The story of Zaccheus is so much more complicated than the song I grew up with.

Zaccheus was a social pariah. He was a Jew working in a dishonest profession for the Roman empire. And he made gobs of money doing it. But Jesus showed him kindness – something he wouldn’t expect to be shown – and it transformed his life.

To me, Zaccheus seems so very far away from anything we encounter in our own society. We look up to those who take advantage of us and are even convinced they are worth it. Not only that, we want to be like them – we want to take advantage of others so we can live it up. It’s the American dream, manifest destiny, or American exceptionalism.

For Zaccheus, kindness was never something he received from his own people. He would have been hated. He was cheat and a traitor. In modern times, things are different. The modern Zaccheuses would be celebrities, politicians, executives, lawyers, and even doctors. What kindness can I show someone who is at the top of the economic and social ladder? How do I show kindness to someone who believes they deserve it?

Zaccheus knew he was a cheat and a traitor. I suspect the modern day ones don’t even fully understand that they are blessed at others expense. Our business model has fully numbed us to our behavior. It’s not personal, it’s business.

I think the answer is that we don’t have many modern Zaccheuses. Ours are more like the story before this one – the rich young ruler. Someone who saw nothing wrong with his behavior and wasn’t hated as a traitor. This was a man Jesus couldn’t show kindness, he believed he was doing everything right already. Jesus instead points out the flaw in this core belief. And he does so by asking the ruler to let go of his riches.

The one thing the ruler lacked was he didn’t love his neighbor as himself. Sure, he was second to God, but he considered himself above most everyone else.