January 25th, 2026: Zacchaeus Sunday - Fr Daniel York

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today, salvation comes

to the house of Zacchaeus. In the church, the

Sunday of Zacchaeus signals to us the coming

of Great Lent. Liturgically, we are five Sundays

and four weeks from the Lenten season. Starting

next week, the Sundays will begin to highlight

different themes to prepare us for Lent and will

remain that way all the way through it to bring

us to Pascha and even afterwards to bring us

to Pentecost. Next Sunday, we will hear the Lord

speak about the publican and the Pharisee, which

when approached in the liturgical calendar, undoubtedly

unites Zacchaeus, the tax collector, to that

tax collector, praying in the temple, God be

merciful to me, the sinner. But before that,

today we encounter Zacchaeus and the Lord together.

Zacchaeus has three things working against him.

He is a publican. That is, he is a tax collector.

He is a Jewish man. who has collaborated with

Rome in order to gain wealth and a better standing

for himself in society through Roman taxation

and extortion, at the expense of his Jewish peers,

explaining why he's likely living in Jericho,

a place of immense disrepute in the collective

mind of ancient Israel. He is the chief of tax

collectors, not simply a tax collector, but the

chief. And he is rich, revealing that he is very

good at what he does, taxing his fellow Jews

well above what is required by Rome and pocketing

the rest for himself, extorting. And he is small,

or little, as the translation put it. In the

ancient world, this last detail is a literary

cue. It is a literary way to tell us something,

not only about his stature and height, but about

his spirit. Call it what you will, ableist, whatever

modern term we might put on it, but the ancient

world didn't like small people. Nothing against

small people now, of course. But it had philosophical

ways of explaining someone's small in stature.

His smallness of size, for them, went hand in

hand with a smallness of spirit, an inability

to see. You can read ancient philosophers saying

this. This is pretty much how all the church

fathers take Zacchaeus here. He has a small spirit.

a small heart, meaning there's not much space

in it. There's not much room in it. And he's

also rich, so he has no space. He has hoarded.

There is no space for anything good in himself.

But Zacchaeus has heard about Jesus, and he's

seeking to see Jesus, specifically who Jesus

is. So having heard that Jesus is in close proximity,

being small and surrounded by a great crowd,

he climbs up into the sycamore tree to see him.

And it's here, however, that the story changes.

In reality, it isn't Zacchaeus who's seeking

Jesus. It's Jesus who's seeking Zacchaeus. In

fact, he has come all the way into Jericho. to

find him. And as Zacchaeus is trying to see Jesus,

Jesus rather sees Zacchaeus. Looking up, Jesus

says, Zacchaeus, hurry, make haste, come down,

for I must, for I must stay at your house today.

In Zacchaeus's desire to know who Jesus is, Jesus

turns Zacchaeus back on himself. He finds him.

He calls him by name, Zacchaeus. He enters into

his house, the house that Zacchaeus leaves to

go looking for Jesus. Jesus is actually looking

for that house, to stay there, to abide there,

to enter into it. When the crowds are aghast

at what's going on, calling Zacchaeus a sinner,

shocked that Jesus receives hospitality from

such a man. Jesus never denies the truth of it.

Neither does Zacchaeus. Jesus sees. Jesus knows

who Zacchaeus is. This isn't a secret to him.

Zacchaeus has come to see and know himself in

this meeting between him and Jesus, who he himself

is, the sinner, the extortioner, the fraudster.

the phony, the one who has ruined people's lives,

the one who has profited off of the weakness

of people. That's exactly what Jesus comes for

him. All the way into Jericho, into the darkness,

to see him, to save him. He comes for sinners

like Zacchaeus, like me, like you, to seek us

out and find us. And in all of this, Zacchaeus

comes to see who Jesus is, the Lord, which is

what he calls him, Lord, applying the name revealed

by Christ to Moses in the burning bush so long

ago. Kyrios, Adonai, Lord, not a title, but the

divine name of the God of Israel and the God

of Abraham. Today, salvation has come to this

house since he is also a son of Abraham. In Luke's

gospel, this word salvation, salvation is a loaded

word in Luke's gospel. It is a hypostatic word,

meaning it is a word describing a person. This

salvation is the same salvation that Simeon holds

in his hands all the way back at the beginning

in the temple. What we will celebrate next week,

behold, my eyes have seen the salvation which

God has prepared. The salvation is Christ himself.

He has shined darkness into the house of Zacchaeus

and has begun the process of healing and salvation

in Zacchaeus' life and heart and sight. Like

last week with the blind man, the story of Zacchaeus

is also a story of healing, a healing of spiritual

sight, a healing of spiritual space in one's

heart. which had been hoarded out by riches,

greed, extortion, and filth that made Zacchaeus

sick, which had left no space in his heart for

God or for his neighbor. Jesus heals the heart.

Jesus enlarges it. And he sets Zacchaeus on a

journey of repentance. And notice the immediate

fruit, how Zacchaeus repents. How Zacchaeus immediately

changes. He doesn't just say he's going to change

his life. Lord, I'm going to change my life and

I'm going to try to begin to follow you. He isn't

just talking about something generically, something

nebulously. No, he gives calculated, specific

ways, precise ways that he will do so in repentance.

I will give half of all my riches to the poor.

I will restore fourfold every person that I've

defrauded and taken advantage of. For Zacchaeus,

it isn't just a matter of feelings. It isn't

just a nice experience basking in the presence

of Christ, that he feels good that Christ is

in his house. It is a real change. A real desire

has emerged. a real cost, a sacrifice, just like

the holy new martyrs of Russia that we remember

today, a sacrifice, a life. He will put his money

where his mouth is. He pronounces judgment on

himself. I have stolen. I have defrauded. I have

sinned against them, against myself, against

you, Lord. The heart changes. And the grasp that

he has on his money changes. He lets go and he

empties himself. In the now, in the present moment,

in the today, Zacchaeus makes a resolved twofold

judgment. One on his past, what he will leave

and forego. His love for the world. His love

for money. Being a fraudster, an exploiter, a

person who preys on the weak, but also on his

future. Rather than taking, he will now, today,

give himself. He will empty what he has for the

sake of others. He will give his life away. That's

salvation. What Christ begins in our heart is

changed. And it finds its completion and activity

by being worked out in the life of our neighbor,

in the life of someone else surrounding us, someone

that we might have wronged or someone we haven't

met yet or someone we know, the life of our neighbor.

This evidence is the sonship of Abraham. This

one, he, too, is a son of Abraham. As Abraham

made haste, as Abraham ran to serve and give

hospitality to the three angels when God approached

him in Genesis 18 at the sacred terebinth tree

of Mamre and received the Lord into his house,

fed him. Zacchaeus does the same. He hurries.

He listens to the Lord. He gets down from the

tree. He makes haste. He extends hospitality

to the Lord and alms to the poor. and those he's

extorted, those he's wronged. Like Abraham, he

leaves his house, but only to be called back

into the house of his own heart by the Lord himself.

Like Abraham, he leaves his former life behind.

He renounces the devil, repents, turns, and follows

God, beginning the life of salvation, letting

go of anything that gripped him before. Brothers

and sisters, in this season, the Lord comes to

our house. Indeed, the Lord has come to our house.

Salvation is literally coming into your homes

this Theophany season. As the light shines into

our darkness and the waters, the holy waters

of Jordan cleanse our homes. We think we're seeking

the Lord. That's sort of how we live our lives.

We think we're seeking the Lord. How strong are

we seeking Him? How actively are we seeking Him?

We think that way. But it's the Lord who seeks

us. He finds us where we're at. And He calls

us by name and He says, Today, today, I must

stay in your house. I must stay in your house.

What does that mean for us? It isn't simply our

literal house, though it is that too, but the

house of our heart as we prepare for this season

of great Lent. In his own words, the Lord says,

Receive me, for I must stay in your house, the

house of our hearts. So whatever we are clinging

to, can we let go of it? Can we free ourselves

of it, or at least begin to? Can we empty ourselves

of the riches of this world, of this life, and

enlarge the smallness of our spirit? As St. Paul

puts it to the Corinthians, can we enlarge our

hearts in order to make room for Christ in us?

He is holding nothing back from us. Can we make

space in our hearts for him? That's what Lent

is all about. Emptying ourselves. Putting to

death our sin. Really changing. Really changing.

Really changing. Not talking about it, but doing

with Christ's help. In order that what has died

in our hearts, what is mortified in our bodies

and our spirits, might be raised. In the power

of the resurrection to newness of life. With

Christ our God on Pascha. When we declare that

Christ is risen from the dead. Christ has trampled

death by death. Death in us. In order that he

might live in us. That's what the Sunday of Zacchaeus

announces. That's what it heralds. Well in advance

of what Christ will ask us in Lent. So today.

Now. Let's prepare, not generically, not saying,

oh yeah, we'll repent, we'll do these things,

but let's make specific, calculated, prayerful

plans for how that repentance will manifest in

our hearts. How the old man in us will die another

year in order that the hidden person of our heart

might live, in order that salvation might come

to us and fill our homes, both literally and

spiritually with new life and power that courses

only from the resurrection of Christ our God.

Amen.