Zaccheus had no friends.
He was a tax collector, so was pretty unpopular. Especially at dinner parties. So what do you do Zaccheus? When he said he collected taxes, I.e, was honest, people backed away from him and didn’t want to join him for coffee.
Yea, so Zaccheus had no friends.
Also, he hated his job. Who wouldn’t? After all day everyday hounding people for unpaid taxes, and watching big spenders go deeper into debt and then hounding THEM about it, it all became a bit too much. He wanted to throw in the towel but he had a wife and family and thoroughbreds to feed and a mansion to maintain.
Another thing was he was kind of on the short side. He couldn’t wear high heels as people would laugh at him, but he thought he lost a bit of respect when everyone could see his wife was actually taller than him.
He didn’t even know how he managed to obtain a wife, but the matchmaker insisted, and well, his wife seemed to like him, at the time. Later he found out she only liked him cos he was good with money. It was a sad state of affairs. And there was nobody to talk to, until he heard of this Jesus fella.
Now Jesus was preaching something radical. He was saying, to give to Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God’s. And a revelation, God didn’t want his money after all! So all this time spend collecting taxes in which he got no joy from wasn’t what God wanted anyway! Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter heaven. Zaccheus confessed it all true, it was hard. He wanted to give up his riches and follow Jesus, because Jesus didn’t care about his money neither.
One day Jesus came to town, and everyone was excited. Zaccheus wanted desperately to see him and ask him questions. But he couldn’t see because of the crowds. So he climbed a tree. And funny thing was Jesus immediately spotted Zaccheus and granted him audience. Come down and follow me, said Jesus. I’m going to stay at your place.
Zaccheus climbed down from the tree and hugged Jesus. You are welcome at my house. Everyone was shocked that Jesus would befriend Zaccheus, the rich tax collector who owned half the town.
That night Zaccheus resolved to put things right with God, by paying back everyone he had defrauded and giving half his possessions to the poor.
Jesus was very happy and called him a brother as Zaccheus was being honorable and thus saved him from the horrible fate of being a tax collector with no friends.
