Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2016 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Jesus Makes Things Complicated

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 119:137–144
Luke 19:1–10

Zacchaeus [and so many others we meet in the Bible] are treasured less for who they are and for what the world has made them than for what they have it in them, at their best, to be, because ultimately, of course, it’s not the world that made them at all. “All the earth is mine!” says Yahweh, “and all that dwell therein,” adds the Twenty-fourth Psalm, and in the long run, presumably, that goes for you and me too.

Frederick Buechner

This might sound strange, but we don’t actually know who was short. In our story today—the Zacchaeus story—we do not know for certain if Luke was telling us that Zacchaeus was short or if Luke was telling us that Jesus was short. Verse 3: ”He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.” In the Greek, by the time we get to the third “he” of that sentence, we do not know which “he” was the short one (Roberta Bondi, “The Short One,” Christian Century, 19 October 2004)!

Now, I realize this might sound like a very minor point. And yet it does mess with some of our long-held assumptions. Perhaps you remember a particular song from your childhood Sunday school: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” Maybe, maybe not. Even though it is a minor point, it could cause us to reexamine other things we think we know about Zacchaeus. What other assumptions do we hold?

Luke set up Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus back in chapter 18, when he recalled Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple. We did not lift up that story in worship, but some of you might remember the Pharisee, the religious leader’s prayer: “Lord,” he prayed out loud, “thank you that I am not like all these people—especially this tax collector.”

In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were considered “those people” – people who were not just immoral but also viewed as traitors. Our friend Walter Brueggemann describes a tax collector as a “revenue man for the Roman Empire.” Furthermore, Brueggemann writes, the purpose of that empire, like every empire, was to coercively extract wealth for the sake of the center. That makes a tax collector an agent of the violence of the empire. Given what Brueggemann points out, as we notice that Luke tells us Zacchaeus was not just any tax collector, but the chief tax collector, the godfather of the toll-taker mafia (Paul Duke, Christian Century, 18 October 1995), we can reasonably assume Zacchaeus must have been corrupt, possibly violent, and definitely not anyone we would want to be around.

But Luke was not finished with his description. Not only was Zacchaeus the chief tax collector, but Luke makes a point to state he was rich. Now, if you were here last week when we dove into the parable about Lazarus and the rich man, then you recall that wealthy people do not usually fare very well in Luke’s Gospel. The great reversal of the haves and have-nots is one of Luke’s major themes.

We see that theme again in a story that precedes today’s Zacchaeus encounter. A rich ruler approached Jesus in order to ask him how he, too, could experience eternal life. Jesus responded by telling the ruler he needed to give up all of his possessions. And even though Jesus’ response deeply grieved the ruler, he was terrified to even consider something so radical. He could not do it, not even for Jesus. Jesus ended that depressing encounter by making the remark that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter into God’s kingdom. So when Luke emphasizes Zacchaeus’ great wealth, we pay attention.

The crowd who had gathered to see Jesus paid attention. From their perspective, Zacchaeus stood as the symbol of all that was wrong in their world: the poster child of corruption, of extortion, of avarice, of elitism. Undoubtedly when they saw him crawl up into that tree in order to see Jesus for himself, it must have felt to them like sitting at an Occupy protest and watching as Wall Street executives arrive and put up their own tent and stay awhile. Zacchaeus’s behavior did not fit with that crowd’s assumptions about who he was and what he represented. It might have even made them angry.

Many of the people who came to see Jesus were not rich. And many of them would have had to give much of their hard earned money to Zacchaeus or people like him, without any choice in the matter. None of them would have had any interest in interacting with the one they considered to be a despicable outsider to the faith. Someone who, they assumed, took great joy out of preying on those who were vulnerable and oppressed. He was a very rich tax collector. What business did he even have in coming to seek out their Jesus? We wonder what they might have said to him as he sat in that tree and waited.

Consequently, when Jesus stopped at that tree and called Zacchaeus by name, the other peoples’ jaws must have hit the ground. Why on earth—out of all of those people who desperately needed Jesus to liberate them, to heal them, to save them—when all of them are right there waiting for him, why would Jesus go out of his way to seek out and call out Zacchaeus, the rich, corrupt, elitist, greedy, chief tax collector? Jesus’ behavior did not make sense nor did it fit with their assumptions, not just about Zacchaeus but also about Jesus himself.

As they stood there and fumed at this unfortunate turn of events, Jesus told that rich, corrupt, elitist, greedy chief tax collector to hurry on down out of that tree. He was going to bring the party to Zacchaeus’s house that very day. As soon as those words of invitation left Jesus’ lips, Zacchaeus actually had the nerve to tumble down not in fear and trembling for his corrupt behavior but in a mood of complete rejoicing. Zacchaeus was thrilled, maybe even overwhelmed with joy, because out of all the people there, Jesus had seen him, purposefully sought him out, called him by his name, and was coming to his house.

Undoubtedly, Zacchaeus’s joyful reaction made the crowd fume even more. His response of joy did not fit with their assumptions, maybe even our assumptions, about how he would respond to Jesus. Let us remember everything we have heard this entire Lenten season about the difficulties in balancing wealth and discipleship. Let us remember all the parables Jesus told us about the dangers of a scarcity viewpoint and the violence that can go hand in hand with greed. Let us remember all of the encounters between Jesus and people who had great monetary and worldly power but who also could not imagine giving that power up, not even in order to become a disciple. These are the stories into which we have been immersed all through Lent.

So Zacchaeus’s joyful “all in” reaction to Jesus simply does not fit with our carefully crafted assumptions. Luke told Jesus’ story in such a way that we naturally began to assume that someone like Zacchaeus had about as much chance of becoming a faithful disciple as I had going to the political rally at UIC on Friday night. No way. Not going to happen.

Not only is Jesus stepping all over our carefully groomed and well-crafted assumptions, but Zacchaeus is doing it too! He is not supposed to care about Jesus. He is a rich, corrupt, elitist, greedy tax collector. Someone like him is not supposed to respond to Jesus. He is not supposed to be so happy that Jesus is coming to his house. Yet there they go—the crook and the Christ walking off, side by side, on to the table for the feast. The whole scene made no sense to anyone in that crowd. Honestly, it felt like the liberator Jesus had betrayed them.

But even that sight of the two of them walking off side by side is not the most shocking thing about this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus. Before they even get to his house, Zacchaeus stops and says, “Look, half of my possessions I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much.” Now, I know that the translation in our pew Bibles—the translation I read in the beginning—puts his words in a future tense: “I will give; I will pay back.” But I have a quarrel with that translation (David Lose, www.workingpreacher.org, http://bit.ly/1T6X8hG).

The Greek has all of those verbs in the present tense, and that verb tense indicates that actively giving and regularly paying back is, in fact, how Zacchaeus already lives. So if we take the Greek verb tense at face value, that means he already gives half of his possessions to the poor. And if he mistakenly defrauds anyone, he already completely complies with religious law and makes generous restitution. Ongoing, present action is the way Luke wrote of Zacchaeus’s words.

So why, then, do so many of our translations interpret his statement as a statement about future behavior? (When we look it up, we find that translators have actually made this one usage into what they call a future present tense, the only instance in which the traditional Greek scholars claim this verb tense is used in all of scripture. See workingpreacher.org for more information.)

What is it that has given many brilliant scholars and translators so much pause about the possibility that Zacchaeus’s words are present tense, already being done, action? Luther Seminary scholar Karoline Lewis claims it is because assuming that Zacchaeus repents is much easier to stomach. A repentant Zacchaeus bolsters our assumptions that Luke seemed to set up quite well—assumptions that because he is rich and because he is a chief tax collector, then that inevitably means he is also corrupt, greedy, an elitist, etc. That is much easier for many of us to hear and understand. It is easier for us to assume that Jesus’ embrace of him was so powerful and life-giving that Zacchaeus immediately changed course, repented, turned from his old life of exploitation to a new life of generosity. We can wrap our minds around that. It fits with our assumptions. It makes intuitive sense.

But what if our assumptions are wrong? What if Zacchaeus lived in a generous way all along yet no one knew it and no one bothered to learn it because they wanted to hold on to their assumptions about who Zacchaeus was? Those assumptions about him protected their worldview. If they could “other” him, write him off because of his wealth and assume he was incapable of faithfulness due to his job, then the nice and neat way they saw their world stayed intact.

But if Zacchaeus lived in a way that was generous and kind and faithful, then all of their stereotypes, their carefully set up and well-crafted assumptions about “those people,” would be blown up, destroyed, revealed as empty. As David Lose writes, if Zacchaeus’s story is not a conversion story, then it does not fit our formula.

Yet I did not hear Jesus say anything to Zacchaeus about repentance, did you? We did not hear Jesus say to him, “You have to give up all that you have to follow me.” We did not hear Jesus say anything to him about the camel or the eye of the needle. From the way Jesus responds to Zacchaeus, it does not appear to be a conversion story. It is possible that Zacchaeus did not stop their walk in order to turn to Jesus and declare a totally new way of living in response to God’s grace. Rather, perhaps Zacchaeus turned to the crowd instead.

Perhaps he turned to his neighbors, to those who had been starkly judgmental of him, and told them, “You think you know who I am. But you don’t. I have been living generously this entire time, but because of my wealth, you assumed something different. You assumed I did not care. You assumed I was corrupt. You assumed I could not be faithful. You assumed I was not generous with what I had. And your assumptions made you as close-minded about me as you claimed I was about you.”

Could it have been that Zacchaeus had encountered God’s grace long before that day, which is why he was so thrilled to see Jesus? Could it have been that Zacchaeus had already known God’s claim on his life, which is why he regularly gave away half of his resources for the poor and quickly corrected any mistakes he made? Could it have been that Zacchaeus’s faithfulness had already been known to Jesus, which is the reason why Jesus stopped at the base of that tree and called his name? Could it have been that when Jesus said he had come to seek and save the lost, he did not mean that Zacchaeus was lost to him, but that he knew Zacchaeus had been lost to his community for a long time?

Was that why Jesus spoke words of salvation and restoration—for Zacchaeus’s entire household? Jesus knew Zacchaeus and his household needed to be restored back to their community and healed from all the mistrust they had encountered since forever. Was that what was really going on that long-ago day in Jericho as Jesus slowly made his way to Jerusalem? And if so, could it be that one way Jesus goes about saving us, restoring us, healing us is by seeking to destroy all of our stereotypes, all of our carefully set up and well-crafted assumptions about “those people” too?

I wonder if Jesus’ assumption-bending and stereotype-breaking ministry is one reason why he ended up dying on a cross not too long after this encounter with Zacchaeus. The religious leaders, the political leaders, the regular people in the crowd—none of them liked having someone completely destroy all their stereotypes, revealing that many of the assumptions they held about others were wrong and empty—violent even. Jesus messed with the nice and neat power systems of their world so much they did not know what he would do next. He was becoming much too unpredictable for them to stomach.

Jesus made their lives so much messier, so much more difficult and complicated. It had taken years to craft those assumptions about each other. Who’s an elistist? Who’s a thug? Who’s worth? Who’s a loser? Those generalizations had been passed on from generation to generation. But all of the sudden, Jesus thinks he can just show up and disrupt them by doing things like eating with rich tax collectors and calling poor fishermen and healing old women and young girls and restoring sight to the blind and setting the captive free. Jesus refused to bow down to the ways life had been set up in that day and in that time. He was ruining everything and he needed to be stopped. And that assumption that it was past-time for Jesus’ disruptive ministry to die was an assumption many of them were willing to make. After all, they assumed, not even Jesus could disrupt death. That might be the only thing that would put an end to his assumption-bending and stereotype-breaking ministry. And once that was done, they could all get back to life as usual. Amen.