He Climbed a Tree to Watch and Got Called Down by Name

The back row is not laziness and it is not disinterest.

It is a position, chosen carefully, that allows a person to be present at everything and reachable by nobody. From the back you can see the whole room. You can leave without a scene. You can participate at whatever level you decide on that particular morning, and nobody has to be told what level you chose.

It is a very good arrangement, and the people who use it are almost always the ones paying the most attention.

A man in Luke 19 designed the same arrangement, more elaborately, and the whole thing came down in one sentence.

And I want to say at the start that the thing that undid him was not being exposed. Plenty of people had a low opinion of him already and it had never moved him an inch. What undid him was being wanted.

He engineered a way to look without being looked at

The detail Luke gives is almost comic and it is entirely deliberate.

And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. (Luke 19:3-4, King James Version)

He ran before. He worked out the route in advance and got ahead of it. This is a planned operation, not an accident.

And climbed up into a sycomore tree. A grown man, wealthy, in a town where everybody knew him, up a tree, which is undignified, and he judged the trade worth it.

And note what he was solving for. Not: how do I get close. He sought to see Jesus who he was, which is a looking problem. The whole arrangement gets him vision without contact, which is precisely what the back row is for.

You are able to want a look at Him and be genuinely seeking while doing it. Luke 19:3 calls it seeking to see Jesus who he was, and it is by the Spirit, John 16:14, who takes what is Christ's and shows it, that anybody sees anything at all.

The sentence that ends the arrangement

Then it comes apart in a single verse.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. (Luke 19:5)

Zacchaeus. His name. Nobody had introduced them.

Make haste, and come down. The position is canceled. Not criticized, canceled, and canceled in front of the whole crowd who are now all looking up into a tree at a man who had arranged specifically not to be looked at.

For to day I must abide at thy house. And that is the part that removes every remaining option. It is not an invitation to come nearer; it is an announcement that the distance is ending at the other end of it, in his own house, where nothing can be managed.

You are called by name from a position you chose in order not to be reached. Luke 19:5 has Him using the name before any introduction, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, that a person is borne witness to individually rather than counted in a crowd.

The word must is doing something

There is a small word in that sentence that most people read past.

Today I must abide at thy house.

Must. Not: I would like to. Not: if it is convenient. He describes it as an obligation, and the obligation is His rather than Zacchaeus's.

That reverses the direction of the whole encounter. In the back-row arrangement, the person at the back is the one deciding how much contact happens, and they usually assume that if they moved forward it would be them making a request.

Here the request is coming from the other direction, and it is stated as a necessity. The man in the tree is not being permitted to come nearer; he is being told that somebody is coming to him.

You are wanted rather than tolerated, and the necessity is on His side of the sentence. Luke 19:5 says I must abide at thy house, and it is by the Spirit, John 14:23, that He and the Father are described as coming and making their abode with somebody.

The room hated it and He did not adjust

What happens next is the reason the back row exists in the first place.

And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. (Luke 19:7)

They all murmured. Everyone. There is not a sympathetic faction.

And Jesus does not respond to it, does not defend Zacchaeus in that moment, and does not modify the plan. He goes to the house.

That is worth having, because the thing keeping most people at the back is not a fear of God, it is an accurate prediction of the room. And the passage does not promise the room reacts well. It reacts exactly as predicted, and the arrangement proceeds anyway.

You are able to be come to while the room is still murmuring. Luke 19:7 records the whole crowd murmuring and verse 7 does not change the visit, and it is by the Spirit, Ephesians 2:18, that access is had through Him rather than granted by a room.

The sentence at the end names the direction

The story closes with a line that states the whole method.

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)

To seek. That is the verb, and it belongs to Him.

Zacchaeus was seeking to see, which is the most a person at the back can usually manage. What the chapter records is that a much larger seeking was already in progress and had planned the route too, and that the two seekings met at a tree.

I want to say something plainly to somebody who has been at the back for a long time. If the distance has become something heavier than a preference, if it has got to the point where you would not be missed and are not sure you want to be here, that is a thing to say out loud to a doctor, a counselor, a social worker, or a pastor you trust, and in the United States the 988 crisis line is answered by a real person at any hour. The back row is a position. It is not a place to disappear.

You are being sought by Somebody who named seeking as what He came to do. Luke 19:10 puts the verb in His mouth about Himself, and it is by the Spirit, John 16:8, who comes and reproves, that the seeking reaches anybody at all.

He chose first, and that is stated elsewhere

If the direction of the seeking matters, it is worth reading the two places where it is stated as doctrine.

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit. (John 15:16)

Ye have not chosen me. He removes the option of reading the relationship as a decision somebody made from the back row.

And Ephesians puts the timing on it.

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. (Ephesians 1:4)

Before the foundation of the world. Which is a long time before anybody worked out where the safe seats were.

You were chosen before any position was ever taken up. Ephesians 1:4 puts it before the foundation of the world, and it is the Holy Spirit of promise, Ephesians 1:13, by whom that choosing is sealed rather than confirmed by a person's participation.