Whatever possessed a rich, well-to-do man like Zacchaeus to climb a tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus? Today’s sermon, based on the Bible story found in Luke 19:1-10, spins a tale of the way it might have been.

Come with me as we travel to the backside of the Roman Empire, into the sweltering, fly-infested land of Palestine. We continue our track across difficult terrain until we reach the fragrant field city of Jericho. Here is the home of the despised man, Zacchaeus, a tax collector.

Several months ago someone sent me the 1577 prayer of “England’s most famous sailor and explorer,” Sir Francis Drake. A quick check of Wikipedia revealed that this swash-buckling privateer (a private ship owner authorized by the government to prey on foreign vessels during a time of war) was never a candidate for Anglican sainthood. Nevertheless his circumnavigation of the world on his vessel The Golden Hind remains one of history’s great records.

Like teetering dominos, the Islamic giants of the Middle East fill our news. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Iran—will Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Syria and the smaller nations be exempt from the sweeping unrest that has already spread across the desert sands of these neighbors? Regarding this time of immense instability and uncertainty in the Middle East, I ponder these two observations. Number one, clearly this political and social upheaval is being fueled by the young of these Islamic societies.

Have you read this survey on teenagers? George Barna, the Christian demographer, released a national survey of 602 teenagers, in which they were asked to describe what they think their lives will be like in ten years. And their responses are intriguing.

I know it isn’t a church holiday, but when we were kids, giving each other those little red and pink cards on Valentine’s Day was a favorite pastime. I don’t suppose we ever really figured out the meaning of that innocuously short query that we scribbled in third grade penmanship on those floppy heart-shaped cut-outs. Nevertheless we handed it out to all our friends at school: “Will you be Mine?”

If the 19th century sage Ralph Waldo Emerson had a page on Facebook, perhaps his “favorite quotation” would be his own words: “Events are in the saddle and tend to ride mankind.” Events really are in the saddle these days, aren’t they? A contagious unrest in the Middle East spreading street riots from country to country. The President in his primetime State of the Union address to Congress and the nation this week checklisting one by one the immense challenges facing our nation. “Events in the saddle” indeed.

Three people died this week: Don Kirshner, the veteran music mogul, hailed a “legend” for his creation and management of young rock groups in the 60s and 70s, including the Monkees; Sargent Shriver, described as the most influential non-elected politician in U.S. history, serving his brother-in-law John Kennedy’s administration as head of the Peace Corp and leading the War on Poverty for President Lyndon Johnson; and, an unnamed and unknown elderly man in Mongolia. The first two are being feted in the national press for their portfolios of achievement.

When was the last time snow was on the ground in 49 of our 50 states? Welcome to the Winter of 2011. But the tragic killings and attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords in Tuscon, Arizona, last weekend are a somber reminder that this nation’s greatest challenge is not meteorological but moral. On this weekend that remembers the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., it is well for us to ponder the morality deficit America yet faces. Our civil (or uncivil) discourse has been under heightened media scrutiny since the Tuscon tragedy.

Scientists think they’ve found the secret to our good and bad habits. It has to do with the pleasure-sensing chemical dopamine, coursing up and down our body’s internal highways. According to an AP report this week, dopamine “conditions the brain to want that reward again and again—reinforcing the connection each time—especially when it gets the right cue from your environment” (South Bend Tribune 1-4-11). For example, you enjoy munching on chips (no doubt a healthful kind). You usually do it before supper, while you’re watching the evening news.

“Return that gift before you get it.” Leave it to Amazon.com to “solve” our gift-receiving woes! The Washington Post this week announced that the mega online mail-order giant has come up with a solution to those gifts from “Aunt Mildred” you’ve never known what to do with—from “The Stallion Stable Music Box” that must have been a beauty on the computer screen but turned out to be a White Elephant under the Christmas tree, to “The Thread and Bobbin Sewing Kit” that, truth be known, will never see the light of day.