A couple of weeks ago I read of a decision by Croydon council to cut down three 30 yearold Rowan trees outside some sheltered accommodation for the elderly, because
they had received one complaint suggesting that the berries from the trees
might cause a risk of slipping. I had a short rant in my last Just a Moment for Downtown Radio last Friday about what seems to be the current, (I believe undesirable) attempt to eliminate all possible risk from life… There is no such thing as a risk free existence. Even if we were to encase ourselves in bubble wrap and not move from the safety of our own home, we would be at risk because of not getting enough exercise…
The Bible begins with God taking a risk with a tree in a garden… Why didn't he simply not plant that fateful tree in Eden ?
And why did he allow his son to come to earth and risk death on that mockery of
a tree we call the cross?
In the light of that, I thought I would post another of my monologues... This one is actually an adaptation from a longer piece, "I Witness" based on the Gospel according to Luke, which I wrote for an event in the Waterfront for New Irish Arts and the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland. It's in the voice of a well known, tree-climbing tax-collector called Zacchaeus... perhaps some of you will find it helpful in journey towards Good Friday...
I
almost didn’t meet him… First because as you’ve probably noticed, I’m not the
biggest person around, and there were so many others trying to get a glimpse of
him… But also because he was on his last journey south… Even though we didn’t
know it at the time…
But I had heard so much
about him… Right from the time he actually invited one of my sort, Levi the son
of Alphaeus, to be one of his followers… Word of that quickly got out and
about. Apparently the holy rollers didn't like it and complained about him
mixing with Levi and his friends… You see, people look down on me not just
because I'm short… you get used to that… But people look down on me and my kind
morally as well as physically… As traitors and sinners…
But not him…
Actually, you could say that when we first me he actually looked up to me…
But
anyway… I was intrigued by the stories about him… And by the stories he told.
Apparently he was always taking about riches and poverty… Stories about rich
men being thrown on to the rubbish fires in the Gehom valley while beggars rest
on Abraham’s bosom… About riches kept safe from thieves and moths in heaven…
and rich men trying to get into heaven by riding through the eye of a needle on
the back of a camel or something like that… And I have to say those stories
started to get at me… because, let’s be frank… I’m worth a shekel or two… But it
certainly hadn’t made me happy…
So when
word came that he was coming through Jericho ,
my home town, I was determined to get to see him, and maybe hear him, if not
actually meet him.
But I knew that was going
to be a problem… Because I wasn't the only one, and, when you are my height,
crowds are a bit of a challenge, especially given that no-one is particularly
inclined to let you through to the front… So I for the first time since I was a
kid I shinned up a tree to get a better view…
I only wanted to
see him… I didn't expect him to see me… Someone must have pointed me out,
because he stopped right underneath my perch and said “Zacchaeus, come down,
immediately… For I must stay at your house today…” Me? My house? I nearly fell
out of the tree in my haste to get down…
I knew what people
would be saying… so straight up I promised to change my ways… to give half of
all my possessions away and to pay back four times anything I had cheated… So
what if it bankrupted me… I didn’t care… I had changed… I was prepared to give
up anything to follow him through the eye of that needle he had talked about…
Or wherever he went…
Wherever he went…
Little was I to know where that would be… At first the journey to Jerusalem seemed like a
victory parade… Especially that last Sunday with people waving palm leaves like
flags and laying out their clothes in front of him like some kind of red
carpet…
But what a difference
a week makes… Friday brought another procession… another crowd, this time
escorting him back out of the city… No palm leaves and praises this time. Again
because of my height I couldn't see much… Until we got outside the walls and
they hoisted him up on the scaffold, between two other criminals. And as I
looked up at him, he looked down at me and I thought again of our first
meeting. Our places reversed. I had chosen to climb that sycamore tree of my
own free will… but what about him and that sick parody of a tree? Had he chosen
to be there? And if so, why? Why him up there? Why not me? Or anyone else?
Surely anyone deserved that punishment more than he did?
Shalom
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