The chief tax collector of Jericho, wealthy, despised, and short, climbs a sycamore tree just to see Jesus pass, and Jesus stops under the branches and invites Himself to dinner.

The crowd mutters the day's scandal: He has gone to be the guest of a sinner. That sentence, meant as an accusation, is the gospel's plot summary. Watch what one welcomed man becomes.

Nobody in Jericho was more disqualified than Zacchaeus, collaborator, cheat, climber of trees, and Jesus bypassed every respectable house to stay at his. The welcome came first; the transformation followed at a sprint, half to the poor, fourfold restitution, salvation announced over the address. Grace does not wait for reform. It causes it.

Psalm 87 says God has been planning this guest list forever: Babylon and Philistia issued Zion birth certificates, enemies renamed as natives. So retire the muttering, about others and about yourself. If He will dine with Zacchaeus, your table qualifies, and so does the person you have written off. Come down from the tree; He is asking.