Full of Grace and Truth: Healing Selfishness

We began this series a little over a month ago to see all the ways that Jesus is full of grace and truth, just as the apostle John said he was (John 1:14). Since then, we’ve seen how he showed grace by healing paralysis, a broken friendship, confusion, blindness, doubt, and hunger and thirst. We’ve covered lots of ground, but we’re not done yet.

Last week I told you how I love spring. This week I’m going to tell you about something else I love – pizza! I have loved pizza for as long as I can remember. My best friend lived right across the street from me when I was growing up. I have clear memories of running over to his house anytime I saw the pizza delivery guy in his family’s driveway. It became so commonplace that my friend’s family wondered where I was if I didn’t show up right away at their front door. His family was always very nice and let me share in the yummy goodness of their warm, cheesy pizza.

I wish I could say the same about myself. As unselfish as my friend’s family was with their pizza, I was not always that way with things that I had or enjoyed. For example, I had a lot of baseball cards as a kid. I collected them, organized them by their teams, and kept them in shoe boxes. I didn’t like anyone messing with them, especially the World Series cards, which were my absolute favorites. I’d often take them out and look at them, read them, and memorize all the facts about them. I could tell you which teams were in each World Series, who won, how many games it took, and what some of the highlights and who some of the heroes were. These were special cards to me and I cherished them. From what I can recall, none of the other kids in the neighborhood had these cards. No one else was allowed to touch them without my permission.

Looking back on those baseball cards and my attitude toward them, I feel like I was one of the seagulls on “Finding Nemo” calling out, “Mine, mine, mine!” There was certainly a selfish streak in me when it came to those cards. I wasn’t about to share them with anyone.

There is someone in the Bible who also demonstrated traits of selfishness. His name was Zacchaeus, and he was a chief tax collector. If we knew nothing else about him, that would tell us something. Tax collectors, to put it mildly, were not very well liked by the Jews for several reasons. First, the taxes were meant for the detested Roman Empire, so the Jews hated paying them. Second, the tax collectors were Jews themselves, and they were working with the hated Romans, which made them traitors in the eyes of their countrymen. And third, they often took more than was required and were enriching themselves off their fellow countrymen.

That’s exactly where we find Zacchaeus. As Luke records, he was a very wealthy man (Luke 19:2). And as we will later find out, he didn’t exactly earn this wealth honestly. He loved money, and he wasn’t about to share it with anyone.

Yet despite how selfish he may have been, there was something about Jesus that caught his attention. He surely had heard of Jesus and knew some things about him, otherwise why would he care. His curiosity was piqued, and he was determined to see Jesus as he was passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus’ hometown. Because Zacchaeus was a short man and couldn’t see above the crowds that had gathered around, he climbed up a tree to get a better look. This didn’t go unnoticed by Jesus, who said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today (Luke 19:3-5).”

It’s at this point in the story that we can see how the people felt about Zacchaeus. Stunned by Jesus’ offer and Zacchaeus’ acceptance, the crowd muttered, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner (Luke 19:7).” Considering him to be a sinner demonstrates the lack of regard and love the crowd had for him, and it also explains their surprise that Jesus would go to his house.

But where the crowd seemed to be dismayed that Jesus would go to the house of a sinner, Jesus saw an opportunity to reveal grace and truth to a lost and selfish soul. We don’t know much about the contents of their conversation, but there was definitely something transformative that took place in Zacchaeus’ house. Perhaps it was simply the fact that Jesus wanted to come visit him.  Perhaps it was that he gave him the time of day when no one else would. Maybe those generous acts of grace was all Zacchaeus needed to be changed forever. Whatever it was, he was a totally different man after spending time with Jesus. It led Zacchaeus to declare, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount (Luke 19:8).”

Now how’s that for a complete turnaround? From being a selfish, greedy swindler, he went on to become a man of generosity and one who wanted to make things right. That’s what the loving grace of Jesus does. As his love deeply impacts us and fills our heart, the selfish attitudes we once carried get slowly squeezed out. We become people of grace too and the love he filled us with spills over into the lives of people we encounter.

When we are transformed by the grace and truth of Jesus, we too will experience the joy that Zacchaeus surely felt. Now freed from the chains of selfishness that had long enslaved him and most likely left him empty and searching, he was now free to love and care for others, which is a much more gratifying way to live. That life awaits each of us too. And anytime someone who is lost in their own self-absorbed lives encounters the grace of Jesus, they, like Zacchaeus, will too experience the joy of hearing their Savior say, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:9-10).”