Albert Einstein once said of himself that he had no special talents.
“I am only passionately curious,” he said.
Curiosity leads to new discoveries.
Bernard Baruch said that “Millions of people saw apples fall from trees, but only Newton asked why.”
Because of his curiosity, Newton developed the law of gravity, one of the fundamental sources of physics, a law which offers profound insights into the way in which our entire universe functions.
The story we have just heard from the gospel according to Luke is also a story about curiosity that provides us with some insights about God,
a story about the curiosity of a tax collector named Zaccheaus.
We know from the scripture that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector in Jericho, which meant that he paid the taxes that had been collected from the Jewish people directly to the hated Romans, and that he was able to collect additional taxes to support himself, and to feather his own nest.
As a result of his unsavory and unpopular profession, Zacchaeus was rich—rich at the expense of others.
We also know from the scripture that Zacchaeus wanted to know who Jesus was.
The crowd, jostling and shoving, full of fellow townspeople who already resented Zacchaeus, certainly would not have let him go to the front of the crowd.
So Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree in an effort to see who Jesus was.
Imagine this, a man running ahead of the crowd and climbing into a tree, which may have been no easy feat, depending on the size of the tree.
I’m guessing that many in the crowd laughed at Zacchaeus and made fun of him, pointed to him up in the tree, whooped and hollered.
Zacchaeus risked looking like a fool because of his curiosity, and many in the crowd probably called him just that.
“Look at that fool up in the tree!”
When Jesus passed by, much to the surprise of the crowd, he looked up into the tree, and rather than laughing he called out,
“Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
All of the people in the crowd grumbled.
“He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
What a letdown, what a shock!
This man, the one they all despised, was the one person in Jericho whose home Jesus chose to enter.
The whole story of the good news of Jesus Christ is wrapped up in this one story of a curious man.
Jesus came to us to seek out and to save the lost among us.
All of us are lost, in one way or another, to something in our lives that has become more important than our focus on God, and we get so caught up in our lives that we lose our curiosity about God, if we ever had it to begin with.
Here’s an example — a friend of mine was lost for many years, lost in the world of academics.
This woman comes from a brilliant family of academics and writers. Her parents are not believers.
This woman is also brilliant, and no wonder academics became the focus in her life, her comfort.
Now while she was working on her PhD in history at UVa, my friend spent quite a while in England, doing research for her dissertation, and it was while she was in England that she became very curious about why the church, if it was as meaningless as she had been taught, had survived for two thousand years.
So one day, she called a friend and said that she wanted to go to church. Her curiosity got the best of her. She had to investigate.
So she went to church that first Sunday with her friend. And after that first Sunday, her curiosity still unsatisfied, she went back.
Here is what happened on the second Sunday, when my friend, still curious, went back to church again. She has given me permission to use this quote.
“The second time I went, the next week, it was a communion service. I was there with a friend and he wanted me to go to the altar rail with him, but he told me to keep my hands down. This was the Church of England and at that time one needed to be confirmed to receive communion and I wasn’t even baptized. So I went to the altar rail, but I really didn’t want to be there; I was nervous; I didn’t really understand what was going on; I thought everyone would know that I did not belong there.
The priest came to me and put his hand on my head and blessed me, and in that moment my life changed. I felt the deepest peace I had ever felt, and I knew that I did belong there. It was as if I heard God say, ‘you do belong here and I love you’. It was really intense, and a complete surprise to me because I didn’t believe in stuff in that, in conversion experiences. But there it was. And for the next several weeks, I felt the presence of God all the time…it was a mystical experience that lasted. I would look at a tree and feel overjoyed knowing that God created that tree. I would look at people and want to say to each one, ‘do you know how much God loves you?’ I didn’t say that to anyone though; I just kept going to church.
My friend had the experience that Zacchaeus had—she experienced God calling to her–
“Hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”
What about us? Most of us probably have been Christians for all or most of our lives, and we might not have had such a dramatic conversion experience.
Christianity is like the air we breathe, the water we drink.
But we can be the most completely lost of all.
Why?
We are the most lost of all because we are no longer curious. Our faith can become one of the things that we hold on to because it comforts us and fits into our lives in some pleasing way.
For instance, here at church, comfort may take the form of familiar faces, a particular pew, hymns we love, a predictable service, and on a deeper level, a certain understanding of our beliefs and faith that is just, well, you know, comfortable.
And then, like the members of the crowd in our gospel story today, we grumble when Jesus looks past us, the ones with all the answers, to the ones who are curious,
Those, who like Zacchaeus, want to see for themselves who Jesus is, and who are willing to look like fools in order to catch a glimpse of him.
What can we, the faithful, the righteous, the grumbling members of the crowd, learn today from this story of a little old man who wanted to see who Jesus was so badly that he literally went out on a limb to do just that?
We have to regain our sense of curiosity.
We have to remember, especially when we think we have all the answers, and we’re comfortable in the crowd,
When we feel rich in our faith, and we think we have all we need because of our own efforts–
That’s the time to try all over again to see who Jesus is—
To ask, to seek, to knock, as we’re told in the gospel according to Matthew.
Ask, and it shall be given
Seek, and ye shall find,
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
And how will we know when Jesus is passing by, and sees us up in the tree, hears us asking, senses our searching, hears our knocking?
How will we know when Jesus is calling us,
calling you,
and calling me?
Our story gives us the answer.
We’ll feel joy!
Zacchaeus hurried down from the tree and welcomed Jesus with rejoicing.
Zacchaeus gave up half of his possessions to the poor. He promised to make things right with those he had cheated.
In the end, Zacchaeus lost the comfortable life he had constructed for himself, because he had been found by Jesus, saved by Jesus.
And because of our joy, when we’ve been found, we’ll want to change our lives. What has meant the most to us in the past won’t matter anymore. What will be more important to us will be the needs of others, and our need to make amends for the wrongs we have committed for the sake of our own comfort.
So today, if you dare, take the comfort you have worked so hard to find in your life and leave it behind when you go out the door today.
Take with you instead, a sense of curiosity about God.
Like Einstein, be passionately curious.
I dare you to try to see who Jesus really is all over again.
I dare you to risk it all, climb a tree, go out on a limb.
Seek him,
And in God’s great mercy,
You may find one day that you too are filled with joy because Jesus is saying to you,
“Hurry and come down, for it is necessary for me to stay at your house today.”
Amen