Zacchaeus
Icebreaker
Has there been a time in your life when money and status pulled you hard in a direction away from God……how easy is it to be tempted by what the world offer us?
Read Luke 19 v 1-10
Zacchaeus and Jesus
Let’s begin by simply following the story. Jesus, passing through Jericho, sees a man named Zacchaeus who is a wealthy tax collector (verses 1-2). Zacchaeus, being very short in stature, climbs a tree to see Jesus [verses 3-4) who notices him up there, calls him down and invites himself for the night (verses 5-6). All the onlookers are scandalized that a holy man like Jesus is friendly towards “a sinner” (verse 7). Zacchaeus, presumably well acquainted with public opinion of him tells Jesus that he will give half of everything he owns to the poor and repay anyone he may have defrauded fourfold (verse 8). Jesus praises him (verses 9-10).
Let’s now dig into the story a bit. It will turn out to be more complex than we may think, and not necessarily the simple story about a rich sinner who repents and is forgiven, which is the usual way of reading it. In this default reading, Zacchaeus is a ‘sinner’ because he follows a sinful profession, effectively stealing from his fellow Jesus in the service of the Roman ruler, and sharing, I suppose, the unpopularity of tax collectors in many societies, only to a worse degree for the reason I’ve mentioned. In this interpretation, we the readers agree with the scandalized public who exclaim: He has gone to be the guest of a sinner’, except, of course, we praise Jesus for doing so while the people in the story criticize him. To reinforce this reading it is worth noting that to describe a man as short in stature in the ancient world was to categorize him as a lesser person, so before we come to anything else about him Luke may have planted a certain image of Zacchaeus in the minds of his readers.
But what if Luke wants us to share Jesus’ praise of this despised man rather than grumble with the crowd? A number of things suggest that this is what Luke wants of us his readers. First, there is his name, which derives from a Hebrew word for “fidelity” or “righteousness”. Second, there is the literary context – where, in other words, Luke has chosen to place this story in his narrative. In the previous chapter, we have encountered a righteous tax-collector (18.9-14); then at 18.18-25 a rich ruler, one of the elite, a man with status who claims to be righteous but is shown to be too attached to his wealth. So we have two stories involving money just before we meet a, and in them we have seen a despised tax-collector’s true holiness and an upright ruler’s un-holiness. Luke, it seems, is seeking to overturn the easy assumption that all tax-collectors are wicked sinners before we arrive at the Zacchaeus story.
Zacchaeus is accused by the crowd present at witnesses of being “a sinner”. It’s difficult to know precisely what this means, except to say that he was regarded as being beyond the pale, outside the community of decent, Torah-loving men. In terms of his being described as a chief tax collector who was rich it is probable that people see him in terms of the common disdain in that society for tax-collectors, especially because they served a gentile master at the time. The Roman system of tax collection in its colonies farmed out tax collection to a hierarchical chain of locals who had to pay the allotted amount first and then recoup it later, each charging more than they paid to the system so they could make a profit. Zacchaeus was evidently very good at it, which made things worse.
Social scientific studies have told us that in a limited-goods society such as was the case in Palestine at the time, anyone who had accumulated great wealth was automatically assumed to have stolen in a sense from the community. It is quite probable that many tax-collectors deserved their reputation and equally probable that some made an honest living – not all tax-collectors got rich, in fact. So, is the label a sinner a sober assessment of Zacchaeus? Or is it an example of what we would call “hate-speech”, mindless name-calling based on nothing but prejudice? Does his offer to make restoration indicate that he has defrauded people and is now repenting, or is it saying that if he had, perhaps mistakenly or by chance, defrauded anyone he would make restoration? Does Zacchaeus’ dual offer, freely made, suggests that he was not, in fact, a greedy man at all, but a man who has made his wealth honestly but is also not especially attached to it? There are lots of gaps in the text that we readers have to fill to interpret it.
How does Jesus know Zacchaeus’ name and that he is wealthy enough to host a guest for the night? Perhaps because he has divine knowledge or because Zacchaeus is well-known, even perhaps notorious? The passage would suggest the latter as all who saw it know of his reputation as a sinner and are angry that Jesus is prepared to eat with such a man. Remember, that as is the case in most cultures, to share a meal with someone is one of the most profound illustrations of fellowship, so by eating with Zacchaeus Jesus was sending the message that either he was prepared to ignore the man’s reputation or didn’t accept it as true.
1. Which is the case, do you think?
Notice that Zacchaeus is the one who responds to the crowd’s grumbling about him by immediately making the generous offer to give half my possessions to the poor and to repay anyone he may have defrauded four times as much.
2. What motivates Zacchaeus at this point?
Is it concern for Jesus; that he wants to show repentance in order to set Jesus free from the crowd’s anger so that Jesus can enter his house at peace with the crowd? Or is it because he didn’t deserve his reputation at all and is a righteous man? Notice, that Jesus doesn’t tell him to repent and he doesn’t do so – unless, of course, his offer in verse 8 is in itself an act of repentance, a public statement of his intention to lead a new life? Or is it the case that repentance is neither asked for nor offered because it is not needed? That his offer is a truly gracious act of a good man who immediately understands that receiving the grace of God requires a gracious action in return? The story is full of ambiguities which we the readers have to find our way through!
It may help you decide if you know that interpretation of verse 8 turns on how we read the Greek verbs “give” and “pay back”. I’m afraid that again there are two possibilities, both grammatically permissible. If the verbs are taken as what grammarians call “customary presents”, they carry the sense that what Zacchaeus offers to do is something he has done regularly: “I’ve been doing this over a long period of time”. If this is the reading, Jesus’ response in verse 9 is a vindication of his faith rather than a statement of his conversion. If on the other hand, these verbs are read as “futuristic presents”, they suggest that Zacchaeus was about to do something he had not done before because of his encounter with Jesus. In this case, Jesus’ response reveals his joy at a new convert.
As I’ve said, from a grammatical point of view it’s Hobson’s choice, so you are left having to take this into account and put it together with the other factors I’ve noted to decide which you think is the better reading. One scholar, for example, argues for the futuristic reading because, he says, Zacchaeus would be boasting, like the Pharisee in 18.11-12, if he was claiming to be so generous in his regular practice. Against that argument I would argue that Jesus certainly doesn’t take him that way.
At any rate, Jesus responds enthusiastically. He says that salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham (verse 9).
3. Why does Jesus say this?
Does he say this because he is glad that Zacchaeus has repented, behaving like a good Jew recognizing his sin? Is he telling the crowd that even though Zacchaeus pursues a dishonourable profession he is still a son of Abraham and entitled to the blessings of belonging to the family of Abraham? Or is Jesus simply expressing joy at an expression of faith that gladdens the heart of God? Is this an example of the faith that makes God glad, without any involvement of sin? Is Zacchaeus, in fact, held out as an example of obedient discipleship, doing exactly what Jesus demanded of the rich man in chapter 18.18-30, and obeying Jesus’ teaching on discipleship in 14.26-27?
You can see, then, that there are signals in the story itself which allow two quite-opposed interpretations: [1] Zacchaeus was a sinner who immediately repented and got saved; [2] immediately on encountering Jesus gives away his wealth because he is a truly righteous man who has no deep attachment to it, a model of discipleship.
Are there other passages in Luke we can point to which may help us decide which of the two interpretations each of us prefers? I have already suggested that the two other stories about money may give this help, but each of us has to decide how much weight to lend to these two other stories in chapter 18. Is Zacchaeus deliberately presented as a foil to the rich ruler who refused to give away his wealth when asked to do so? If you decide he is a foil to that man, then it is likely that you will see Zacchaeus’ reputation as ill-deserved. Is Zacchaeus like the tax-collector in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in 18.9-14 whose desire for unity with God is greater than any desire to defend his righteousness? Should we, in other words, side with Jesus’ ability to see through a person’s reputation to his real character? Or do we accept Zacchaeus’ reputation as “a sinner” as true?
4. Are there any other stories in Luke’s Gospel about money to help?
Well, Luke’s Gospel is packed with stories about money. Immediately following the Zacchaeus story we have the Parable of the Ten Pounds [19.11-27], where again there are two possible interpretations: is the master concerned with faithfulness or with profit? If the former, he can be taken to represent God; if the latter he is just another greedy member of the elite. Whichever you decide, does your interpretation of this parable cast a retrospective eye on the Zacchaeus story?
What about the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in 16.19-31, which depicts a rich man in hell because he placed his faith in his worldly goods whereas a poor man is comforted in heaven. Does the story of the Prodigal Son in 15.11-32 tell us how Luke wants wealth to be viewed? Remember the story is about a younger son who is greedy for his inheritance which he takes before time, before squandering it all in riotous living and having to return home to his family where he is welcomed with open arms by his father. In this story, repentance is a key feature, though the story raises the question of whether the prodigal’s repentance was motivated by a deep sense of wrongdoing or simple desperation and whether that matters.
Finally, what about the story of the Rich Fool in 12.13-21. Recall that the story pictures a rich man; who’s only thought is how to get richer, so he builds bigger barns so he can store more grain. God, however, calls him a fool for having placed his faith in wealth rather than in God’s word that the End was nigh. He is a materialist through and through!
Luke clearly wants us to understand that if wealth means too much to us it pulls us away from God – more, that it separates us from God completely if it comes before God: You cannot serve both God and money [16.13b].
5. How much should the totality of Luke’s teaching on money, influence our reading of the Zacchaeus story?
That’s a question each reader has to grapple with. Luke’s teaching, however, seems clear – at last, something without ambiguity!!
Notice that I have as carefully as possible avoided interpreting this story for you. Rather, I have sought, simply, to set out different possibilities for filling in the gaps there are in the text (as there are in every text). That there are always these gaps is why we readers of the Bible are always its interpreters. The truth of any passage doesn’t just lie in it, complete and ready to be extracted by its readers. We readers make what we think is the true interpretation of any text.
Other Discussion Questions
6. Which of the two interpretations of the Zacchaeus story do you think is the better, and why? It may help to answer this question by setting out in point form the arguments I have provided for each interpretation before deciding which you think is the better.
7. How much do the other stories about money in Luke’s Gospel influence your interpretation of the Zacchaeus story? It may help to read together at least a couple of these stories. I would suggest 12.13-21 and 18.9-14 before the others.
8. How do we First-World Christians, most of us probably among the wealthy of our society and certainly of our world (even if many of us don’t feel particularly ‘wealthy’), read the apparently-total rejection of wealth in 16.13b? Or does the Zacchaeus story suggest a less than total rejection – Zacchaeus after all promises to give away only half his wealth? If he were Bill Gates that would still leave him with a lot of wealth!
9. What has touched each of you most as you’ve read and discussed this story?
Prayer
Spend some time praying for each other in the group and for the needs of our community and world……ending with the grace.