Philip Jones
There are times when we read the Bible with such great reverence that we miss the humour which often lies beneath the surface of the original texts.
The story of Zacchaeus as recounted by Luke is actually supposed to provoke a bit of a giggle and perhaps a knowing smirk. The moral of the story is serious, but the situations are really light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek.
First of all, there's a pun around Zacchaeus's name. The story tells us that he is a kind of group manager for tax collections in the Jericho area. Immediately with this job comes an expectation in Luke's readers that he will be a swindler, a thug, a collaborator with the Roman occupying power, and will have skimmed a fortune for himself off the tops of the taxes he has collected.
But his name is 'Zacchaeus' which means 'pure'. You could just as effectively start the story by saying, 'There was once a dishonest, swindling traitor whose name was Mr Honesty'. Luke's readers were supposed to get the joke!
Then we are probably supposed to smile at the farcical picture we get of Zacchaeus being too short to see over the crowd so that he comes up with a cunning plan. He decides to climb a nearby sycamore tree; and we immediately have this mental image of a significant local dignitary, perched up a tree, clinging on for dear life, but determined to see what was happening. Luke's readers were supposed to think that Zacchaeus was a bit of a crackpot – a rather exaggerated figure of fun.
So, he's got a sweet, fluffy name when in fact he's a hated extortioner in the service of the Romans; and he's so short he has to climb trees to see what's going on. Clearly, this character of Luke's is not to be taken seriously.
But Jesus takes him seriously – so seriously, in fact, that Jesus utters one of his most powerful sayings in this encounter. Jesus uses his meeting with Zacchaeus to speak of salvation coming today and of his own mission to save the lost.
Now, quite suddenly this brief story about a peculiar little tax collector who the crowd would argue has turned his back on his own nation, its traditions and culture, and has become rich on the backs of others, is declared by Jesus to be not an outcast, just lost - and redeemable as a child of Abraham.
Here's another case where the crowd argue that Jesus eats with outcasts. Yet Jesus clearly sees them as lost children of his heavenly Father.
Luke puts yet another twist in the story, because this Zacchaeus who experiences salvation at the hands of Jesus is actually wealthy.
Immediately prior to this story in Luke's gospel, he tells of a rich man to whom Jesus says, 'How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.'
And yet at the start of the very next chapter, salvation comes to the household of Jericho's very rich chief tax collector.
Don't we see an inconsistency here?
The difference between the two men seems to be that the first puts his wealth before his response to the call to follow Jesus, while Zacchaeus is described as using half of his wealth to support the poor and needy, as well as putting right any overpayment of tax with compensation equal to four times the original error.
Jesus seems to discern an integrity within Zacchaeus which – against all outward appearances – makes him special in Jesus's eyes. And Jesus's response is to show that there is room in the Kingdom of God for wealthy people who have the inner integrity to use their wealth for the benefit of others, and who have their eyes set on an eternity beyond the life of their earthly riches.
It is so tempting for us to boil down the Christian faith to its memorable sayings. We remember the very catchy 'eye of a needle' saying, and we're inclined to generalise and say that Jesus blesses only the poor and turns away the wealthy. And yet here Jesus is, dining with a man of substantial means and declaring that, by the integrity of Zacchaeus's life and the generosity of his spirit, he is to be blessed.
This short story about Zacchaeus, whom Luke alone included in the gospel story, is about inner goodness. Through Jesus's discernment, we are invited to see the person beneath what the crowd would judge Zacchaeus to be.
When we follow the crowd, we begin by laughing at his inappropriate name, by smirking at his limited height and his undignified antics in the sycamore tree. We puzzle over why Jesus would invite himself to dinner with this man.
But when we meet him through Jesus's eyes, we get a glimpse of someone who is doing his best to be honest, generous, charitable, and true to his beliefs.
The crowd will always generalise. To the crowd in Jericho all tax collectors were the same. To the crowd which surrounds our communities today, all lgbt people are the same; all asylum seekers are the same; all migrant workers are the same; all Muslims are the same; all Christians are the same - the list goes on.
Our challenge, as followers of Jesus - who would discern the inner goodness in every individual - is to join him in his invitation that we should dine with them, and affirm the goodness that we find in every Zacchaeus that we encounter.
Amen.
(Philip Jones)