Zacchaeus
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 -- Week of Proper 5, Year One
Columba, Abbot of Iona, 597
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 970)
Psalms 61, 62 (morning) 68:1-20(21-23)24-36 (evening)
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
2 Corinthians 11:1-21a
Luke 19:1-10
Generations of children have sung the little song, "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see." I can remember singing that song and thinking about that "wee little man." He was like me, I thought. He was little. So for me, the story meant that Jesus noticed and cared for the little ones, like children. It was like the story of Jesus taking the children in his arm.
I get a different view of the story reading it as a grown up. The only significance to his shortness was that Zacchaeus showed his faith by taking an the unusual step of climbing up a tree to see above the crowd when Jesus visited Jericho. There are two other characteristics that are far more significant to me now.
Zacchaeus is a tax collector. That means he was a Jewish collaborator with the Roman occupation. It also means he was corrupt, for the only way a tax collector made money was through graft, adding an extra surcharge on top of the collected taxes. All of the tax was expected to be paid to the officials. For the tax collector to make money, he had to overcharge. The tax collector was the up-close, familiar face of Roman occupation, enforcing the resentful payments that subsidized, among other things, the army which enforced the occupation. Tax collectors were hated. They were something like traitors -- corrupt, greedy traitors.
And Zacchaeus was a rich man. Becoming rich in the Middle East culture was dishonorable and a sign of low morals. Just one chapter earlier Luke asserts that Jesus said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (18:24f)
We tend to honor those who are enterprising and can extend their family's wealth. Not so in Jesus' culture. The honorable person was one who sustained his family's fortune -- not losing land, wealth or status; but not expanding it either. The paradigm behind this ethic is the presumption that wealth is a zero-sum game. In a land-based agricultural economy, that makes sense. There is only so much arable land. An honorable person maintains their landed inheritance.
To extend one's land -- to add to one's wealth or to grow rich -- would mean in that culture that someone else must lose their land or wealth. For you to prosper, someone else must suffer. Therefore to grow rich is to cause another's poverty. To become rich is to exercise greed -- the most dishonorable of sins in the Biblical world. The wealthy are those who have through greed taken from others in order to extend themselves beyond their given place. The honorable are those who accept their given place in society and maintain their status in a just equilibrium.
These economic principles underlie much of the wisdom and ethics of the Bible. (It's interesting that you will rarely meet someone who claims to be a Biblical "believer" or literalist or fundamentalist who will also promote a Biblical economic ethic for our time.)
One other important custom to understand. In Jesus' culture, to eat with someone was a public declaration of acceptance and alliance with that other. To have a meal with another person was to publicly say that you accept that person as your friend and you connect your standing and honor in the community with that person's character and status.
Jesus violates the ethical norms of his society when he chooses to go to Zacchaeus' house for a meal. No Rabbi, no honorable, ethical, law-observant person would make such an alliance as Jesus made that day. His act was scandalous. It was offensive to those who were trying to live an honorable and righteous life. It was offensive to those who tried to promote the honorable and righteous life. Good people, honorable people, did not eat with the tax collectors or the rich.
Zacchaeus responds with a radical, extravagant act of generosity. But maybe it's not as extravagant as it may appear to us. "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor." That may not have impressed the crowd as much as it probably impresses us. In all likelihood, at least half, probably more of his possessions he had gained unhonorably and dishonestly. Zacchaeus' second statement is more noteworthy. "If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." No doubt he has. And his four-fold reimbursement is even more than the law demanded. It is a remarkable and generous commitment.
Jesus' act of acceptance and friendship toward one who was known to be greedy and dishonest transforms Zacchaeus. Salvation comes to his house. Jesus acknowledges this disreputable man as a "son of Abraham." Zacchaeus responds to Jesus' generosity with his own generosity.
How different might our society be if we extended such generosity and acceptance toward those whom we regard as dishonorable sinners?
Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 8:42 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I have always thought of a sinner as a sinner. Who do you regard as dishonorable?
In Jesus' culture, "sinner" meant something different than it means in our culture. Within Judaism a sinner was one who did not, or could not, observe the Jewish law. The category "sinner" included many people who because of their life status of poverty couldn't observe the purity codes regardless of their moral character. They may be of high moral character, but they were sinners because their life situation made it impossible to observe the law.
It also included anyone who simply did not try to observe the law, and those who might be morally notorious.
The focus of the party of the Pharisees was to promote more faithful observance of the law by adapting its provisions among the lower classes, to make the law accessible more broadly within the society.
In some ways the word "sinner" was more of a class distinction than a moral description.
Many people regarded themselves as righteous and would have been seen to be righteous. They were observant, practicing Jews. They were not sinners.
I was trying to offer a parallel from our own culture. We have classes of people whom we look down upon; we have those who we regard as disreputable or immoral. We also have many who think of themselves as upright, or religious, or moral, or enterprising. The latter tend to look down upon the former.
There are ways in our culture that Jesus' acceptance and friendship with an immoral, dishonest, greedy neighbor might cause scandal today, especially among the religious. Many religious people are more characterized by their moralism and judgmentalism than by their compassionate acceptance. What if we imitated Jesus more and reached out as friends, with compassion and acceptance, rather than moralism and judgmentalism?
Lowell
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