At church this morning, the pastor was preaching about the story of
Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10. Zacchaeus was a rich tax collector, and tax
collectors were unpopular among Jews because there were tax collectors
who defrauded people or exacted more than was due to them (Luke 3:13),
growing rich as a result. Jesus was passing through Jericho, and
Zacchaeus climbed the sycamore tree to see who Jesus was, since
Zacchaeus was a short man. Jesus came, looked up, and told Zacchaeus
that he (Jesus) would be coming to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. Zacchaeus
came down from the tree and welcomed Jesus. People standing there were
grumbling that Jesus was about to be the guest of a sinner,
and Zacchaeus told Jesus that he (Zacchaeus) would give half of his
possessions to the poor and pay back fourfold those whom he defrauded.
Jesus said that salvation has come to this house, for Zacchaeus is a son
of Abraham, and the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
The pastor talked about a variety of topics. He was jokingly, yet
honestly, saying that he tended to view himself as a low-level sinner,
regardless of what his Methodist theology teaches him. He said that he felt that he was not as bad as some sinners, and not too
bad of a sinner, period. (He seemed to be implying that this was not
how he was supposed to feel, but it was still how he honestly felt.) He likened
Zacchaeus to Bernie Madoff, who stole millions from people and destroyed
people’s lives. The pastor asked if God’s grace can run that deep, and
he referred to a church he attended that reached out to addicts. The
pastor was contrasting the beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew with the
beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke. Matthew’s beatitudes bless the poor
in spirit and those who hunger for righteousness (Matthew 5), whereas
Luke’s beatitudes bless the poor and hungry, while proclaiming woe to
the rich, the full, and the popular (Luke 6). The pastor also referred
to the Parable of Lazarus: the afflicted poor person went to Abraham’s
bosom after his death, whereas the rich man went to Hades, a place of
torment (Luke 16). One can add Mary’s Magnificat to the list of Luke’s
passages about the rich and the poor: it talks about God lifting up the
poor and hungry, while bringing down the proud and powerful and sending
the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). The Gospel of Luke appears to be
anti-rich. Yet, here Jesus is, reaching out to rich Zacchaeus! The
pastor said that Jesus was not standing with his arms crossed, waiting
for Zacchaeus to offer to make restitution; that was something that
Zacchaeus himself decided to do, but Jesus was just reaching out to lost
Zacchaeus. The pastor inquired why Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, and
he speculated that it was because Zacchaeus was lonely. The pastor then
said that there are ways in which each of us is lost, or has been lost,
and Jesus seeks and saves us. And, even if we consider ourselves
lower-level sinners, the pastor said, we can make restitution to people.
I’ll let my summary of the story and the sermon stand, without adding
too many thoughts of my own. Even if I may not always consider myself
to be as bad as than certain sinners, I should still remember that Jesus
is compassionate towards all sinners, desiring their restoration.
One part of the story that stands out to me is Jesus’ statement that
salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house because Zacchaeus, too, is a son
of Abraham. Is Zacchaeus now a son of Abraham because of his
repentance? I think of John the Baptist’s statement in Luke 3:8,
encouraging people to bear fruit of repentance rather than seeking
refuge in their status as Abraham’s children. Zacchaeus was an
Israelite, like the other Israelites there, but perhaps his repentance
was his affirmation of what being an Israelite ethically and spiritually
entailed. Or maybe Jesus was saying that the other Israelites there
should accept Zacchaeus as a fellow son of Abraham, with an identity as
part of God’s chosen people: they should have compassion for that sinner
and desire his repentance, as opposed to looking down on him and
criticizing Jesus for reaching out to him. They should embrace and
applaud Jesus’ outreach to Israel, God’s chosen people, and Jesus’
outreach to Zacchaeus was a part of that. Or maybe part of it was Jesus
telling Zacchaeus that he was a son of Abraham, a part of the community
of God’s people: Zacchaeus could see himself as part of a community as
opposed to separating himself from the community through his
exploitation of his fellow Israelites. Zacchaeus did not have to feel
so lonely, for he was part of something larger than himself.