The Man in the Tree: Who Did Jesus Come to Save?

If you grew attending Sunday School or a church camp, you may know the song:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, And a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, The Saviour for to see.

And as the Saviour passed that way, He looked up in the tree, And he said, “Zacchaeus, you come down! For I’m going to your house today, For I’m going to your house today.”

It’s a simple, lovely song. And it captures the core of the story we just read from Luke’s Gospel. But like many simple stories, the one we think we know might be covering up a much deeper, more challenging, and ultimately more liberating truth.

We’re told two key things about Zacchaeus right away: he was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.

And in our minds, we immediately connect the dots. A tax collector—especially a chief one—worked for the Roman Empire, the occupying, oppressing force. To their Jewish neighbours, they were traitors. And “rich”? Well, he must have gotten that wealth by skimming off the top, by exploiting his own people. The story seems to confirm this. The crowd grumbles, calling him a sinner, and Zacchaeus himself says he’ll repay anyone he has cheated.

Case closed, right? Zacchaeus is the bad guy. He’s the corrupt 1%, the collaborator, the one who sold out his people for profit. He’s the one who needs saving.

But… what if that’s not the whole story? What if our assumptions, and the crowd’s assumptions, are part of the problem?

Biblical scholars Joel Green, point out something fascinating about the language in this story. When Zacchaeus stands up and speaks to Jesus in verse 8, the translation we usually read sounds like a sudden, future promise: “I will give” and “I will pay back.” It sounds like a conversion, a promise to change his ways.

But the Greek verbs here are actually in the present tense. An equally valid translation would be: “Look, Lord! I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I pay back four times the amount.” Not I will give, but I give, not I will pay, but I pay.

This changes everything. So let’s consider an alternative version of this passage, one that’s different from what we learned in Sunday School.

What if Zacchaeus isn’t making a new promise? What if he’s making a defense? What if he’s telling Jesus, “This is my regular practice. This is who I am. Despite what they say about me, I am a person who gives generously, and I am a person who makes restitution when I’ve done wrong.”

Suddenly, Zacchaeus might not be the cartoon villain we’ve made him out to be. He might be a wealthy man, working in a deeply compromised system, who is trying to live ethically. The sinner label might be one that the community has slapped on him because of his job and his wealth, regardless of his actual character.

The late Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip wrote a line in the song Poets: “Don’t tell me how the universe is altered; When you find out how he gets paid, alright.”

Isn’t that what the crowd did? They found out how Zacchaeus got paid, and their entire universe altered. They decided they knew exactly who he was. They had judged him, excluded him, and fractured the community by pushing him out.

Now, let’s be clear: this doesn’t make Zacchaeus a perfect hero. He was still a collaborator with Rome. His work did prop up an oppressive empire. It’s complicated. But people are complicated.

So, we have this man, Zacchaeus. He’s rich, he’s powerful, but he’s also an outcast. He’s so desperate for a glimpse of this grace-filled rabbi, Jesus, that he a short, dignified, wealthy official humbles himself to climb a tree like a child. He is seeking.

And Jesus passes by. He stops. He looks past the crowd, past the grumbling, past the labels of sinner and traitor. He looks up and sees Zacchaeus, a person. A person longing for connection.

And Jesus does the most radical thing. He doesn’t say, “Repent, and then I’ll talk to you.” He doesn’t say, “Come down and explain yourself.”

No, instead Jesus invites himself over for dinner. “Zacchaeus, come down. I must stay at your house today.”

In that moment, Jesus shatters the social barrier. He crosses the line the community had drawn. By sharing a meal with Zacchaeus, Jesus is publicly declaring that this man is not unclean. He is not other. He is not an outsider.

This is where the story gets truly powerful. As theologian Eric Barreto notes, Jesus isn’t just saving Zacchaeus. Jesus is saving the whole community.

When the crowd grumbles, Jesus responds by looking at Zacchaeus and declaring, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.”

He’s not just talking to Zacchaeus; he’s talking about Zacchaeus to the crowd. He’s saying, This man you have excluded? This man you called a ‘sinner’? He belongs. He is part of this family. He is your brother.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And in this story, who was lost?

Was it just Zacchaeus, lost in his wealth or his compromised job? Or was it the community, lost in its judgment, its self-righteousness, and its brokenness?

It was both.

Jesus’s presence, his radical act of welcome, didn’t just restore one man. It offered healing and restoration to the entire community, challenging them to see past their labels and rebuild the relationships they had fractured.

Salvation, in this story, isn’t just a private, spiritual transaction. It is the public, messy, beautiful work of restoring our wholeness with each other.

So, the question for us today is simple, but not easy:

Who have we defined by how they get paid?

Who have we labeled as sinner or traitor or other?

Who has our community forced up a sycamore tree, just to get a glimpse of grace from a distance?

The good news is that Jesus is still walking by. He is still stopping to look past our judgments. And he is still inviting himself into the homes of the very people we’ve excluded, reminding us all that we belong to each other, for we are all children of God.

Amen.