Luke 19:1 – 10
Last week we met the pharisee who
thought highly of himself, and the tax collector who recognized that
he was a sinner. And indeed, we are all sinners, even those of you
who aren't conscious of any personal sin. We are sinners because we
live in a world where we benefit from a society which is not just or
fair. We are sinners because we frequently compromise when it comes
to our choices. We are sinners because we live in a world where we
have more than enough food and other beloved children of God are
starving. When we talk about sin, we see it as an offense against
God or our fellow man. That's true, but beneath that is the fact
that sin is missing the mark; we fail to do what we know we should,
or we do things we know we shouldn't. And we are all guilty, we are
all sinners; Saint Paul recognized that, and the tax collector
recognized that, and begged God for mercy.
Today we meet another tax collector,
or maybe the same one. It is unfortunate that most English
translations of the original Greek seem to imply that Zaccheus has
had a change of heart when he meets Jesus. Our translations say
things like “I will give half of what I have to the poor, and if
I've defrauded someone, I will pay them back fourfold.” But
another way of looking at the story was suggested by John Pilch, a
bible scholar, who points out that the Greek text is ambiguous; in
English it would sound more like “I am giving half of what I have
to the poor, and if I defraud someone, I am paying them back
fourfold.” A minor difference, but it opens up whole new
possibilities. There are two other clues in this puzzle. One is the
name, Zaccheus. That means “the innocent one”. The other clue
is that Jesus nowhere tells Zacheus to change his ways or to seek a
different line of work. In fact, he seems to complement him when he
calls him a son of Abraham.
John Pilch thinks that when Jesus
tells Zacheus that he will be staying with him, and the people begin
to murmur about the sinful status of the tax collector, Zaccheus is
not addressing Jesus with his intention to change his ways, but
defending himself against the hostile crowd. Zacheus is a chief tax
collector. The way things worked in those days was that the Romans
would levy a tax on a district or a town. Someone would come forward
who would pay the whole tax, and that gave him the privilege of
collecting the taxes locally. Tax collectors by Roman law were
entitled to a percentage of what they collected. And they had Roman
soldiers to back them up. And granted, a lot of tax collectors
cheated. After all, very few people could read and verify whether
the tax demanded was correct or not. Zaccheus, as a chief tax
collector, oversaw those who actually went door to door, and they
were the ones who might be guilty of defrauding the people in his
name.
So Zacheus may be a good guy, a person
who is holding down a lousy job so that it will at least be done
honestly. And when he says, “I give half my possessions to the
poor” he may be returning some of what he has a right to take for
himself to people who otherwise would have nothing. Zaccheus is sort
of a Palestinian Robin Hood, although he doesn't steal from the rich.
And Jesus recognizes this. In another
part of the gospels, Jesus tells his apostles that “if any one
loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we
will come and make our dwelling with Him”. When he tells Zaccheus
that he will be staying with Him, he is recognizing the goodness of
this man whom everyone thinks is a thief and a tool of the Roman
occupation.
This story only appears in the Gospel
of Luke. Luke is concerned with those who are outcasts, those who
are on the fringes of society. In Luke's gospel Jesus is always
restoring people to society. It is a prophetic action looking
forward to the time when all will be invited into the heavenly
banquet. Jesus has, through words and actions, given blind people
their sight, cured lepers, healed people who were paralyzed, cast out
demons, even raised the dead. He has made it clear that people who
were not Jews were welcome in the kingdom, even Samaritans. On the
cross, he tells the repentant thief that he will join him in paradise
on that very day. The way John Pilch reads this story, it seems to
be part of the same theme that Luke keeps coming back to. So what
can we take away?
First, Jesus is not concerned with
your ancestry or how well you follow the purity laws. He is
concerned with the heart, and Zaccheus has a good heart, even an
heroic heart, because he gets no thanks for taking on this occupation
in which he tries to do the right thing. Jesus recognizes that.
Second, when we read the story this
way, Zaccheus is a good example for us. He is doing his job in an
extraordinary way – using his position to make the burden of the
Roman system less severe for the people for whom he took
responsibility. I've met many people who have relatively thankless
jobs but do them conscientiously and carefully, even though they
could probably cut corners and not be noticed.
But what about the last thing that
Jesus says – that he has come to save what was lost? Doesn't that
imply that the usual interpretation is the case, that Zaccheus is a
bad man who has a conversion experience when Jesus calls him? Well,
we are looking at the story with twentieth century eyes; for us,
being saved means going to heaven. But in Jesus' time, those who
were lost were the ones who were hated, the ones who were ignored,
the ones whom society felt were not honorable. And Jesus publicly
recognizes that Zacchedus, the innocent one, is a son of Abraham –
a remarkable complement – because of how he deals with his
profession. A good Jew gave ten percent of his possessions to
charity. Zaccheus gave half. A good Jew, if he defrauded someone,
was required to return what he defrauded plus twenty percent.
Zaccheus had a policy: if one of his collectors defrauded someone,
he would pay back four hundred percent. Zaccheus puts the average
Pharisee to shame. And by staying with Zaccheus, Jesus restores him
to the status he would have in a just society; he saves who was lost.
Regardless of how you look at the
story, we can pray that Jesus will come to stay with us as he did
with Zaccheus, the innocent one.
