4th October 2009 - "A Friend Indeed"

Usha Hull - St Mary's
Luke 19.10

I’d like to tell you a little story, a true story as it happens, about a young man I knew long ago, named Saheed. It’s a story that could and does happen anywhere in the world, in any time or place.

This story took place in a city far away. In those years the city that was the setting for this story was a grim place. There were miles upon miles of slums and open sewers. Stray dogs roamed the streets, foraging among the heaped rubbish dumps while overhead the sun beat down relentlessly for most of the year. No greenery was found in all the greyness, no living plant would grow in this stark wilderness. Poverty, crime and sudden death were widespread. Such was the place where Saheed grew up.

When I met him he was a man who walked with a slouch, despite his young years. His appearance was unkempt, his clothes often dirty, his hair straggly and unwashed. By nature he was quiet and shy and would rarely meet your eye when spoken to. For Saheed had very low self esteem. A member of a minority religion, a college drop-out, someone who came from the slums, he was despised and often rejected by those around him. He was also unemployed and drifted from one dubious and short-lived method of making money to another. And yet, I was to discover, Saheed had an unlikely hobby: he loved to grow things and the little courtyard of his humble family home was full of potted plants, lovingly cared for amid the greyness of his life.

Then one day, a green shoot of a different kind suddenly appeared. Someone I knew, who had a position fairly high up in the city’s municipal corporation, looked at Saheed and decided that here was a young man who could do with a responsible job. Saheed was interviewed and to everyone’s astonishment, not least Saheed’s, he got the job.

Overnight Saheed changed, and goodness did he clean up well! He began to dress better, he washed his hair, he smiled more. His whole personality exuded a new confidence and there was a spring in his step. He walked taller, his slouch disappeared. At last he could do something with his life, make plans for the future, dare to dream amid the greyness. Someone had taken a chance on him, someone had held out a friendly hand, someone had believed in Saheed. And I will return to the story of Saheed later.

In today’s gospel reading we heard about another man who felt rejected, and shunned by society, another man who changed when the hand of friendship was extended to him. Unlike Saheed, Zacchaeus was a rich man of considerable power, a man whom people feared. A tax collector, he worked for Rome and was given the authority to extract taxes at a rate of his own choosing. For example, if Rome charged 5 per cent, Zacchaeus might charge 10 per cent or more and keep the difference himself, so becoming a very wealthy man in the process, but also someone who was despised by the society around him. Tax collectors were the most unpopular people in Israel and the Jewish people opposed Roman taxes not just because they were levied by an invading power but because these taxes went to support a secular government formed by a people who worshipped pagan gods.

The story of Zacchaeus unfolds almost like a parable, with a lovely mixture of comedy and wisdom, the familiar and the unexpected, pathos and great joy. Let’s try and picture what it was like.

The crowd is milling around Zacchaeus. He’s a little man and he just can’t see through the throng of bodies. And he does so much want to see Jesus. You might ask why. Why would a man who had wealth and power be so taken with a penniless Rabbi who owned nothing and had no worldly power at all? Who knows. Perhaps Zacchaeus had heard tales of the miracles Jesus had brought about. Perhaps he had heard of his teaching, his kindness and love, his extraordinary wisdom. We don’t know.

But it seems from this story that no matter how rich and powerful he was, there was within him a hunger, a hunger for the infinite, a deep yearning to connect with what was really important. For Zacchaeus, the Lord held the key to satisfying this hunger. We all know this hunger, a hunger for something beyond ourselves, for something we cannot name but which tells us that this world is not our real home. In our hearts we hunger for our real home and our real reason for being. And when we act on this hunger, sometimes the results can be transforming.

So what does Zacchaeus do? Well he runs ahead of the crowds and he climbs a tree. And Jesus, walking by, stops directly under the tree and looks up. You can almost hear the smile in the Lord’s voice. ‘Zacchaeus,’ says the Lord, ‘hurry up and come down. Today we’re going to your house and you are going to feed me and look after me.’

Imagine the surprise and incredulous joy Zacchaeus must have felt. He had never known anything like it in his life. Here was someone adored by the crowds, a teacher and a man of wisdom whom some had said was the Messiah. Yet incredibly this man, so sought after by many, had not turned from him in disgust as so many others had. Incredibly, he had sought Zacchaeus out, had offered him the hand of friendship, had believed in him. So suddenly, like my friend Saheed, the little man Zacchaeus stood tall.

There is no doubt, judging from the crowd’s reaction to him, that before this event Zacchaeus had been a crooked man, possibly both dishonest and unscrupulous. Yet the Lord had looked up into the sycamore tree and loved him, the Lord had taken a chance on him and given him the opportunity for a new beginning, the Lord had called him by name in friendship. And this transformed Zacchaeus in a way no other experience in his life had done. The fact that someone had believed in him and loved him despite his being small, crooked and despised brought about great change in his life and his ultimate salvation. For there is no doubting his sincerity when he promises to act. From that time on he vows to give, to repay, to mend, to repent.

Jesus always looked beyond outward appearance to the person beneath. And people loved him for it. They were willing to change their lifestyles and were given a new joy and reason for being. The Gospel of Luke is full of instances where Jesus was rejected by the so-called good, the powerful, the respectable, instead loved and adored by the outcasts, those who lived on the fringes of society, those whom others shunned.

How often do we tend to judge others by the circumstances of their lives, by their wealth, their houses, their cars, their social status? How often do we turn away from those whom we consider not quite respectable, or rejected by society? How often do we fail to see beyond outer appearances to the deep loneliness and need beneath the outer facade of another, or fail to offer friendship and a helping hand because of the prejudices and barriers we have set up in our own minds?

Life give us many a chance to offer the hand of friendship just as the Lord did. And friendship is blessed by the Lord, who is our dearest friend. This is what the author Charles Kingsley said of friendship, and I quote: ‘A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have one friend, one human soul we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults, who will speak the honest truth to us while the world flatters us to our face and laughs at us behind our back... It is only the greathearted who can be true friends.’

If you have ever felt unloved and rejected, yet have had a single person believe in you, you know how life-giving this can be. Our Lord truly loves and accepts us for the people we are, with all our faults and failings, rather than the people we pretend to be. He knows us better than we know ourselves, he sees us intimately without the trappings, the veneers, the layers we so often try to hide behind. He accepts and loves us completely. Should we not in turn try to reciprocate in kind? Clearly we need to try and accept others too for who and what they are, to go beyond outer appearances to the person beneath, to ever try to see the good in the other person and the great potential for good that every human being carries in their souls. Because when we do so we walk on holy ground and we are given God’s power to bring about transformation and His Kingdom.

To end, you might ask, what became of Saheed? Well, after he started his job at the municipal corporation Saheed never looked back. He was faithful to his work and though he never was rich, in time he married and today lives ever so happily with his wife and ever-growing family.

I think I also mentioned that Saheed loved to grow things. So one of the things he did in the course of his work for the municipal corporation was to plant saplings all over the grey city. Suddenly there were young trees springing up in the dirt and desolation. Suddenly there was greenery, and with the greenery there came hope and a little joy into that desolate place. In time the trees grew tall and strong and the birds came and nested in the branches. Children loved to climb the strong trunks and while the leaves rustled in the breeze old men came and sat in the shade they offered, seeking refuge and rest in the heat of the noonday sun.

And I like to think that all this came about because one person, long ago, reached out to another with friendship and the promise of hope.

As our Lord has called us friends, so may we befriend others.

Amen.