NOTES for Luk 19:1-10

Zacchaeus is an amazingly likable person. The evangelist tells us that he was short in stature. On the one hand, this is needed simply to explain his unusual action. But on the other hand, let us try to live a little into this image. People of short stature very often have a sore or vulnerable self-esteem, because in childhood, and later too, they are often teased and boys mock them. Recall in confirmation at least Wilhelm Hauff's fairy tale "Little Longnose." And now imagine: such a person climbs a tree in public, as if he were a cat, not fearing once again to become a laughingstock among people. This remotely reminds us of something holy-foolish. We always stand before this choice: people's opinion or striving toward God. If you live in an atheistic environment, people may tell you to your face or behind your back, and you always feel it, that you are not quite right in the head, that you go to church, that every family has its black sheep. Anything can happen. But what difference is there between people laughing at you and your being able to see God? In one of Vladimir Vysotsky's songs there are these words: "The giraffe is tall; he knows better." And if you are so short that even an old parrot will not stand up for you with such words, how much love for God must one have in order to overcome everything. Let us therefore try to see living people in the gospel figures, for that is what they were, and somehow make friends with them, as we make friends with members of our community.