{"id":4786,"date":"2022-10-31T07:58:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T13:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=4786"},"modified":"2022-10-31T07:58:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T13:58:21","slug":"zacchaeus-the-wee-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2022\/10\/zacchaeus-the-wee-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Zacchaeus: The Wee Little #@!$^"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you remember this song from the Sunday Schools of decades ago?<\/p>\n

Zacchaeus was a wee little man
\nAnd a wee little man was he
\nHe climbed up in a sycamore tree
\nFor the Lord he wanted to see<\/p>\n

And when the Savior passed that way
\nHe looked up in the tree
\nAnd said, \u2018Zacchaeus, you come down!
\nFor I\u2019m going to your house\u00a0today<\/a>!
\nFor I\u2019m going to your house today!\u2019<\/p>\n

Zacchaeus was a wee little man
\nBut a happy man was he
\nFor he had seen the Lord that day
\nAnd a happy man was he;
\nAnd a very happy man was he<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You probably do.\u00a0 Evidently, even Alexa, the voice-activated, home-busy-body knows the words to it, if you ask her.<\/p>\n

Amazing.\u00a0 No one is sure who originally wrote it, but this little ditty has worked its way into the public domain and appears in at least eleven hymnals.<\/p>\n

The problem with it is that the song has made a strange and challenging story both sweet and saccharine .\u00a0 The story of Zacchaeus actually plays a critical role in Luke\u2019s description of Jesus\u2019s ministry and, it is the last story in the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem.\u00a0 So Luke uses it to recapitulate themes that he has sought to emphasize throughout his Gospel (see Luke 19:1-10).<\/p>\n

The song and the Gospel narrative suggests that Zacchaeus was little, so he climbed up in the tree, in order to get a good view.\u00a0 But truth be told, he probably climbed up in the tree because it was safer than being in the crowd.<\/p>\n

No one knows exactly what a \u201cchief tax collector\u201d was.\u00a0 The term doesn\u2019t appear anywhere in the contemporary literature of the day, but scholars surmise that it means Zaccheus was \u201ca contract tax collector\u201d.\u00a0 That is, the Romans had paid him to collect their taxes, and he got rich off of it.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, Zacchaeus had good reason to avoid crowds.\u00a0 Taxes were emblematic of Roman control over ancient Israel, and there were those who believed that paying them was blasphemous.\u00a0 \u00a0So, helping the Romans with collecting them carried with it both religious and political overtones.\u00a0 To put it another way, a Jewish tax collector was both traitor and heretic.\u00a0 (His contemporaries were probably even less charitable, but I\u2019ll let you fill in the blanks.)<\/p>\n

So, Zacchaeus climbs a tree \u2013 an outcast who is curious, maybe even interested or desperate to hear what Jesus has to say \u2013 and, surrounded by \u201cgood folk\u201d, as we say in the South, Jesus looks at Zacchaeus, perched up there, well away from the crowd\u00a0 and tells him, \u201cGet down, come along, you are the one who is going to host me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is striking is that Luke never tells us what that dinner was like.\u00a0 Judging from what the narrative offers us, Zacchaeus gets down out of the tree.\u00a0 And now a little more confident that the crowd won\u2019t maul him, he takes his place alongside of Jesus, and without prompting or an effort to persuade him, Zacchaeus tells Jesus: \u201cLook, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, all we are told is that \u2013 still standing there with the crowd gathered around him \u2013 Jesus tells them what has just happened: \u201cToday salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, Zacchaeus\u2019s relationship with both God and with the people of God have been restored, whatever they might think.<\/p>\n

As I said, in recounting this story, Luke brings us back to the themes that he has been emphasizing throughout his Gospel:<\/p>\n