"Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for he was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.' So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they (scribes and Pharisees) all complained, saying, 'He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.' Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.' And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.' " ------Luke 19:1-10
It happened in an alley near 9th and Central. It was one of those stops where you weren't expecting anything special and then the Kingdom just broke through and twenty minutes later you drove away amazed at what just happened. In fact, I drove through this alley to get to 9th, not even thinking I was going to run into anyone. At this point I hadn't even given out any food (except some crackers I gave to a pit bull guard dog I named Rocky). So as I was driving down this alley looking towards 9th St and a place where I had a very memorable encounter a couple of years ago, I saw a man and a woman sitting on the ground in the shade of a building. There were a three or four other men nearby on both sides of the alley. One side was a parking lot and I'm not sure but there may be homeless people living in cars there. Anyway, after I backed the car up to get even with the man and woman the man called out to me and said, "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a long time." I'm sure I've seen this guy before, but it's been so long I really didn't recognize him. He said he goes by the name of Red and the woman's name was Debbie. I had passed some food to Red through the car window when he came up, but I got out when they expressed an interest in going through the clothes in the back of the car. At this point all the other men who were standing around came over too.
So a very diminutive man came over named Shorty (for obvious reasons) and Gustavo and Amari. Gustavo needed a blanket and he was really happy to get one. The other men looked through the clothes and I know they took some, but I was concerned because I mostly had women's clothes. Oh well, no one seemed to complain. While the others went through the clothes Red and Debbie an I got to know each other. They were surprised that I live so far away and come down there. Debbie thought I was a pastor, but I told her that I was just a regular guy. Red thought I was part of a larger group, but I told him it was just me out here alone. So Gustavo, Shorty, Debbie and Red and I gathered together and put our arms around each other and I prayed for them. That's when it happened. First Debbie prayed and then Shorty (in voice you could barely hear) and then Red prayed. I have had others pray after me, but I don't think I've ever had that many join in and pray too. Debbie prayed like she had done that before. Afterwards, she even asked me if the blood of Jesus was the only atonement for our sins. When I said yes, she seemed relieved. After that it was a natural progression to be able to speak about Jesus. I talked a little about the passage quoted above. There are a lot of subtle points about this story of Zacchaeus' encounter with Jesus, but one of the more poignant ones is that unlike a lot of churches, Jesus didn't insist on belief before fellowship. Most churches would have you believe what they believe before you can belong, but Jesus on numerous occasions invited people in without their changing anything, knowing that through a relationship with him and the truth of his teaching would ultimately change them. The most obvious example being the twelve disciples who started out not having a clue as to who Jesus was. In fact, only after his resurrection did they really understand who Jesus was. So here I am in a small group of homeless folks where the Kingdom has broken through and they are seeing what a Christian really is in action and they want to keep the moment going by talking to me. They were actually vying for my attention and kept trying to interrupt each other to tell me something. It was very humbling. Debbie asked me if I'd pray for her again, but before I did she wanted to sing me a song about the Jordan River! The last thing she said to me as I drove away was, "Thank you so much for coming by." What a day! I'm looking forward to next time. --John
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