A Very Different Story

Luke 19:1-10

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to experience the familiar story of Zacchaeus with entirely new eyes, and this experience has challenged me. I think it might challenge you too. As an elected member of the Trustees of the Funds for our Diocese, I participate in quarterly meetings with some clergy and a lot of highly qualified lay leaders and representatives of our investment firm. I attended our quarterly meeting this past Wednesday in Roanoke, where we were asked to do a short Bible study to start our meeting. We heard two different voices read this Gospel passage, then paired off to discuss our impressions. Some of you may be familiar with this practice of Dwelling in the Word, and if so you’ll know that the goal is not discussion, but deep listening to one another. We took turns sharing what we heard, and came back as a large group to hear what folks had noticed. I’ll admit that I was not expecting the first thing to come up in the group. Someone present shared that stories like this are tough for her, because she is literally a tax collector. Not only that, but she is the chief tax collector for her municipality. She shares a vocation with Zacchaeus, even if the mechanisms and motivations between taxation in the ancient world and today are drastically different. As a faithful Christian, she hears Gospel stories read and sermons preached week in and week out about the evils of tax collectors, all while serving her community and doing her duty. What does the Good News of Jesus Christ sound like to someone in her position?

Another person shared that they struggle with this passage and with the general attitude toward wealth and the rich in scripture. Haven’t there been many examples of people using wealth for the care and support of the vulnerable? Without wealthy heads of households to host them, where would Jesus and his friends have slept and dined and taught in their itinerant ministry? How would our churches survive into the future without the good stewardship of resources past and present? Doesn’t it all come down to how you got your money, and how you choose to spend it?

These are perspectives I have had very few opportunities to consider in my life. My family, like many families, spent most of my upbringing working hard to keep the lights on and the ends met. Starting a savings account was a someday goal and my college career relied on a combination of merit scholarships, student loans, and paychecks I made working as an office aide. We did not think much on things like portfolios and our charitable giving started and stopped with what we could offer to our church. I had no trouble believing that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, because I didn’t personally know many people who fit that description. I’ve since learned that I was emulating the prayer of our misguided character from last Sunday- “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” Any time I think I know exactly who is in the right and who is in the wrong, the Holy Spirit reminds me who is really telling the story.

Jesus has no interest in who we think should be the hero and who should be the villain. When he came to the bottom of that sycamore tree and called up to our brother Zacchaeus, he made sure both the man in the tree and the crowds all around him heard loud and clear. “Zacchaeus, get a move on, I’m staying with you tonight.” No interest in invitations or decorum, no concern for the fact that the chief tax collector had a reputation that preceded him and the people would be displeased. Jesus saw a child of God climbing a tree to catch a glimpse of the kingdom, and brought the kingdom to that child of God’s doorstep.

This passage has been preached by many as a story of conversion, one in which the wee Zacchaeus accepts an invitation from Jesus to change his life and redeem himself to all whom he has cheated or wronged, divesting of his dishonest wealth. Our translation that we hear from the lectionary reflects that pretty clearly- Zacchaeus says “Half my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone I will pay back four times as much.” That sounds like a very classic conversion, right? But there’s some trouble with the Greek here, and it matters. In fact, it might challenge you to hear the story differently. That “will” might not actually be in there. That verb has been translated in the future tense, as something Zacchaeus is promising to do from now on. But here’s the King James- “the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” And here’s the Common English Bible, a more recent translation- “…I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.” Can you hear the difference? It may be that we have sided with a prejudiced crowd in assuming Zacchaeus a sinner. That one word changes this from a story about a converted sinner to a story of a righteous rich man. Perhaps before Jesus ever met Zacchaeus, he was already giving more than what was expected of him and then some. Perhaps before Zacchaeus ever climbed that tree, he was righting his own wrongs and acting justly within an unjust and exploitative system.

That’s a very different story. That’s a much more complicated story, and for that reason alone it might be the one closer to reality. We know that Jesus ate with Pharisees and tax collectors and soldiers and the sick and the widowed and the destitute. We know that some Pharisees and some tax collectors and some soldiers criticized him, and some of his own followers and friends turned on him in his final hours. We know that wealth was a complicated thing in the Ancient Near East and continues to be a complicated thing today on an unbelievable scale. The hoarding of resources and destruction and havoc wreaked by unchecked consumption are unequivocally sinful. And. And, there are chief tax collectors, and wealthy finance professionals, and people living paycheck to paycheck, and people living in conditions most of us cannot fathom who kneel at the altar rail every Sunday to receive the same invitation from Jesus. Hurry and come here, I must stay with you. That is the Gospel.