What is important about the Gospel stories is the message held within the story. When I was at high school I got frustrated at having to find the theme of a set book. To me they were a good story or just boring.
My reading has improved since then and when I saw a promotion for a new Ann Cleves novel featuring ‘The return of Jimmy Perez’ I grabbed my Whitcoulls Card and headed for the mall.
On the back cover someone called Mick Herron had written, ‘Ann Cleeves is one of our secret chroniclers, charting,-under cover of a series of expertly plotted and mesmerizing crime novels, -how we live now.’
The Gospel writers are also chroniclers of their times but also how Jesus lived and what he believed. Furthermore, Luke was an expert at it, no word was ever wasted. Meaning is layered upon meaning and the previous section about the blind man receiving sight leads into the man who couldn’t come near Jesus because of his separation by exploitation and wealth.
Even the landscape has meaning. When I first read that Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree, I envisioned one of those huge trees with seeds like little propellers. However, when I checked out the use of the word sycamore in the Bible Commentary, I found that the tree referred to is not that kind of sycamore. Those are Canadian sycamores that have leaves similar to fig trees. Figs were quite common in Palestine and not all fig trees are like the one that feeds the birds in my garden.
A recent episode of Ben Bayley’s Food Story visited Te Mata Figs in the Hawkes Bay which grow 30 different types of figs. So, the fig tree that Zacchaeus climbed was probably a type of fig that poor people grew because it had the advantage of fruiting three times a year. We know that this tree was common because the verses in 1st Kings and Chronicles that praise King Solomon say that cedars will be as numerous as sycamores. The metaphor here is that the cedars are a tree of power that build temples, palaces and the masts of ships. So, for Solomon these kingly trees are going to be as plentiful as the trees that sustain the poor ordinary folk.
Amos said that he could not be a prophet because he was a simple herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. Amos was saying he was an ordinary person who lived by his herds and by tending the sycamore trees that are a regular crop that sustained those who had very little.
Understanding that helps us as we look at the contrast presented between Zacchaeus and the blind beggar in the previous story. Two very different people in many ways but both outcasts from their society, both sinners, both unclean. The blind beggar is unclean because he is blind and therefore as an incomplete human he is being punished by God. So he must be a sinner.
Zacchaeus is a sinner and therefore unclean because he collects tax for the occupying power, the Romans. The blind beggar is poor and Zacchaeus is rich. The blind man must beg for his living, but Zacchaeus lives off everyone else and gets rich.
But the blind man understands what Jesus can do for him. So, once he is told that Jesus is passing by he calls out to Jesus for help. Zacchaeus on the other hand climbed up a poor man’s tree to see who Jesus was.
Zacchaeus was small of stature but big on wealth. The blind man was shut off from the world because he could not see. That is the story that Luke is telling us and the blind man found the answer simply by calling out to Jesus. In answer to that plea he received salvation, his life was changed.
The blind beggar had faith and knew that Jesus could restore is sight. He trusted that knowledge and was saved by that trust. His sight was saved by his faith because Lazer Surgery hadn’t been invented.
Zacchaeus was probably not used to trusting, what tax collector is! Zacchaeus knew that you had to find your way up in life. He was a chief tax collector in Jericho, which was a major customs point where anything that moved through got taxed. They didn’t have new motorways, but they collect the toll anyway. Jericho was a very good place to be chief tax collector.
Being chief tax collector meant that he got a percentage of all the tax collectors under him, it was a pyramid system. Zacchaeus would collect the tax from the tax collectors under him and pass it on up the line where it would be used for all the costs of running an empire. In many ways it was fair to tax trade goods at custom points. Travel on Roman Roads was very safe from robbers and pirates because Roman soldiers patrolled them. But just like our police they had to be paid.
For collecting that tax Zacchaeus was allowed to keep a percentage so the more tax collectors he could recruit the more money he made and the less chance there was of anyone missing out on being taxed. Those at the top of the pyramid would see it as fair and those on the bottom would feel they were being ripped off.
But there is nothing to say that Zacchaeus was dishonest because it was the system. He was classed as unclean because people did not like the system and the system probably was unjust. Working in banking is considered an honourable profession but people get niggly when interest on mortgages get too high at the same time as interest on savings is very low.
We certainly don’t like the merchant biting a surcharge of our morning tea and questions can be asked about banks that build a cashless society then charge us extra to use the cards they gave us.
Roman Tax had much the same effect on the poor people of the empire and, here was this little man climbing over the very trees that sustained the ordinary poor people. Just like biting a surcharge out of your morning muffin.
The blind man had to ask who Jesus was because he could not see. Zacchaeus was not blind but in spite of all his wealth Zacchaeus could not see because he was too small.
In trying to find Jesus Zacchaeus behaved despicably. How would any of us like strangers climbing our fruit trees? Breaking branches, knocking off fruit. Most of us have fruit trees just to supply a bit of extra luxury but imagine if we were relying on them to keep us alive between harvests. For those who did the grumbling in this passage climbing the sycamore tree would just be another example of this sinner’s arrogance and exploitation.
But however he did it, the symbolism in the story is clear, and coupling this story with the blind beggar story makes it even clearer. Zacchaeus and the blind beggar were both seeking Jesus and the result for both was the same. Rich man and poor man were both accepted by Jesus, just because they sought him out.
The blind man was able to ask the crowd who it was that was coming, and they were happy to tell him, although they did not like him calling out to Jesus.
The wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus sat in a common sycamore tree, the tree that feeds the common people, he must have felt silly. Unlike the blind man he did not call out to Jesus. Jesus called out to him.
‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’
It’s the upside-down world of Jesus again. Zacchaeus tries to see who Jesus is and Jesus demands to stay with him. Zacchaeus is rich and powerful but Jesus, the wandering prophet, can give orders to Zacchaeus. Now Zacchaeus can see who Jesus really is and he responds in the only way possible, with generosity!
Zacchaeus says if he has cheated anyone, he will repay them. The ‘if’ indicates that Zacchaeus does not think he has cheated anyone, but he hands that decision to Jesus and in doing so acknowledges Jesus’ divinity.
Who but God would know if anyone of us had unknowingly cheated anyone? Faced with Jesus’ acceptance Zacchaeus will pay back anyone he may have unknowingly cheated and that’s quite hard to get a modern corporation to do.
But Zacchaeus is prepared to go even further, he will, without question, give half of everything he owns to the poor!
It is important to note that this is Zacchaeus’ offer not Jesus’ requirement. Remember the rich ruler who makes his appearance in the previous chapter asked Jesus what he should do to gain eternal life. Jesus told him to give everything he had to the poor.
Zacchaeus simply seeks out Jesus. Zacchaeus knows he is small and disliked but Jesus accepts him and says that he is coming to be with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus reacts to that acceptance with generosity.
That surely is the message that Luke has for us! All we need to do is look for Jesus, ‘to see who Jesus is.’ It is as we seek Jesus that Jesus comes to us. Comes to share our hospitality and make us part of his community.
There are no rules, no criteria to be measured against. Jesus accepted Zacchaeus and he was someone who chose to work against his own people and in many ways as miserable wretch as you could imagine.
His people would have got rid of him if they got the chance. We can think of many parallels of Zacchaeus throughout history. People who get rich by the misfortune of others, people who might not be dishonest but who get wealthy through aligning themselves to unjust systems.
Just as Zacchaeus made that effort, we too can try to see who Jesus is. Just by making that effort we will discover that, whoever Jesus was in first century Palestine, his death and resurrection allowed us all to discover Jesus as the Risen Christ—The risen Christ who, through our seeking, we discover is alive in us.
Through Christ we become part of God’s new way of being, and in reaction to that generosity we cannot help but be generous.
We cannot earn God’s favour by restoring the wrongs we have done. We cannot earn God’s favour by giving away our possessions to the poor. God, revealed in us through Jesus Christ, is more loving and more just than human beings can ever hope to be. We are therefore only brought into relationship with God through God’s generous gift.
We must accept that gift as Zacchaeus accepted it by looking to see who Jesus is. When we discover the Trinitarian truth that Jesus is the revelation of God to us, we find the risen Christ alive within us.
Our lives change and we cannot contain our loving generosity because we are part of the body of Christ. In celebration we break bread and share with all Christians to remind us that Christ is alive in us.
