Why Zacchaeus?

by Bishop Ross Bay

(Based on Luke 19:1-10)

It’s quite a coincidence that we read about the encounter which Jesus had with Zacchaeus the tax collector in the week that Labour [New Zealand political party – Ed] have announced their proposal for a new capital gains tax. That of course takes our minds quickly back to the pre-election announcement in 2023 not to introduce either a capital gains tax or a wealth tax. We saw then the obvious lack of clarity across the Labour Party about their taxation policy; hence the decision to leave it alone at that point. Lots of debate this week about it, and I’m sure many more debates still to come.
But that’s all just interesting and the point of the sermon is not going to be the assessment of NZ tax policies. To paraphrase the Pharisee praying in last week’s gospel reading, “I thank God that I am not a tax collector.”

So, no, I don’t pretend to understand the taxation system – apparently you don’t have to understand tax, you just have to make sure you pay it. But I do understand a little about the taxation system of Roman-occupied Palestine in the first century. Essentially the Roman officer in charge of the district would determine the amount that was required to be collected in taxes from that area. They would then seek local people to be their agents to collect those taxes. That gave the tax collector the opportunity to add their own commission on top so that it made their work worth their while.
The Romans were not too bothered by what the tax collectors were taking from people so long as they received the amount they had established. It was a system left wide open to corruption and rapacious behaviour. When John the Baptist was preaching he was approached by some tax collectors who asked him what they should do in response to his call for repentance and kingdom-preparedness. John told them to collect no more than the amount prescribed for them, which would have left them with no income for their efforts. Such was the radical nature of John’s ethics.

And perhaps that was the point. Palestine was under Roman occupation and rule. Those who engaged with its systems like tax collectors, gathering money from a subjugated people in order to support the occupying power, were regarded as collaborators and traitors. They were rich and powerful, but they were hated and were treated as social outcasts by many. So maybe John was saying, don’t be involved at all, but if you must then only collect what your masters demand.
Among this band then was Zacchaeus of Jericho. It was a big town in its day, and a wealthy one. Herod had a palace there and it was a place of trade, about 25 kms from Jerusalem, say a day and a half to walk given the terrain and the heat. We know of it best from the Parable of the Good Samaritan because it was the Jericho road that those various travellers were on.

Zacchaeus is described as being a chief tax collector. It’s a phrase not found elsewhere in Scripture or other literature of the period. It could mean that he oversaw a group of tax collectors, or it could be a way of expressing the quantum available to him by serving in a wealthy town and therefore how rich he himself had become.
The sense of him being a social outcast is seen in the efforts he has to go to in order to see Jesus. No one is going to let this short tax collector get to the front of the crowd for a peek, so Zacchaeus has to run ahead and climb a tree to get his view.
His behaviour rightly can allow us to speculate about why he is so determined. He would have good cause for avoiding Jesus. We might imagine that Jesus comes with a reputation for what he believes and the things he has to say about ethics. He is making his final journey to Jerusalem at the end of three years of itinerant preaching. Surely Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus was tough on rich people. In fact, in an encounter with a rich ruler in the previous chapter, Luke records Jesus as inviting him to sell all he had and give it to the poor. And when the ruler went away sad, not able to face the thought, Jesus commented about how hard it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God, saying it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

And yet something compels him. Perhaps a yearning in him for more. Perhaps a tiredness of being shunned by his neighbours. Clearly he is ready for more, because when Jesus calls to him to offer hospitality, he is happy to do so.

Jesus was always looking for the outcast to spend time with. Partly to make a point to those who were a bit too sure of their own holiness and who would never have been seen with sinners, as Jesus often was. But more importantly because Jesus understood that this is where his mission lay – as he said at the end of this encounter, “The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
So, I like to think that as Jesus was making his way through the crowds, people would have started muttering about that dirty tax collector Zacchaeus up in the tree – what does he think he would have to do with such a great rabbi? And Jesus would have thought, “Exactly the kind of person I was looking for to spend some time with.”

Every encounter with Jesus we read about in the Gospels is an expression of God’s grace reaching out to people. How will they respond to this grace? The rich ruler went away sad because he had so much and it carried more power in his life than the grace Jesus extended. But Zacchaeus is ready to respond to God’s grace. His yearning for Jesus is met by the willingness of Jesus to enter his home and eat with him.
Zacchaeus now responds to this expression of grace by demonstrating repentance. He knows the Law, for in Exodus it requires that a thief will give four sheep for a sheep by way of restitution, and Zacchaeus offers to pay back anyone he has defrauded four times what he took from them. In addition he undertakes to give away half of his wealth to the poor. By the end of it all he will no longer be a very rich person.

Jesus declares that salvation has come to this house. Not, I think, because Zacchaeus has fronted up with some big money as if to buy his salvation, but because the grace of God in Jesus for which he has yearned and to which he has responded has brought about true repentance. Zacchaeus offers tangible expression of his response to God’s grace. It is the grace that has saved him. His acts of restitution and alms-giving demonstrate the impact that grace has made in him.

I think that this is one of the great insights we can gain from the encounter with Zacchaeus. Salvation must mean something. The preaching of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, had a strong emphasis on human response and lifestyle change. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” said John.
Jesus opened his public ministry with the words, “The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.”

The visit Jesus makes to Zacchaeus’s house is no delay in his journey to Jerusalem, it is not a final opportunity to help one person among many desperate to meet him. Rather, it embodies the whole point of Jesus’s mission, and Zacchaeus’s actions provide a text book example of an appropriate human response to that mission.
Grace reaches towards human yearning which responds to that grace in ways that both demonstrate its impact and contribute to the presence and ethics of the emerging kingdom.

For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.