Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house

 

 Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.  Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.  And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house."  So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.  But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, 'He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner."  Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold."  And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." 

 

- Luke 19:1-10 

 

Yesterday we read that Jesus took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.  For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.  They will scourge Him and kill Him.  And the third day He will rise again."  But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.  Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging.  And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant.  So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.  And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"  So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him.  And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight."  Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well."  And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God.  And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

 

Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.  My study Bible comments that Jericho was notorious as a place of iniquity; it is commonly associated with sinful living.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is set along the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho, where he fell among thieves (Luke 10:30-37).  

 

Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.  My study Bible also references our recent reading of the rich young ruler who sought out Jesus (see Monday's Daily Exegesis, in which Christ taught, "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God").  My study Bible comments that this encounter between Christ and Zacchaeus demonstrates that grace can accomplish that which is "impossible with men."

And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house."  So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.  But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, 'He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner."  My study Bible tells us that there are many spiritual interpretations of this passage that express the universal significance of this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus.  Theophylact views the crowd as symbolizing sins.  He writes:  "Crowded in by a multitude of passions and worldly affairs, he is not able to see Jesus."  According to St. Ambrose there are several parallels here:  Zacchaeus being short indicates his being short on faith and virtue; that Zacchaeus must climb a tree shows that no one attached to earthly matters can see Jesus; and finally, the Lord intending to pass that way shows that Christ will approach anyone willing to repent and believe.  

Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold."  It's important that we understand why it was that tax collectors were considered to be sinners.  They collaborated with the Roman authorities to collect taxes from fellow Jews, but frequently this was accompanied by extortion, as they could use the might of the occupying Roman state to collect more than was owed.  As Zacchaeus says here, he has taken by false accusation.  So here a repentant Zacchaeus makes an offering for restitution (as required in the Law), and beyond.  My study Bible notes that he uses the term give for his free and generous offering to the poor, and restore for what he owes those whom he had cheated, as that was not a gift but required by the Law (Exodus 22:1).  By doing both, my study Bible says, Zacchaeus not only fulfills the Law, but also shows his love of the gospel.  

 

And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."  My study Bible says that the title son of Abraham indicates Zacchaeus had become like this patriarch of Israel:  he was counted righteous by his faith, he became generous toward the poor, and he was united to the people of God.  In early records of the Church, we're told that he went on to be a bishop of the Church.

Zacchaeus repents so deeply that he turns his whole life around.  He's not only a tax collector, but the chief tax collector.  And he's not just a chief tax collector in Israel, but he's the chief tax collector in this notorious region of Jericho, where apparently all kinds of crime goes on, and the place is known for such.  To be shunned as a sinner in this region must be something indeed -- and of all the people, it is short Zacchaeus, who's climbed a tree to see Him, whom Jesus chooses to give Him hospitality for the day.  There are several things which we can notice about this reading.  We can contrast Zacchaeus, a notorious sinner (the rich chief tax collector of Jericho!) with the rich young ruler in Monday's reading, who knew Jesus as "good Teacher," who had followed all the commandments since his youth, and who desired eternal life and came to seek it from Christ.  This, by all accounts, was a "good" person (Mark's Gospel tells us that Jesus loved him; see Mark 10:21), but he could not relinquish his great possessions to follow Christ.  But here in today's reading we have Zacchaeus, a great sinner, who comes not just to restitution in the Law but to repentance through the grace of Christ, and changes and transforms his entire life -- giving much more than he needs to in order to "make things right" with the poor.  How do we explain this?  It is certainly an illustration of how grace works.  Nothing is done simply by measure with grace, but rather abundantly.  In the Sermon on the Plain, found here in Luke's Gospel, Jesus expresses this spirit of abundance with grace, when He teaches, "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you" (Luke 6:38).  Perhaps we may assume that Zacchaeus, experiencing the grace of Christ when Christ invited himself to Zacchaeus' home, has come to understand this sense of abundance in God's grace; thereby giving has become something he understands in a different light than as chief tax collector in Jericho.  This spirit of abundance, in which justice is no longer measured with exactitude but in the spirit of grace, runs all throughout the Gospels, and it qualifies and characterizes the kingdom of God, the blessed life Christ preaches (such as in the Beatitudes).  Perhaps its greatest characterization is found in Christ's statement of Himself as the Good Shepherd, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10; see in context).  We might consider Zacchaeus' life as chief tax collector in this light, getting what he had through the coercion of a great empire and its material power (including occupying soldiers), and extorting the extra he could get through false accusations against his neighbors.  We should compare that to the graciousness of Christ, who openly sought out Zacchaeus, the one who was so eager to see Jesus he climbed a tree to glimpse Him as He passed by, and in front of all the people proclaimed that he had to come down so that Jesus could stay at his home that day.  In our faith tradition, the great sign of Christ is the cross, but in this context of today's reading, we might closely consider why this is so.  The most dreaded Roman instrument of punishment, of coercion, reserved for the worst of criminals, was the cross.  But simply because Christ lay on that Cross, the transforming power of grace at work rendered the Cross the symbol of hope and resurrection for us all.  The instrument of death was transfigured into the instrument of life, abundantly.  Jesus' visit to Zacchaeus' home is another encounter with grace, with the kingdom of God, and Zacchaeus' entire outlook on life seems to have been irreducibly changed, transformed.  Things no longer "add up" the way they used to, apparently, for him.  He becomes one who sees by the light of grace, and so to give half his goods to the poor, and to restore fourfold what he stole, is what he chooses in this new light of Christ, in the transfiguring power of Christ's illumination for his soul, his future.  In this way, Zacchaeus is able to be restored to his identity as a son of Abraham, and he who was lost is claimed for the kingdom of God.  It is a powerful thing to consider what an encounter with grace might do to our souls, to change our whole outlook on the meaning of life and how we live it.  But by far the best example is this outcome of experience, the spiritual fruit we observe in Zacchaeus.  How has your faith changed you?   Are there things you now see that you did not see before?  Is there a way in which the grace and love of God has been experienced by you or someone you know, and created a transformed person in its wake?  For now let us consider Zacchaeus, the short man, and chief tax collector, who humbles himself by running ahead and climbing a tree to see Christ, and is in turn restored not only to his place but claimed for the kingdom of God, and becomes a bishop in Christ's church.  May Christ find rest in our homes and our hearts as well.