The gospel reading for Sunday, October 30th comes from Luke 19:1-10. Here it is, together with four introductory comments, a few of my own observations, and some resonances with each of the three other lectionary passages:
Luke 19:1-10
[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Background comments
Zaccheus is a “chief tax collector.” What should that fact call to our minds? Last week, we heard a parable from Jesus about a tax collector (18:9-14) who also “stood” to speak (18:13; cf. 19:8) and experienced salvation in his “house” (18:14; cf. 19:9). This lectionary sequence prompts us to understand Zaccheus as an embodiment of the tax collector of the parable. (See that post here.)
The people (τοῦ ὄχλου) who see Jesus inviting himself to Zaccheus’ house “were grumbling” (διεγόγγυζον, 19:7). This is the second of only two times the NT uses this word, and the first was also from Luke for the same reason: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” (15:1-2). This tells us that the “grumbling” in this scene is not everyday grumbling, but a grumbling indicative and even representative of the Big Grumble of the people (19:7)—not just the Pharisees (15:1-2) anymore—against Jesus. More than that, διεγόγγυζον is also the word used described the ten “grumblings” of Israel in the wilderness which caused that generation not to inherit the new land (Exod. 15:24; 16:2, 7–9, 12; 17:3; Num. 11:1; 14:2, 27, 29, 36; 16:11, 41; 17:5, 10; Deut. 1:27). In Luke, those who grumble at Jesus’ reception of and eating with sinners are the generation who won’t inherit the new land.
Speaking of inheriting the new land, the story of Zaccheus is also a Jericho story: “He entered Jericho…” (v. 1). When Joshua first enters Jericho, he enters the house of a sinful woman named Rahab as a spy. Rahab hosts him and confesses faith in Yahweh, and Joshua declares Yahweh’s salvation to her house alone (Josh. 2), before he destroys the rest of the city (Josh. 6). In Luke’s story, Jesus is the New Joshua, Zaccheus is the new Rahab, and the grumbling crowd is both the grumbling generation of Israel in the wilderness and the unbelieving Jericho. Zaccheus shows his faith by his work of hospitality and repentance, and Jesus declares Yahweh’s salvation to his house alone.
Zaccheus restores what he defrauds “fourfold.” Why? There are several relevant backgrounds at play:
The Book of the Covenant (Exod. 20:22-23:33) introduces fourfold restitution: “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep” (22:1).
Nathan confronts David (2 Sam. 12) by telling him the story of “a poor man” whose one lamb was taken by a rich man (vv. 1-4). David’s anger is kindled, and he judges that the rich man “deserves to die” and ought to “restore (יְשַׁלֵּ֣ם; cf. Exod. 22:1) the lamb fourfold”, concluding also that the rich man “had no pity” (vv. 5-6). The text depicts Nathan, the prophet of Yahweh, metaphorically applying the “fourfold restitution” law to David’s theft of Bathsheba; and David, the man after Yahweh’s own heart, giving a judgment, and then, like the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14), pronouncing judgment on himself: “I have sinned against Yahweh.”
Roman law codes also required those formally convicted of fraud or extortion to make fourfold restitution of what was stolen. The Laws of Aquila (ca. 286 B.C.) permit judges to lessen this penalty if the theft was either “not manifest” or “due to degrees of negligence.”
Observations
The text could have begun, “There was a tax collector named Zaccheus,” but it does him more dignity than that. Instead, it starts, “And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus” (v. 2). In our contemporary idiom, tax collecting is what he does, not who he is. This makes him redeemable.
This man, despite being a tax collector, and rich, he “was seeking” (ἐζήτει) to see Jesus, which is a significant word in Luke. Others have “sought” Jesus: his parents (2:48-49); the men carrying their paralyzed friend (5:18); and the people who tried to touch him for healing (6:19).
And Jesus teaches on the subject of seeking: “Seek and you will find… he who seeks, finds” (11:9-10); “Seek his kingdom, and [food and drink] will be added to you” (12:31); “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many… will seek to enter and will not be able” (13:24); and “Who ever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (17:33).
From start to end, Zaccheus is the very picture of a seeker who strives to enter the narrow door: he is vigorous, creative, and obedient. He runs ahead, separating himself from the crowd, like both the Pharisee and the tax collector of Luke 18:9-14. He climbs a tree. When Jesus says “hurry and come down,” he “hurries and comes down.”
His verbal pledge of restitution, which is the heart of the story, matches the vigor, creativity, and obedience of his physical actions. It comes in two parts: “Half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
What’s odd is that the Law prescribes two different kinds of restitution for theft. When a man steals money, he owes the principal, plus 20% interest: “he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs” (Lev. 6:5). Fourfold restitution was reserved for when a man had stolen sheep.
Despite only owing 120% of what he had stolen, Zaccheus gives substantially more. Because Luke does not disclose the conversation in the home, we do not know why Zaccheus says what he says. All the reader is given is a portrait of a man who, like the tax collector of 18:9-14, ignores the sins of others and instead judges himself; who chooses the maximum penalty instead of the minimum required penalty; and who expresses no interest in trying his case in court. The Roman penalty of fourfold restitution was only for criminals convicted in a Roman court; Zaccheus was convicted in his own home and in his own heart.
Zaccheus is not like the Pharisee of 18:9-14. The Pharisee goes above and beyond the requirements of the law in his giving to God; Zaccheus goes above and beyond in his restitution. The Pharisee looks at others with contempt; Zaccheus looks at himself with contempt.
Zaccheus is tender-hearted, a man after God’s heart in the way that David showed himself to be. His repentance is characterized by vigor, creativity, and obedience, and depicted for the Church as a model for our own.
Lectionary resonances
Zaccheus’s pledge embodies the right response to Yahweh’s words in Isaiah 1:10-20. “What to me,” he asks, ‘is the multitude of your sacrifices?” (v. 11) “Wash yourselves,” he says. “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression” (v. 17). And “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (v. 18). Zaccheus learns to do good, he seeks to do justice, and he actually corrects his theft which, because of his position of power as a chief tax collector, is rightly called “oppression.”
Psalm 32 calls the one whose transgression is forgiven “blessed” (v. 1) and continues as a witness to the internal effects of hiding sin: “when I kept silent, my bones wasted away” (v. 3). It admonishes the secret sinner to confess their sins “when you may be found,” because there is a time when those prayers “shall not reach him” (v. 6). Zaccheus repented when Jesus was passing through; he did not wait.
Sometimes we are not the defrauders, but the defrauded. Although we are right to focus on our own sins and judge ourselves, others walk around not paying us back what they owe us. These are “those who do not know God and … do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (II Thess. 1:8). Paul’s answer to this is that “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who repay you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels” (vv. 6-7). Zaccheus will experience salvation, like the Thessalonians, but commitment to the way of restitution means having less, and growing in the interdependent love and mutual care of the Christian community. Honest repentance opens us up to affliction, reveals the extent to which we live in Jericho, and requires us to wait patiently for the New Joshua to enter us and conquer us again.
I love the Jericho connection, and the resonance with Isaiah is so important. Jesus’ generation was like grumbling Israel in the ‘oppressive’ wilderness, but also self-righteous like Isaiah’s generation. What generational (and personal) sins are we blind to? Whether it’s flagrant sin or just wresting control from God, may we surrender the concept of life on our terms. Whatever our idols, we can be sure confession and repentance are near to the heart of God.