Reading 21
Zacchaeus
The reading
Luke 19:1-10
He entered and was passing through Jericho. There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, and couldn’t because of the crowd, because he was short. He ran on ahead, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully.
When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.” Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
The companions
Psalm 32:1-5 (selected)
Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me. I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn’t hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the LORD, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Ezekiel 34:11-16 (selected)
For thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock, so will I seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered. I will feed them with good pasture. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down,” says the Lord GOD. “I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick.”
The note
Watch the order. Jesus invites himself to the house first. The repayment comes afterwards, unprompted, and it is specific: half of everything, and four times over to anyone he defrauded. Nobody named either figure for him.
Nothing in the passage records a demand. There is no condition, no probation, no requirement that the accounts be settled before the visit. The man is a collaborator and a thief, and he is still up the tree when he is called by name.
The crowd’s reaction is the honest one. They all mutter. This is a man who has taken money from every one of them, and the visitor picks his house out of the whole city.
What a lifetime of contempt never achieved in Jericho, one afternoon of being wanted did. Being named is doing the work here. Not the shame. He had that in full supply already, and it had never once opened his books.
This week
Use somebody’s name out loud this week, in front of other people. Pick the one who gets talked about rather than talked to — the difficult neighbour, the person everyone has agreed is a problem. Say something ordinary to them, by name, where others can hear it.
You are not fixing them and you do not have to like them. Zacchaeus was not asked to change first. Watch what the naming does.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered “the LORD” and “the Lord GOD” in the companions.
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