3/22/15 D.
Marion Clark
Introduction
This is the time of year that we think about the tax
collecting entity known as the IRS, sometimes referred to as the Infernal
Revenue Service. Whatever one may think of our government agency, rest assured
that the tax collecting process of Jesus’ day was held in higher disdain, and
its agents were vilified. All the more reason then why the crowd were surprised
to see Jesus choosing him to honor with a visit to his home.
Text
He
entered Jericho and was passing through.
Jesus is on the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem. He has
traveled down from Galilee along the Jordan River and is now turning west at
Jericho to follow the road 14 more miles and up 3,500 feet. He and his
disciples would not be alone. If not before, they would have at Jericho joined
in with thousands of pilgrims heading to Jerusalem for the Passover.
2 And
behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was
rich.
Zacchaeus was rich because he was a chief
tax collector. The Roman tax system worked on a franchise basis. Zacchaeus
would have bid for the Jericho district franchise and apparently had offered
the highest purchase price. He would have been given a quota to raise in taxes.
His commission consisted of whatever he raised above that quota. Taxes included
transport taxes, income taxes, poll taxes (paying a tax for being a citizen),
land taxes, market taxes, etc. The chief tax collector, in turn, would farm out
the collection to tax agents who set up booths for this purpose. Matthew, also
known as Levi, was a tax agent with his own booth. He must have done well.
After Jesus had called him to be a follower, he held a party at his house with
all of his friends before taking off. You entrepreneurs would not have a
difficult time figuring out how to make good money off of this. It is not a
highly regulated industry. The government simply wants its quota and also
provides the military support necessary to enforce collection. Make back door
deals with the rich and squeeze the poor, and you have a nice money making
operation.
The negative is that everybody despises
you. You are hated for taking advantage of everyone, especially by the poor.
You are hated for being an agent of Rome, the foreign occupier, which makes you
a traitor of your own people. You are looked down upon for being the agent of
Gentiles, who are unclean apart from being an occupier. The only ones whom you
can count as friends are your fellow tax collectors, corrupt officials, and
immoral sinners, if by friend is meant someone who will actually associate with
you. But then, the money is good.
Besides being the rich owner of a corrupt
business that swindled the populace, Zacchaeus is distinguished in this story
for being short.
3 And he was
seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because
he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on
ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass
that way.
Again, the city is filled with the pilgrims
heading to Jerusalem, but Jesus’ appearance creates particular excitement. Here
comes the miracle-worker that everyone has talked about. Not being able to look
over the crowd, Zacchaeus thinks ahead and climbs into a tree to see this
celebrity. Then comes the unexpected.
5 And
when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come
down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and
received him joyfully. 7 And when they
saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a
sinner.”
Consider the three parties in this scene. There is Jesus who
begins the interaction. Note the urgency in his what he says. He does not
merely ask Zacchaeus to come down. He commands him to come down immediately –
“hurry.” No introduction; no inquiry, just “hurry and come down.”
And then note what he says about himself – “I must stay at your house today” – not
“would like to stay”; “I must.” I don’t think Jesus is saying something like,
“I am really tired; I must stop and take a break.” Rather, the “must” is that
he is compelled to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. Jesus does not use that term
lightly. Here are other instances of it in the Gospel of Luke.
And he
said to [his parents], “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I
must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49)
“I
must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for
I was sent for this purpose.” (4:43)
“The
Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
(9:22)
“I
must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be
that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.”
(13:33)
The point here is that when Jesus speaks of what he “must”
do, he speaks in terms of fulfilling a mission that he has been sent to do. And
so, when he tells Zacchaeus that he must go to his house, Jesus himself is responding
to a command to fulfill his mission. What seems to be coincidental to everyone
else is purposeful and important to Jesus’ mission.
Now we turn to Zacchaeus. He is delighted! He drops out of
the tree quickly. Most notably he responds with joy. In all of the crowd, Jesus
has stopped and spoken to him; no, not just talked to him, has chosen to come
to his home. This is beyond his wildest expectation. As we shall see later, the
joy is simply that of happiness. There is no trace of pride or superiority or
feeling justified. He is simply happy to have such a worthy guest – a man of
God – in his home. It is the last thing that he would have expected, given who
he was.
And it was the last thing that the crowd expected for the
same reason and with a less than joyful reaction. They had good reason to be
shocked. Zacchaeus is not a mere sinner, the kind whose morals are bit loose.
He is an oppressor. He takes advantage of the poor, the very people whom Jesus
uplifts and encourages generosity toward. Now they hear Jesus say to their
oppressor that he will be Zacchaeus’ guest. He does not rebuke Zacchaeus; he
does not even indicate that he has any other purpose than to enjoy Zacchaeus’
hospitality. He seems oblivious to the scandal he is causing.
So they go the house. And then something happens. We don’t
know what Jesus says or does in that house. All we know is the result.
8 And
Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I
give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it
fourfold.”
Here is true repentance. Zacchaeus commits,
first of all, to give half of his possessions to the poor; the law calls for
ten percent, and even all of that is not for the poor. This fifty percent may
be in addition to the ten percent tithe. Then – and not we are getting to the
true act of repentance – he will make restitution to those he has defrauded
through his tax collecting business. The law calls for return of money plus
twenty percent. Zacchaeus ups the figure another three hundred percent. This is
no “I’m sorry for what I have done in the past and will try to be better”
repentance. He is not asking what he must do; he is joyfully reporting what he
desires to do. Something significant happened in that house!
Jesus then gives a concluding commentary.
9 And
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of
Abraham. 10 For
the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Yes, Jesus did come to a wicked, sinner’s
house, and he brought with him salvation. He points out that Zacchaeus is a
“son of Abraham.” It seems that Jesus is defending why he came to Zacchaeus and
brought salvation – as bad as Zacchaeus was, he nevertheless was a fellow Jew,
a member of God’s covenant people.
That is his mission – to seek and to save
the lost. Jesus found lost Zacchaeus. That is why he stopped his journey; that
is why he had to go to Zacchaeus’ house. That is the explanation for the “must”
in Jesus’ self-invitation to Zacchaeus’ home.
Lessons
We see what Jesus considers a must – the salvation of the
lost. It obviously is the “must” of God the Father. You do not send your Son to
die for the salvation lost, if it is a mere extra interest.
What about us? What about us as individuals and as a church?
Do we feel that we must seek and save the lost, or is it a side interest –
something we ought to care about, for sure, but it is not really what we are
about? Or maybe we do affirm that we are to seek and save the lost, but there
is a limit for whom we will show concern.
Here is what I mean. We, of course, care about the salvation
of the lost. We have specific people we pray for. They are people we love. They
are family members, friends, acquaintances – anyone whom we have a measure of
respect or affection for. We also pray for the lost we know in general – the
lost whom are missionaries are reaching out to, the loved ones of our friends,
and any group of people in general.
Our text challenges us with the question – do we care for
our enemies and anyone whom we are repelled by? The people who grumbled about
Jesus going to Zacchaeus’ house were regular folks. They were not the
self-righteous Pharisees. They liked Jesus. They believed he was a prophet from
God. They were not looking to find fault. But this – this favor shown to an
ungodly man, a wicked man – that was too much. Why seek him out? Why not seek
the many more who had been oppressed by him and others of his ilk? Were there
not enough poor, suffering people to seek and to save, that he has to single
out a man made rich on the backs of the poor?
Is there someone who, when you think of him or her, just
riles you? You cannot think of them without getting upset. It may be someone
you know personally or someone distant. Maybe there is a group of people that
just get you disturbed every time they come to your mind. They are lazy; they
are immoral; they are violent. That is how the crowd felt about Zacchaeus, and
with good cause.
In light of our text and the example of Jesus, should you, would
you seek the salvation of such persons? Will you pray for them? Will you
consider ways to befriend them? Will you risk the disapproval of good people in
doing good for such people? Will you risk being misunderstood?
As a church, should we, would we seek the salvation of such
persons who despise our faith and who would close us down if they could? The
time may well come when such threats may come. Will we feel that we must seek
their salvation? Will we seek ways to win them to Christ?
I have a friend, a good friend who is a good man. If you met
him, you would find him delightful. He loves the Lord, and he told me once that
he has but one desire in his old age – to win others to Jesus Christ. What else
is more important? I get emails from him regularly – forwarded emails. Some are
humorous stories and jokes, but most are political and disrespectful of those
not following his line of thinking. He is not a hypocrite, but he is
distracted. He does want to win the lost, but it is too easy to let what
bothers us in this world take higher importance than the concern of God’s
kingdom.
The concern of God’s kingdom is the salvation of the lost.
Maybe what trips us up is the idea of the lost including the wicked. By wicked,
I mean according to our sense of right and wrong. The unregenerate heart is
wicked, but there are those who outwardly excel in it – murderers, swindlers,
thieves, etc. Zacchaeus was, in truth, a swindler who took advantage of others
for his own profit. Again, we desire the salvation of good people – those who
are good to us – but what of these wicked? Doesn’t God prefer that the wicked
get the justice coming to them?
Listen to what God says: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the
wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he
should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23) God desires and will
have justice. The wicked who do not repent will receive righteous judgment. But
here he is expressing his heart – he loves for the wicked to repent and so to
be saved. He is glorified in the judgment of the wicked, but he is even more
glorified in their salvation that he carries out.
The cross – look to the cross – to behold
the glory and the heart of God. Judgment comes down on wickedness – the wicked
sins that Jesus Christ our Savior bears for us, who are wicked – all of us. We
are that thief beside him; we are the hypocritical, self-righteous Pharisees;
we are the murderers, the adulteries, the rebels, and the immoral. We are
Zacchaeus, and we are the grumbling, resentful crowd. And God desired that we turn
from our way and turn to Jesus to live.
We have got to grasp the wickedness within
us to desire the salvation of the outwardly wicked. We have got to be able to
say, when we see the wicked, “There go I.” That wicked person shows outwardly
what is me inwardly without Christ. (And even with Christ, there remains much
that is ugly.)
We might say, “Yes, it is good for the
wicked to repent and turn to God. If I knew that my efforts would produce such
results, then I would be more ardent in befriending them. But there are certain
persons who are not going to change, and they will only take advantage of me.”
Then listen to what Jesus had to say to
such words that might very well be accurate.
“But
I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless
those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To
one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes
away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give
to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not
demand them back. 31 And as you wish
that others would do to you, do so to them.
32 “If
you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love
those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to
receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back
the same amount. 35 But love your
enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward
will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the
ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful,
even as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:27-36).
What is striking about this teaching is that Jesus is
prescribing behavior that his followers are to show to the wicked regardless of
their response. He doesn’t say “do this so that such and such will happen.” No;
he presents such behavior for one reason only – this is what our Father is
like. “He is kind to the
ungrateful and the evil.” To be identified with Christ; to be true “sons of
the Most High,” we are to love our enemies, do good, lend without expecting
anything in return.
This is a hard saying. It seems all but
impossible. And yet it is the distinctive of the Christian faith. It is at the
core of the gospel and the ability to live it out is what first caused the
church of Christ to grow in its original hostile setting and still causes it to
grow. For throughout the years, the reason that the wicked have humbly received
the gospel is because its adherents won them with love and forgiveness. It is
because the followers of Christ loved their enemies that many of those enemies
became brothers and sisters in Christ. It is because Christ’s followers
exchanged kindness for the enmity shown to them by the wicked, that those
wicked became sons and daughters of Abraham belonging to the people of God.
But then that is the gospel. Romans 5:6-8
says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for
a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows
his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God sent his Son to seek us who were wicked
and to save us who were wicked by his great act of kindness and mercy. Through
the incarnation he came into our house, so to speak, where he brought salvation
and made us sons and daughters of Abraham. Whose salvation will we seek? Whose
house will we enter to demonstrate such gospel love?
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