Sermon: Jesus and Zacchaeus the tax collector

Sermon time again as it's Sunday today. Today was told the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus the tax collector.

Now during those days, the tax collecter dudes worked for the Romans and collected tax from the people. They would get a profit on the amount of tax they collected from them. So the tax collectors were rich people but they were despised by the public because they became rich by fleecing money from the public. Zacchaeus was such a tax collector. He was hated by the people because he collected lots of tax from them and grew rich on other people's money.

One day Jesus visited the town where Zacchaeus lived. There was a lot of crowd to see Jesus and invite him to their houses. Zacchaeus too wanted to see Jesus. So he went out in the crowd. But since he was of short stature he could not see Jesus. And he did not want to go ahead of the crowd because he knew people did not like him because he was a tax collector. So he climbs a tree so that he can get a view of Jesus. Now in those days only children or slaves climbed trees. But Zacchaeus inspite of being a rich man decided to climb the tree to get to see Jesus. That was the sign of faith he had in God. Jesus managed to see him on the tree and even though he saw him for the first time, Jesus called out to Zacchaeus by his name and told him that he will be staying at his house that day. The other people were upset because they considered Zacchaeus a sinner and did not want Jesus to stay in his house. But Jesus had a view that a healthy man does not need medicine, it is the sick person who needs it. So Jesus goes to stay in Zacchaeus' house. There he does not mention to Zacchaeus to become a good person or to do good deeds or anything. He just stays with him. Zacchaeus himself says that he will give half of his wealth to the poor and if he has cheated anyone he will pay him four times of that. Jesus says to Zacchaeus that his faith has healed him.

Well, the moral of the story is that God is very patient when people do any wrong things. He does not order people to do as He wants but waits so that they understand and become good. And that it is never too late for a person to change or improve into a good human being.