For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10, Gospel from Proper 26 Year C)

Here’s a spooky number for this spooky time of year: $10.6 billion. $10.6 billion dollars will be spent this year on…you might guess on housing and feeding every single homeless man, woman, and child in the United States—more than 500,000 people—for two years. Or you might guess providing safe after-school programming and care for ten million children who would otherwise be alone for several hours before an adult gets home. We’ll, you’d be correct that these are the kinds of things $10.6 billion could do—but, just now, we’re spending that $10.6 billion on Halloween decorations, costumes, parties, and candy. $10.6 billion.

Here’s another spooky number: $499…As I walked into Costco to do this week’s grocery shopping, that’s what I could have spent on a six-foot-tall musical nutcracker to place inside my house. The marketing copy told me this “charming traditional Nutcracker will bring the warmth of the holiday season into your home. Easily imagine magical celebrations with this grand soldier in attendance. Perfectly traditional [it was made of plastic]…He brings the joy of the season…Elegant and playful at the same time… a piece you will be proud to display for many years to come.” And this was Costo, so you know they do their marketing research well, and they will sell thousands of these monstrosities. Well, they do play eight different traditional holiday tunes.

What are we looking for, all of us who spend so much money on consumer goods we don’t really need that will soon just be filling up our closets and then our landfills? What void are we trying to fill with our constant need for new “things?”

Social scientists talk about a concept called the “hedonic treadmill.” The hedonic treadmill is a metaphor for our tendency to pursue one pleasure after another. The surge of happiness we feel after some positive event, the dopamine spike in our brain is identical to the surge of pleasure that a drug addict feels. And, like that addict, the spike drops back down again quickly, and we constantly keep needing more and more, bigger and better, faster and faster, to continue feeling the same levels of happiness.

There are, however, certain kinds of experiences that make us feel better that don’t have a steep drop-off in effect. There is science-based research on that which shows some kinds of happiness are more long-lasting than others. The good that we feel inside that comes from selfless acts, for example. Research also shows that you can increase your overall sense of well-being by acts like meditation, seeking personal growth, forging deeper relationships, and practicing gratitude. Being mindful of simple pleasures can help bring a lifetime of fulfillment and joy…Selfless acts, meditation and prayer, personal growth, gratitude, deep and caring relationships…does that sound familiar?

I think Zacchaeus perhaps had the kind of lives we’re stuck in. He was a tax collector—one of the more wealthy people in the society of Jesus’ day—wealthy, as I have said before, because they extorted as much money as they could in any way they could from everyone they could, paying Rome what it demanded and keeping the rest for themselves. But then one day, something happened inside Zacchaeus, and he took a few steps up into that sycamore tree, to get a glimpse of this strange man Jesus who claimed to give people meaning and joy and peace that the world can never give. And his life was never the same.

I have this little magnet on my fridge at home, that says, “I’ve finally found Jesus—he was behind the couch the whole time.” It humorous, but honestly, I keep it because I love the message: Jesus is here all the time—right beside us—Jesus isn’t the one who is lost—we are. Every day, Jesus walks by us, like he walked by Zacchaeus, and, if we would only put down our cell phones and our holiday shopping catalogs and look away from the ads on social media (between 4,000 and 10,000 a day per person the internet marketing folks tell us) we might notice him. We might even, one day, decide to stretch and climb up that tree to take a look to see what Jesus is really all about, to try to really hear his words. And if we do, my prayers is that we will find that his call to selfless acts, and personal growth, and prayer, and gratitude, and deep relationships (with him and with God and with each other), will indeed give us peace that passes understanding and joy that never diminishes.

 My prayer is that we will, like Zacchaeus, at last find what we’re looking for.