Pentecost + 24 C

^{Aldgate 30-10-2016 Luke 19.1-10 Zacchaeus}

Remember the camel entering the eye of the needle and the question, who can be saved? That’s the question today’s Gospel tackles. Can a chief tax collector – ἀρχιτελώνης – architelōnēs – a collaborator in the Roman occupation – be saved? What’s a contemporary equivalent? A drug dealer; a people-trafficker? A pimp? A slaver? Can such a person be saved? Because if they can, who could possibly be outside God’s love?

We know the story of Zacchaeus so well, we have to approach it all the more carefully so we don’t miss what it might be saying to us.

It’s in Luke’s Gospel, so there’s the usual money and food in it. And that’s aimed at all of us.

It also has a story context that we have to attend to. It’s set on the road to Jerusalem, and so the road to Jesus’ crucifixion. And that’s how seriously we must take it: it’s about ultimate things; life and death. There’s just been Jesus’ third prediction of his passion and death to ram this home, in case we’ve forgotten.

Let’s remember the more immediate context – most of which we’ve read recently.

a/ the parables of the widow and the unjust judge

b/ and the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple

and c/ the stories of Jesus receiving the little children

d/ the rich ruler who couldn’t sell up, give to the poor and follow Jesus

e/ and blind Bartimaeus on the road into Jericho

So there’s stuff about little people being mistreated by big people (widow/children), self-righteous people judging outsiders (Pharisee/Tax C), wealth and power preventing people from coming to God (Ruler), and someone asking Jesus to let them see (Bartimaeus).

All that comes together in the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus is seen as part of an oppressive system that makes little people hurt so that big people can be big. He’s a chief tax collector; not just a regular one like the man that Pharisee sneered at in the Temple. Zacchaeus was a sort of regional tax commissioner who would have farmed out the actual collection of taxes to subordinates. He would have been a very wealthy man, and possibly the most hated man in the region as well.

Just as ministers have always loved to preach the simplicity of social justice at leaders who have the actual job of making it happen, Pharisees loved to treat tax collectors as whipping-posts. There just couldn’t be any good in them.

So Zacchaeus – architelōnēs – his title is meant to remind us of the other archon – the ruler – that we read about just last week. So wealth and power are in view. The Ruler couldn’t give it up. Will Zacchaeus do any better?

But Luke’s got other comparisons at work: Bartimaeus’s name – some of Timaeus – is based on the Hebrew root טָמֵא – tamæ – which means unclean. Zacchaeus’s name comes from the Hebrew root זַכָּי – zakkai – which means pure, innocent or clean. What’s Luke trying to do to us? …

Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus. But it won’t be easy for him. Zacchaeus is short and there’s a big crowd. I feel like him; trying to look over all the crowds of saints who stand in the history of the Church. But back to Zak.

By now, the crowd will be electric with the news that blind Bart got his sight back – Jesus’ newest disciple will be following him into town.

Luke plays on this one who couldn’t see but now who can, and gives us a contrasting Zacchaeus; the one who could see, but now he can’t because of a thick crowd of taller people blocking his view.

So what does Zak do? He climbs a tree. By what road does he climb that tree? Yes, the road into Jericho. But what road is it for Jesus? And what stands at the end of it for him?

It’s almost a parody. Except it’s more serious than that. Zac was looking for Jesus – maybe out of curiosity. But he finds that Jesus has been looking for him – and for a different motive. All along, Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus out of love. I find that so beautifully moving; the reviled, hated outsider, blamed by everyone for his exile because of the life he has chosen – he could be a drug dealer; a people-smuggler – and Jesus has been looking for him. Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus! ^{Rm 8.39}

Zak; come on down. I have to stay at your place! And everyone’s horrified. The knives are out. Jesus’ credibility is at stake with a blunder like this. Except that Zacchaeus reveals a depth of joyful generosity and passion for justice that would shame that ruler of last week’s reading. Salvation has come.

One final observation. I don’t know whether it changes anything for you, but the Catholic commentator, Luke Timothy Johnson notes that Zacchaeus’s giving half his possessions and repaying any fraud are in a continuous tense in the Greek. He has been giving half his money away and if he discovers his tax collectors have defrauded anyone, he has been paying back four times as much all along. And Jesus knew his pure heart – all along. Thanks be to God! Amen