Sunday Worship 2 November | Lectionary Proper 25: Zacchaeus Was a Very Little Man?

Luke19:1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

So, Zacchaeus. This was probably one of the first Bible stories I learnt, thanks in no small part to the song ‘Zacchaeus was a very little man’, which I could probably still do all the actions to. That means I have known this story for more than thirty years, but this week I discovered something that completely turned it on its head. It’s been a valuable reminder of why it’s so good to return to stories we think we know well.

We’ll come to that big revelation in time, but first a question. Who really was the ‘very little man?’ We are told ‘he was short’, but the Greek is not clear on who the ‘he’ being referred to is, and so there is the possibility that Jesus was the one who was so short that Zacchaeus couldn’t see him over the heads of the crowds. Another question then. Does it matter? It doesn’t really change the story at all, but does it change how we see Jesus if he is not the striking figure we have become used to from films and paintings? Jesus confounded the expectations of those to whom he first appeared, and we need to be prepared for him to confound our expectations too.

Thinking of the unexpected, we are told that Zacchaeus wants to know who Jesus is, which suggests that he has heard about him but hasn't met him, and yet when Jesus calls to him, he already knows his name. Perhaps this is divine knowledge, or perhaps he has heard whispering in the crowd that Zacchaeus is up a tree, and he's made an educated guess that there isn't more than one tax collector sitting in the branches. Either way, Jesus really pays attention to him, and it must have been quite something for Zacchaeus to not simply be seen, but to be called by name. We are told throughout scripture that God knows us, that we were seen before we were formed in our mother's womb, that the hairs on our head are counted, and here Zacchaeus experiences that in a very real way.

So Jesus invites himself for dinner, and the crowd grumbles that he is going to be the guest of a sinner. Here we get a sense of how unpopular Zacchaeus is, although we are not given any reason why the people should call him a sinner, except that we already know he is a tax collector, and the two often get lumped in together in scripture. It seems likely that this wasn't wholly unwarranted, as tax collectors worked for the occupying forces and had a reputation for taking extra for themselves. And so the usual reading of this story is that Zacchaeus was a cheat, whose brief encounter with Jesus led him to immediately repent, promising to give to the poor and repay anything he had taken unfairly four times over. 

But this is where we come to the big revelation I mentioned earlier, because the grammar tells a different story. Zacchaeus does not say that he will do anything, but rather he says “I give” and “I restore”. These are not future promises, but present and ongoing actions. The word "will" has snuck into our translations, but it is not in the Greek and even the commentaries say it shouldn't really be there. It seems that translators have read their own assumptions into the story, but a plain reading suggests that Zacchaeus is already doing the right thing. And he's doing the right things without recognition, so he really is doing it because it's the right thing. This story is not then about the miraculous conversion of a sinner, but about the ostracisation of a good man by his community because of lazy prejudice. It is not Zacchaeus but the crowds who need to repent. 

If you are as familiar with the traditional reading as I am, perhaps that feels like a lot to wrap your head around, but I think there are clues that suggest we have been reading it wrong. In the previous chapter, Jesus tells a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” So Jesus is already challenging our ideas about tax collectors.

And if we look back even further to Luke 3, we read this: “Even tax collectors came [to John the Baptist] to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’” Perhaps Zacchaeus was one of these tax collectors. Perhaps at one point he had been all the crowds believed him to be but he had already repented and reformed. Perhaps he is so keen to see Jesus because he is already seeking the kingdom.

There are clues in the story too, which are very easy for us to miss without detailed knowledge of the language or customs of the time. The name Zacchaeus means pure, which the traditional reading renders ironic or prophetic, but could in fact be pointing towards Zacchaeus being the one who is already righteous. And Luke makes a point of saying that Zacchaeus stands to explain himself. If he was repenting, we might expect him to kneel, but instead he adopts a posture of defence.

So if Zacchaeus was not the sinner the people believed him to be, why does Jesus declare that “Today salvation has come to this house...for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”? Well Zacchaeus may not have been lost to God, but he was lost to the community. This encounter surely changed how people saw him, and   transformed his place in society. That itself is a form of salvation, because Jesus does not only care about our relationship with him, but also our relationships with one another. We see that in the healing miracles too, where those who had been ritually unclean are returned to the community, and that is as much a part of them being made whole as them being made physically well.

So what can we take from reading the story of Zacchaeus this way? I think there are interesting conversations to be had about the way that Zacchaeus still participated in an unjust system even if he was personally righteous, and the extent to which we should seek to disentangle ourselves from corrupt structures or work to transform them from the inside. But mostly I think we may need to put ourselves in the position of the crowds and ask who is Zacchaeus for us, who might we have been judging unfairly, and who should we perhaps follow Jesus in extending an invitation to.