Tree-climbing is a theological response to Jesus. Clearly heaven has no health & safety legislation. So do you just have to take the risk to catch Jesus, or does he catch you when you do take the risk? Hmmmm! And does it always end with a picnic?
Well that last one is fairly likely. Jesus was a bit of a glutton and drunkard according to local gossip. Blimey, even Jesus had that problem. The church was there before Jesus invented it. And it was complaining about a sinner, someone who didn't fit yet just in the awkward person heaven was screaming to burst open. Funny how that happens time and tim again.
Zacchaeus, who has sadly remained a cartoon character for most of us, actually contains an awful lot of heaven for adults. It's just one more image of heaven: full of justice for the little people (not just in height), priority for the ones who don't reach the grade of 'saint' or 'amgel', always on the case of those who think they do, and continually kicking sand in the faces of those who had it all worked out.
This heaven thing isn't working in the chruch very well yet Jesus tore through the place picking up every outcast you can possibly think of. The Gospels are full of them: lepers, women, children, sinners, tax-collectors, foreigners, menstruating women, romans, zealots and a few others. It's just such a priority in the Bible and look how we've institutionalised the whole thing. The wildness of heaven and the chaotic manifesto of grace, and the itinerant love of Jesus who had no where to lay his head has been moulded into straight lines of pews, well-behaved children, quiet adults and Common Metre psalms (which we changed the words of so theu would fit).
There's just something about the danger of tree climbing that speaks so freshly about heaven and the church and I'm wondering if anyone would like to help work out what it is.
By the way the passage is: Luke 19:1-10.
Hymnms, thoughts, music, images etc (we also have a baptism too).
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