By Jim Nichols

Do you get tired of having to make choices? We do not want our life to be completely determined for us, but having to choose everything wears us out.

At Hogwarts Academy, at least one major decision was made for the students. You will remember there was a Sorting Hat that identified which one of the four school Houses (can you name all of them?) was the best fit for each new student. The entering students certainly had their own choice in mind, but the magical Sorting Hat had some supernatural power or instinct that assigned the student to a specific house. This event was quite early in the story, as I remember, and I did not understand at the time how important this was later to the continuing story and the characters. It was all part of the ingenious and complicated unfolding tale. Sometimes we do not know the ultimate implications of a certain decision until more time has passed.

The Bible character Zacchaeus (try typing that name multiple times) in Luke 19 was more typical of our own process for planning; he gathered information before deciding. Zacchaeus is one of the few scriptural characters identified by a children’s song; this was due to his short stature. Because of this, we read that he climbed a sycamore tree to see the mini-parade including Jesus as it passed through his city, Jerico.

As an aside, when I was an academic biology instructor at a university in another part of the country, one of the exercises we taught students was how to identify various campus trees by leaf shape. When we approached a sycamore tree and the students pondered its identification, I mentioned Zacchaeus and, to my surprise, there were always several students who would shout “sycamore!” That song may be universal in children’s Bible classes.

Sycamore leaf

Besides his lack of height, Zacchaeus was known to be the chief tax collector in town; this was a position noted for its dishonesty, so the people were aghast when Jesus looked up into the tree, told Zacchaeus to come down, and invited himself to have dinner at Zacchaeus’ house that night. The rest of the story is that Zacchaeus repented for his dishonest life, switched from one of extortion to generosity, and became a follower of Jesus.

Another author wrote about “spiritual voyeurism” and that might be a term that fits Zacchaeus. If that seems too odd, we might simply put him in the “spiritual seeker” category.

As our life and spiritual walk unfolds, we each find ourselves in a religious home of sorts. We may not have chosen this home initially, and we may have abandoned that home, but we understand the concept. Today yours may not be especially important to you, but perhaps it is a suitable time to examine that concept. Maybe this is what Zacchaeus was doing in that tree.

If you have lurking in the back of your mind a continuing and perhaps faint set of spiritual questions, you probably pay attention to the way others express their spiritual interests. It can cause us to question our own spiritual positions, and this can be disconcerting. In other words, is openness to the way others express their belief in God an example of our spiritual infidelity, or is it the beginning of our spiritual maturity?

When we encounter these “conversion” stories in scripture, I wonder if we might be missing something at least in some cases. For example, can we assume Zacchaeus was irreligious until this encounter with Jesus? We know he was dishonest, but everyone seems to cheat, even high government officials.

To personalize this a bit, perhaps you have a “home” in a particular denomination, and you are curious about another group of Christians who do things differently. They pray with more fervency, weep more often, seem less judgmental, and aid the poor more readily. When encountering different religious groups, what should be our response?

Can we have a faith and trust in God that different expressions of love are acceptable? Can our spiritual cousins enlighten our own walk with Jesus? What does it take to be a humble learner in God’s kingdom?

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain