? We need to let God hone our 'spotting' skills as a first step. Then our reaching out skills, our come on down, come on in skills.

I love it that Jesus invites himself to stay at Z's house. Jesus becomes the host & Z the guest in his own home. Scholars are underlining more & more how important 'commensality' (sharing a table) was to Jesus & the early church. Some of us go some of the way towards commensality today, but if we only do it at the altar, & not in our own homes,be they splendid or humble, we've missed the whole point. There may be some point in using table graces to emphasise God's presence, but if others who could share that table with us are missing, so might God be! (One simple way of practising this principle is in Home Groups that eat together.)

If salvation, in any of its biblical expressions is to come to our house today, we need to come down from our gum trees to ground level; from being lost to being found; from owing people some part of ourselves to making restitution (there's the rub).