Extract:
Commentary Luke 19: 1-10
Jesus is walking through Jericho his next stop will be Jerusalem. In the crowd is a man called Zacchaeus who is trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, however because he is a short man he can’t see over the heads of the people. He rushes ahead of the crowd and climbs a sycamore tree. When Jesus passes the tree he stops looks up and calls Zacchaeus by name and tells him to come down because Zacchaeus needs to entertain him at his home. Zacchaeus climbed down from the tree and gladly led Jesus and his disciples to his home. The crowd followed, grumbling that Jesus was in the home of a notorious sinner, eating with him, it just wasn’t right.
When we were young children and in Sunday school, we were taught that Zacchaeus was not a nice man that he robbed everybody, but he repented and gave back to the poor and repaid anybody he had cheated back four times as much. However the Greek does not support this view as all the verbs are in the present tense. When Zacchaeus heard what the crowd were saying this upset him. He told Jesus that he already gave to the poor, half his income, he paid people back fourfold if he discovered a clerical error or he had found that he cheated them. Compare the Message Version with the NIV version, the Message Bible version gets closest to the way the Greek describes what Zacchaeus says:
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’ NIV.
8 Zacchaeus just stood there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically, “Master, I give away half my income to the poor—and if I’m caught cheating, I pay four times the damages.” Message Version
Throughout is journey, Jesus through parables and conversations has reiterated time and time again that his message is for the lost, the poor the weak the cripples. His message is also for the Tax collectors and sinners and for those who repent. Zacchaeus was considered an outcast not because he was a Jew but because he was a Jew working for the Romans. This is what made him an ideal candidate for the kingdom of God. Jesus turns to those around him and declares salvation has come to that house, this man was a true son of Abraham, in other words he was a true Jew, demonstrating what the Torah says should be done when looking after the poor, a dig perhaps at the religious Jews and the Pharisees. This man had been lost and now he the Son of Man, Jesus had found him.
