The Pastors Blog
August 17th 2029
The Wrong House: When Jesus Chooses Zacchaeus
What happens when Jesus sees the person everyone else has already written off?
Scripture: Luke 19:1–10
If you grew up in church, you may already know the song.
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he…
It is catchy. It is cute. It gives us an image of a short little guy scrambling up a sycamore tree because he wants to see Jesus.
And somewhere along the way, the cuteness may have caused us to miss the scandal.
Zacchaeus was not simply a lovable little underdog.
He was one of the most hated men in Jericho.
He was a chief tax collector—a Jewish man who worked with the occupying Roman Empire to collect money from his own people. And he had become rich doing it. The system rewarded tax collectors for taking more than Rome required, which meant everyone in that crowd knew exactly what Zacchaeus represented.
Money taken.
Trust broken.
Neighbors exploited.
This is the man in the tree.
And Jesus stops for him.
Watching From the Tree
Luke tells us that Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was.
That’s all.
It doesn’t say he wanted to meet him. It doesn’t say he wanted to follow him. It doesn’t say he was looking to change his life.
He simply wanted to see.
So he climbed a tree.
And honestly, a tree is a pretty good place for someone who wants to observe without being observed.
From there, Zacchaeus could watch everything while keeping a comfortable distance.
He could be curious without being vulnerable.
Interested without being involved.
Close enough to see Jesus, but far enough away that Jesus wouldn’t have to see him.
Maybe some of us know that tree.
We watch. We wonder.
We want connection, faith, belonging, meaning—something we may not even know how to name.
But staying at a distance feels safer.
We can watch worship online. We can wonder about God privately. We can tell ourselves we’d like community someday.
We can wait until we are more certain, less complicated, more deserving, or simply ready.
The tree is comfortable.
Then Jesus ruins the arrangement.
“Zacchaeus, Come Down”
Jesus walks through Jericho surrounded by people.
Good people. Faithful people.
People who probably assumed that if Jesus stopped anywhere that day, surely it would be for someone like them.
Instead, Jesus stops beneath a sycamore tree.
Looks up.
And says:
“Zacchaeus.”
His name.
Not “Hey, you.”
Not “Tax collector.”
Not “Sinner.”
Zacchaeus.
Then Jesus says:
“Hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
Plot twist.
Jesus chooses the wrong house.
At least according to the crowd.
They immediately begin grumbling. Of all the people in Jericho, Jesus is going there?
To his house?
Yes.
That house.
Jesus has always had questionable taste in dinner companions—at least according to the people who believe they get to decide who deserves a seat.
Tax collectors. Sinners. Foreigners. People with complicated histories.
Again and again, Jesus walks through doors religious people think should stay closed.
Grace Comes Before the Cleanup
Something remarkable happens next.
Zacchaeus comes down.
And after Jesus chooses him—after Jesus calls his name, after Jesus announces that he is coming over—Zacchaeus says that he will give half his possessions to the poor and repay four times whatever he has taken dishonestly.
Notice the order.
Jesus does not stand beneath the tree and say:
“Zacchaeus, if you repay everyone, give away enough money, fix your reputation, and prove you’ve changed, then maybe I’ll come over.”
Jesus goes first.
Grace comes first.
Being seen comes first.
Belonging comes first.
And transformation follows.
Something about being fully seen by Jesus breaks open something that shame, rejection, money, and power never could.
The man who had been defined by what he took becomes someone defined by what he gives.
Jesus does not ignore the harm Zacchaeus has caused. Zacchaeus’ response includes restitution. Grace does not pretend our choices do not matter.
But grace refuses to say our worst choices are the only true thing about us.
He Too
Then Jesus says something easy to overlook:
“Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.”
He too.
Two little words.
He too belongs.
He too is part of the story.
He too has a claim on the promise.
The crowd had apparently decided that Zacchaeus’ choices had pushed him outside the circle forever.
Jesus draws the circle wider.
Not instead of everyone else.
Not more than everyone else.
Too.
He too.
And perhaps that is the word some of us need today.
She too.
They too.
You too.
Your history does not surprise God.
Your questions do not disqualify you.
Your doubts do not make you invisible.
Your long absence does not mean the invitation expired.
If you have spent a long time watching from the tree, unsure whether there is actually a place for someone like you, Jesus’ invitation remains:
Come down.
The Wrong House Might Be Yours
Jesus went to the wrong house that day.
At least according to everyone watching.
There were more respectable houses.
More religious houses.
Houses belonging to people with cleaner histories.
Jesus chose Zacchaeus.
And somehow, the wrong house turned out to be exactly the right one.
That is good news for all of us.
Because Christianity is not ultimately the story of deserving people successfully getting God’s attention.
It is the story of a God who looks up into trees.
A God who notices the person hiding at the edge.
A God who calls us by name.
A God who walks through doors we thought were closed.
Maybe you’ve been watching from a distance.
Maybe you’ve wondered whether church could ever feel safe again.
Maybe you aren’t sure what you believe.
Maybe your story is complicated.
Maybe you are waiting until you have yourself together before you come down.
You don’t have to.
Jesus has already looked up.
The invitation is already being offered.
He too. She too. They too. You too.
Today, salvation has come to this house.
Even this one.
AUGUST 9, 2026
God Is in the Room
What if wrestling with God isn’t a sign that your faith is failing—but evidence that God is closer than you think?
Scripture: Genesis 32:22–31
When life gets hard—really hard—where do you imagine God is?
In the room with you?
Or somewhere else?
That question sits at the center of one of the strangest and most beautiful stories in Genesis: Jacob wrestling through the night at the river Jabbok.
Jacob is not exactly a spotless hero.
He is the grandson of Abraham, but he has spent much of his life scheming his way forward. He traded his brother Esau a bowl of stew for his birthright. He later disguised himself and deceived his aging father to steal Esau’s blessing. Then, when Esau threatened to kill him, Jacob ran.
Years pass. Jacob builds a family and a life away from home. Eventually, God tells him to return.
Which means returning to Esau.
Jacob sends messengers ahead, and they come back with terrifying news: Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men.
Jacob does what Jacob always does.
He plans.
He divides his possessions.
He sends gifts.
He strategizes.
He tries to manage the outcome.
And then night falls.
Jacob is left alone.
That is when the story takes its turn.
“Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
That is all the text gives us at first.
A man.
Who is he? God? An angel? Something else?
The story leaves the identity mysterious, and perhaps that is because the most important thing is not who the wrestler is.
It is what happens in the wrestling.
They struggle all night.
Jacob’s hip is struck and dislocated.
He is exhausted. Injured. In pain.
And still he refuses to let go.
“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
That line changes everything.
The man who has spent his life taking blessings, stealing blessings, and manipulating his way toward what he wants is finally doing something different.
He is asking.
Desperately.
Honestly.
Without disguise.
And maybe that is what wrestling with God sometimes looks like.
What If Wrestling Is Faith?
Many of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that struggle means something has gone wrong with our faith.
We think doubt means God is far away.
We think questions mean we are failing.
We think if our relationship with God were stronger, we would feel more certain and less conflicted.
But Jacob’s story gives us another possibility.
What if wrestling is not the opposite of faith?
What if wrestling is what faith looks like when it gets serious?
What if God does not leave the room when things get difficult?
What if God enters it?
This week, my family found ourselves in one of those rooms.
My dad fell and broke his hip. He has already been on hospice for more than a year and a half with multiple system atrophy. Suddenly, my siblings, my mom, and I were on the phone late at night making decisions none of us wanted to make.
We talked about surgical risks.
Pain.
Quality of life.
What he wanted.
What we could control and what we could not.
We chose surgery.
He came through it well, but there are still more questions than answers.
Where will he go next?
What will recovery look like?
What will his new baseline be?
Can hospice and physical therapy work together?
The wrestling is not over.
And yet, one thing became clear to me in the middle of that night:
None of us were alone.
We were dependent on one another.
On doctors.
On nurses.
On people trained for exactly the moment we were living through.
And, whether we named it or not, on God.
God Does Not Clear the Room
There is a temptation to imagine God as someone who steps back when conflict or pain enters the room.
As if God waits in the hallway until we have calmed down.
As if God prefers us composed.
As if God only shows up after we have resolved the hard questions.
But Jacob’s story says otherwise.
God does not clear the room.
God gets in the middle of it.
God grabs hold.
God stays.
Even in the dark.
Sometimes God carries us.
Sometimes God wrestles with us.
Sometimes the single set of footprints is not because God is gently carrying us down the beach, but because the struggle has brought us so close together that we cannot tell whose feet are whose.
And we do not always come out unchanged.
Jacob certainly did not.
At daybreak, the mysterious man asks him his name.
“Jacob.”
The heel-grabber.
The deceiver.
The schemer.
The one who stole a blessing and spent years running from the consequences.
And then comes another plot twist:
“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”
He receives a new name.
Not despite the wrestling.
Because of it.
And then he walks away.
Limping.
Blessed and limping.
Both things at once.
The Limp Is Not Failure
There are experiences that divide our lives into before and after.
A diagnosis.
A death.
A birth.
A loss.
A pandemic.
A sentence spoken in a doctor’s office that changes the way you understand your whole life.
You do not always come out of those moments the same as you went in.
Sometimes they leave marks.
Sometimes they leave a limp.
And Scripture does not treat that as failure.
Jacob’s wound is part of the story.
The blessing and the injury come from the same night.
The encounter was real enough to change him.
Maybe that is true of us too.
Coming out of a hard season changed does not mean something went wrong.
Sometimes it means something mattered.
God Has Been in the Room the Whole Time
So let me ask the question again.
When life gets hard—when you are on the phone at midnight making impossible decisions about someone you love—is God in the room?
I believe God is.
Not because everything turns out fine.
Not because every prayer is answered the way we want.
Not because the wrestling stops.
But because Scripture keeps showing us a God who does not disappear when the night gets dark.
The struggle is not evidence that God has left. It may be evidence that God has arrived.
Jacob held on and said:
“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Maybe sometimes faith sounds like that.
I am not leaving this struggle empty-handed.
I am not pretending this does not hurt.
I am not calling this good when it is not.
But I am staying here—with God, with the people I love, with the questions—until something true emerges.
Until something shifts.
Until I know I have been changed by this and not only broken by it.
You are allowed to wrestle.
You are allowed to question.
You are allowed to come out limping.
Because to question God, God must be there.
To wrestle with God, God must be present.
You cannot fight with someone who has left the room.
God is in the room.
August 2, 2026
A Nap and a Snack
What if the first thing God wants to give you isn’t another assignment—but rest?
Scripture: 1 Kings 19
When you picture one of the greatest prophets in the Bible, what comes to mind?
Strength? Courage? Miracles? Confidence?
Elijah certainly had all of those moments. In 1 Kings 18, he stood alone against 450 prophets of Baal. He prayed, and fire fell from heaven. It was the kind of dramatic victory that most of us would expect to define a lifetime.
But then the story takes an unexpected turn.
A single threat from Queen Jezebel sends Elijah running into the wilderness. He collapses beneath a broom tree, exhausted and overwhelmed, and prays one of the most heartbreaking prayers in Scripture:
“It is enough.”
He has nothing left.
If you’ve ever reached the end of your own strength—physically, emotionally, or spiritually—you may know that feeling.
What surprises me isn’t Elijah’s exhaustion.
It’s God’s response.
God doesn’t lecture Elijah for falling apart. God doesn’t tell him to pray harder, believe more, or simply push through.
Instead, God sends an angel.
The angel gently wakes him and says:
“Get up and eat.”
There is fresh bread.
There is water.
There is rest.
Elijah eats, falls asleep again, and the angel returns a second time with the very same invitation:
“Get up and eat, because the journey is too much for you.”
That might be one of the most comforting moments in the entire Bible.
The Plot Twist
We often imagine God meeting us with expectations.
When we’re burned out, we assume God must be disappointed.
When we’re overwhelmed, we wonder if we’ve somehow failed.
But 1 Kings 19 tells a different story.
The first thing God offers Elijah isn’t correction.
It’s care.
Before God gives Elijah another assignment, God gives him breakfast.
Before the next step comes nourishment.
Before the mission comes mercy.
That is the plot twist.
A Different Kind of God
We live in a culture that celebrates productivity. We admire people who keep pushing, keep achieving, and keep going no matter the cost.
It’s easy to assume God wants the same thing from us.
But the God we meet under the broom tree looks very different.
This is a God who bakes bread.
A God who notices exhaustion.
A God who asks questions instead of issuing accusations.
A God who understands that even faithful people need rest.
Perhaps one of the most important truths in this story is this:
God cares more about you than your productivity.
Your value has never depended on how much you accomplish.
Listening for the Whisper
After Elijah rests, he travels to Mount Horeb expecting another dramatic encounter with God.
A mighty wind tears through the mountains.
An earthquake shakes the ground.
Fire blazes before him.
But Scripture tells us God is in none of those things.
Instead, God comes in “a sound of sheer silence”—a still, small voice.
Another plot twist.
The God who once answered Elijah with fire now meets him in quiet.
Maybe that’s true for us, too.
We spend so much time looking for God in extraordinary moments that we miss God’s presence in ordinary ones.
A meal shared with someone you love.
A friend who checks in at just the right moment.
A walk outside.
A deep breath after a hard day.
A spouse who quietly has dinner waiting when you finally wake up after forty hours of exhaustion.
Grace often arrives without fanfare.
For the Week Ahead
If you’re tired, hear this story as good news.
God is not frustrated with your weariness.
God is not measuring your worth by your output.
God has not abandoned you beneath your own broom tree.
Instead, perhaps God is gently saying the same words spoken to Elijah:
“Get up and eat.”
Receive the rest you need.
Accept the care being offered.
Pay attention to the quiet plot twists of grace that show up in ordinary moments.
Because the journey isn’t over.
And neither are you.