Read Luke 19:1-10 with your family.

To help remember this story there is a children’s song that you can find here on YouTube.

This is one of the last stories before Jesus enters Jerusalem for the final time. Jesus had been leading his followers for over three years at this point, and his reputation was big. Everyone in Galilee and Judea had heard about him and wanted to see him, including the local tax collector, a man named Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was not liked because as a tax collector he worked for the Roman government, and the Roman government allowed Zacchaeus to take extra money off the top to keep for himself, so he became very rich. All of that extra money came from the people who lived in Jericho, so Zacchaeus was not liked.

To call him a “sinner” meant that he had a broken relationship with either God or the people around him, or both.

When Jesus picked Zacchaeus to be his host, the people were very angry. But the people did not know that Zacchaeus wanted to change, and Jesus wanted to help Zacchaeus change.

Zacchaeus promised to give half of what he owed back to the people, and to never take extra money from taxes again. Zacchaeus was trying to repair his relationship with both God and the people. That is what Jesus knew, and that is why Zacchaeus was picked to host Jesus.

The people would learn about this change eventually, but while Jesus was there, they were just jealous that Zacchaeus had extra time with Jesus.

Sometimes we do not understand why some people get extra attention and we do not. It hurts. We want to be special too. But what we might not know is that the person who gets extra attention needs to have that attention in order to make something better. We cannot judge what is happening for someone else, we only have to make the best choices for ourselves and be kind, the way God asked us to be.