I'm curious. When is the last time you saw a short, rich man climb a tree? What, if anything, would make you climb a tree?

Maybe fear. There's an old Andy Griffith episode in which Andy and Barney find the mayor in his suit and hat, up a tree. They ask him what he is doing up there, and in the next camera shot, they're all up there. Seems there's an angry, black bear on the ground beneath them.

Besides fear, maybe love would make you climb a tree. Suppose a child, or a beloved kitten, is stuck in a tree. You might find a way to get up there to help the child or the kitten, either to keep them from falling or to get them down.

Now, let's say that President Bush AND Queen Elizabeth were going to ride down Sullivan Avenue, and people were 8 to 10 deep along both sides of the street to get a glimpse of them. Would you climb a tree to see the two of them? If you did, Homeland Security would probably arrest you, fearing you were a threat to them.

Now, here's the big question. If Jesus were coming to Earth for 5 minutes, what would you do to get a look at him? Zacchaeus climbed a tree. Maybe he was just curious. Maybe he wanted to believe what he had heard but didn't quite. Maybe he was a little afraid. But, the point is, he didn't want to miss this once in a lifetime chance.

There is a short story in children's literature books about a time and place where it rained all the time, not torrential rain but a constant gray, cloudy sprinkle. The sun shined only once every 120 years, for only five minutes. So many people lived a lifetime without seeing a sunbeam or feeling the warmth of the sun shining on them.

Scientists knew the exact moment the sun would shine, though, so there was great anticipation when the day came. All the school children lined up to go outside in the school yard to see the sunshine and feel its warmth.

In a sixth grade classroom, there was one little girl whom the other girls didn't seem to like. She didn't dress like them, she was extremely quiet, and her parents never came to anything. Truth is, maybe she was pretty, or maybe she acted the way the other girls wished they did, but they didn't treat her well.

As the students filed out with their teacher, who was also very excited about what was about to occur, a couple of the girls shoved the quiet little girl into the coat closet and locked the door. As everyone hurried out, only the culprits heard the girl's muffled cries. And they laughed at their prank.

With everyone watching the sky, no one missed the little girl. The sun came out, and everyone twirled around and lifted their faces to feel the sun. It was only when the rain began to fall again, and the students filed back in, amazed at what they had just seen, that the teacher heard the little girl banging on the closet door. The little girl had been denied the chance of a lifetime, to see and feel the sun. Nothing-and no one-could change that fact. No punishment would give the little girl back her chance to see the sunlight nor would any punishment take away the fact that the perpetrators had seen it. And they felt no remorse-no one was hurt, and she deserved what she got. Is there justice for this little girl?

There are examples of this everyday:

And the words of the prophet Habakkuk ring true: Why do you let me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me. Justice never prevails.

And the Lord said, "There is still a vision for the appointed time-wait for it. The righteous live by their faith." Despite what happens, the righteous remain faithful.

It sounds like the problem is that we expect men and women to fix things that God alone can fix: "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord.

The crowd around Jesus, those who professed their faith, was more interested in the fact that Jesus would be staying with Zacchaeus than they were with seeing Jesus. They ignored the fact that a new believer was emerging. With all their devotion, they forgot the Great Commandment, to love the Lord and to love one another as themselves. Maybe they were a little jealous that Jesus was going to stay with Zacchaeus and not with one of them. After all, Zacchaeus was a tax collector, a thief and a liar, so he broke two commandments for sure.

And they, of course, were above commandment breaking, except for that love one another thing.

Just to be clear, in addition to the Great Commandment, there were ten others, including Thou shall not lie and Thou shall not steal, that Moses brought down from the mountain.

Which ones of those do you think the people along the road were breaking when they criticized Jesus for going to stay with the tax collector, condemning the tax collector as a sinner? Can you hear the gossip? Which one of these commandments have you seen broken lately? Which one have you broken lately?

God will forgive you, by the way, if you just ask Him.

Make no mistake, there is nothing wrong with recognizing when other people-or we-do the wrong things. It is right to condemn the sin; it is wrong to condemn the sinner.

All that we can do, all that we know, all that we have-these are God's gifts to us. What we must do when we see pain, suffering, wrongdoing, injustice, is to say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

I used to worry that I wouldn't know what a sin was. I wanted a list. I wanted my Mom to buy the automatic Bible, the one they advertised that would automatically tell you if something were a sin. You could look up lipstick in the index, and it would take you to the scripture that condemned wearing it as a sin. But my Mom wouldn't buy it. She said I already had an automatic sin sensor, a conscience hat would tell me if something was wrong. She said that if I ever had any doubt about something I was about to do, not to do it. The doubt would be my conscience speaking, she said, and the voice was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sure sounded a lot like my Mom, though, when it spoke to me.

Habakkuk finished his message with this revelation-the hardest thing we as Christians have to deal with is our pride, that feeling that being a Christian gives us an edge-over tax collectors and other sinners. Doing what is right gives us the edge, not our pride in having done it! And forgiving others for what they do wrong gives us an edge, not punishing them or getting back at them.

The edge is that we let go of the worry, the gnawing anger, or the gnawing guilt. There is no other edge: salvation is for everyone, everyone who believes, that is, whether we like it or not. And sometimes, believers have to climb trees to demonstrate their faith. The good news is that God sent his son to give us a leg up, the Holy Spirit to show us which branches to stand on, and His own hand to pull us to the top. All we need to do is to reach out to Him, and He will do the rest; just ask Zachhaeus.

I will close with a story I have told before of an old man alone in a nursing home, one who never had a visitor. A minister who was going room to room came in and sat down in the chair by the man's bed. The man told him he was afraid, afraid he would die alone. But the minister told him he was never alone, that when no one else was sitting in the chair by his bed, Jesus would sit beside him. And the next morning, when the nurses found the man had died during the night, they wondered why his head was lying on the seat of the chair.

Linda Radtke
November 4, 2007