The View from the Sycamore Tree

Several years ago, I preached a sermon titled "Where You Sit Determines What You See."

At the time, I thought I understood exactly what that meant.

I wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t finished learning.

The lesson didn’t begin in a study lined with books. It began in the back seat of an Uber.

I was riding with two coworkers after work. I was seated on the far right. One coworker, a rather large Samoan gentleman, sat in the middle, and another sat on the far left. We could all hear music coming from somewhere outside the vehicle, but they could also see who was playing. From where I was sitting, I could hear the music, but the musician was completely hidden from view.

For several moments I listened, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Then, unintentionally, my friend leaned back in his seat.

Suddenly I could see the saxophone player.

It was such an ordinary moment that it should have disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Instead, it stayed with me. The more I reflected on it, the more I realized that I hadn’t gained any new information. The musician hadn’t moved. The music hadn’t changed. The street looked exactly as it had a moment earlier. The only thing that had changed was where I was sitting. Or rather the view from where I was sitting.

It made me wonder how often I mistake my vantage point for reality.

Perspective doesn’t always require new information. Sometimes it requires a new position.

That moment quietly collected dust in the back of my mind until I found myself returning to the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.

I’ve read that passage quite a few times and for years, I understood it primarily as a story about determination. Zacchaeus was short, the crowd was large, and if he wanted to see Jesus, he was going to have to do something about it. I know that is part of the story.

Recently, though, I’ve begun wondering if it’s also a story about perspective.

The obvious reason Zacchaeus climbed the tree was that he couldn’t see over the crowd. I still think that is true. I just don't think it's the whole story. What strikes me now is that he recognized his current position wasn’t going to allow him to see what he had come to see. Rather than demanding that the crowd move or resigning himself to missing the moment altogether, he accepted the limitations of his vantage point and changed it.

I wonder how often we do the opposite.

We become so used to seeing life from one place that we begin to assume our perspective is reality itself. We defend it. We explain it. We build arguments around it. Rarely do we stop to consider that someone standing somewhere else may be seeing something we can’t see.

Not because they’re wiser.

Not because they’re smarter.

Because they’re standing somewhere else.

That realization has challenged me far beyond the story of Zacchaeus. It has changed the way I think about leadership, relationships, and even my own assumptions. More often than I’d like to admit, I’ve found myself trying to solve a problem without ever questioning whether I was looking at it from the right place.

Coaching has reinforced that lesson more times than I can count.

People often come looking for answers, and occasionally they truly need one. More often, however, they need something much less dramatic. They need help seeing the situation from a place they hadn’t considered before. I’ve watched people wrestle with the same problem for years, only to discover that a thoughtful question or a subtle shift in perspective revealed possibilities that had been there all along.

I’ve begun to notice that Jesus often taught this way as well. He rarely forced people toward a conclusion. Instead, He invited them into another way of seeing. Nicodemus had to rethink birth. The woman at the well had to rethink water. The disciples had to rethink greatness. Zacchaeus had to change where he was standing.

Different stories.

Same invitation.

Come stand over here for a moment.

Perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts we can offer another person. Not immediate answers. Not quick conclusions. Certainly not the illusion that we always see things clearly. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is help someone find a different place from which to look.

I’ve also begun to wonder if that’s one of the greatest gifts we can offer ourselves.

Maybe wisdom isn’t found only in seeing more.

Maybe it’s found in having the humility to admit that where we’re standing isn’t the only place from which the truth can be seen.

• Where have I mistaken my vantage point for reality?

• Where might I need to climb before deciding there’s nothing more to see?