When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” [Luke 19:8 (NLT)]
The little ones at Sunday school love singing the song about the “wee little man” who “climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.” While “wee little man” makes Zacchaeus sound somewhat endearing, if we were casting him in a movie, we’d hire the short man audiences love to hate: 4’10” Danny DeVito who, with his deep raspy voice, has specialized in playing mean-spirited ruthless people. Zacchaeus was a tax collector (publican) and could have been the poster boy for corruption in Judea. Under Roman rule, people bid on the right to collect taxes. While publicans had to pay a fixed amount to Rome, in lieu of salary, they could charge far more than required and keep the difference for themselves. As the chief tax collector in Jericho, Zacchaeus got a share of everybody’s taxes and had become a rich man.
Although Jewish, a publican was excluded from Jewish social life. Considered unclean, he was made to stand with the Gentiles at the Temple. Despised by both the Romans and his fellow countrymen as a corrupt collaborator, Zacchaeus may have been rich but it’s hard to think he was very happy.
By this time in Jesus’s ministry, our Lord had attracted quite a following and a crowd of people surrounded Him as He entered Jericho. Whether it was a guilty conscience, discontent, or simply curiosity, Zacchaeus wanted to see this unusual rabbi. Perhaps the miserable man had heard that Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and other sinners. Unable to see over the heads of those in front of him, the little man unsuccessfully tried to make his way through the crush of people. As disliked as he was, there may have been a few extra shoves and elbow jabs as he was jostled by the crowd. Determined to see Jesus, Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed up into a tree to get a better look when He went by.
The children’s favorite part of the Zacchaeus song comes when they point their fingers, and call (as did Jesus), “Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today!” I don’t think the children wonder why Jesus chose this man but I’m sure the people of Jericho did! Picture a crowd following someone like the Pope. Imagine their shock if he stopped his motorcade and called into the crowd, “Bernie Madoff, come over here. I must come to your house today!” Why would someone as holy as the Pope want to spend time with the notorious Ponzi schemer who bilked thousands out of billions? Stunned, the crowd around Jesus was asking a similar question, “Why would the good rabbi pick out Zacchaeus, a notorious sinner, and want to spend time with him?”
Perhaps, out of all of those people looking for a Messiah to save them from Roman rule, Zacchaeus was the only one who saw the need for someone to save him from sin! Jesus hadn’t come for the self-righteous; He came for the ones who knew they were unrighteous. Rather than the self-satisfied, Jesus came for the lost. Like the publican in Jesus’s parable about the Pharisee and tax collector (found in Luke 18), Zacchaeus knew who and what he was: a sinner in need of redemption.
I showed the antique dealer the old silver tray we’d found at an antique store many years ago. Having just read Stephanie Kallo’s novel Broken for You, I’d been drawn to it. Hers was a story of secrets and redemption that told of how two women salvaged their brokenness, first by smashing priceless antique porcelain pieces that had been stolen from Jews during the Holocaust, and then by repurposing the fragments into beautiful mosaics. The novel was an homage to the beauty of broken people and broken things. The tray’s handle had been damaged and soldered back on and I imagine much of the silver plate had worn off its top. It was, however, a thing of beauty because it had been artistically covered with broken pieces of antique painted china. The dealer told me that artists often come into her shop looking for chipped pieces of decorative porcelain. Because they plan on breaking it to use in jewelry or mosaics like my tray, they don’t mind chips or cracks.
We’re selling our northern home and, as I packed up assorted family heirlooms, I came across the little sterling silver salt and pepper shakers we used for so many years. I held one in my hand a bit longer than the others; it had distinct teeth marks on it. For reasons that are unknown, my eldest child tried to bite through it. In spite of its obvious imperfection (or, perhaps because of it), the shaker is still beautiful. I’d wondered which child should get these silver pieces but, after remembering their history, I lovingly wrapped them up and placed them in my son’s box. I only hope his family will find the impressions of his baby teeth as beautiful as do I.
When the boy we know as “the prodigal son” comes to his senses and returns home, Jesus never says he was repentant; He says the boy was hungry! Moreover, while he knows he’s not worthy to be treated as a son, the boy doesn’t ask to be taken on as a slave; he boldly plans on asking to be hired as a paid servant. Those hearing the story probably were sure the boy was about to be properly punished but Jesus defied convention again. When the father sees his returning son, he runs to him with abandon. Again, cultural norms were flouted. Because running required a man to lift his garment and expose his bare legs, it was considered improper and undignified for a grown man to run. Perhaps Jesus’s listeners excused the man’s unseemly behavior because they thought he was in a rush to rebuke his boy. Expecting him to perform a kezazah ceremony (a shunning ritual in which he’d break a pot and yell that his son was cut off from his people forever), the father breaks all of society’s rules and embraces his boy.
Through His parables, Jesus related profound spiritual truths in stories that were easily understood and relevant to his listeners. Although Jesus’s original audience often didn’t like His message, they clearly knew what He was saying. Because of the vast cultural differences between our world and 1st century Palestine, I’m not sure we fully appreciate the impact His parables had on the people who first heard them.
To impress their students with the importance of commas, English teachers often tell an unsubstantiated story about Maria Fyodorovna, the wife of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Alexander, a harsh and repressive ruler, had exiled a suspected anarchist to imprisonment and death by writing these words on his warrant: “Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.” Coming across the document, the Tsarina seized the opportunity to save the life of an unknown prisoner and quickly scratched out the comma. She re-inserted it so that the warrant read: “Pardon, impossible to send to Siberia.” With the comma’s transposition, the prisoner’s death warrant became his pardon.
Devotions of the Heart 