Recognition, Regret, Repentance, Reconciliation
In Luke’s gospel, the story of Zacchaeus takes place shortly before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, where he will be executed by the Roman occupiers. Its placement might be chronological, or it might suggest it’s a symbolic story, or perhaps both. The other gospel writers don’t mention Zacchaeus, so they’re no help.
Jesus preaches a lot about money and wealth in Luke’s gospel, and his prior contact with a rich person found him stating that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” That tracks, because in general, wealthy people don’t fare well in Luke. (Culpepper, 299)
Enter Zacchaeus, who — though he is a rich and important person — exhibits the culturally “undignified” behaviors of running and tree-climbing in order to catch a glimpse of Jesus, who is passing through the city of Jericho. (Culpepper, 299) Zacchaeus could not see Jesus without doing so, because he’s described as being “short of stature.”
Jesus sees him in the tree and summons him, then invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house. Zacchaeus welcomes him, and the next thing we know, he’s pledging half his possessions to the poor and four times any fraudulent gains to those he cheated.
Did you notice that it doesn’t mention Jesus asking Zacchaeus to give money to the poor, or to pay back anyone? I wonder if their conversation included details that Luke left out. Was Zacchaeus simply inspired by the presence of Jesus? Wilda Gafney offers that among several questions when she writes that “there is a mystery in this text. Why did Jesus need to go to Zacchaeus’s house? Did he make the determination before he saw him in the tree or after? Zacchaeus’s conversion regarding his wealth seems immediate. There is time that is unaccounted for in the passage. . . . What was their conversation? How long did [Jesus] stay?” (Gafney, 278)
Regardless, Zacchaeus feels a need to repent, and the restitution he promises “conforms to . . . the most stringent standards” from Jewish scripture as well as the standards of John the Baptist. (Culpepper, 301) Were these suggestions from Jesus, or was Zacchaeus familiar with those teachings to the extent that he determined them on his own?
What if you adhere to the passage as it is written, and there is no additional conversation between Jesus and Zacchaeus before the pledge is made? What if Zacchaeus had been carrying around the need to repent, and it took only the presence of the living gospel for him to do so? What if his desire for repentance was so profound it pushed him to humble himself in the eyes of those in his community? What if that humbling was exactly what Jesus was seeking, and exactly what was missing in the exchange Jesus had with the rich young ruler who would not give up his possessions?
Jesus encountered several wealthy people during his travels, but he had to wait for the final one, with Zacchaeus, to find someone who could illustrate what it looks like for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Some people have a knack for guilt, and I am one of those people. I don’t say that with false modesty, or the way someone claims during a job interview that their greatest flaw is that they work too hard. In my experience, chronic guilt does not have an upside; it just breeds more guilt, and leads to defensiveness, anger, and other unhealthy emotions. It doesn’t seem to overcome the habits or behaviors that cause the guilt to emerge in the first place. And it certainly isn’t a prerequisite for Christianity. Despite its presence among those of us who grew up in the Christian church, where you would think it must be considered a spiritual gift, guilt does not have a scriptural basis. The word doesn’t even appear in the New Testament.
You’ll find the word “regret” a few times, but not in a way that suggests it’s a desirable trait. Nonetheless, I’m going to adopt the word “regret” for a purpose in this reflection.
What if guilt is a feeling to be avoided, acknowledging that it doesn’t alleviate its source and only feeds on itself, but regret moves us to action? What if regret is the recognition that there is a need for repentance?
I bring this up because the idea of repentance regularly shows up in scripture. From the Hebrew prophets to John the Baptist to Jesus, it’s clear that there are always things that need fixing. Sometimes they are individual things, like the wealth and crooked dealings of Zacchaeus, and sometimes they are communal things, like the injustice that exists in communities. The call to repentance in no way implies that the subject should feel guilty, though; that doesn’t seem to be part of the equation. Rather than something that involves being weighed down, repentance offers an opportunity to be lifted up. When we repent, we’re freed of something that is preventing us or our community or our society from living our best lives.
Look at Zacchaeus as an example. While having enough money to get by is desirable, it’s possible to have too much, and it seems Zacchaeus is in that camp. If there’s an analog to Zacchaeus today, he has a car elevator, four houses, and two yachts. Such things don’t guarantee happiness or fulfillment, though. As Wilda Gafney writes, “riches may buffer some of the hardships of life, but one can have all the wealth in the world and still be deeply lost.” (Gafney, 278) The coming of Jesus seemed to trigger such a realization in Zacchaeus, and when confronted with the living gospel, he sheds himself of the excess that has inhibited relationships with his neighbors.
Repentance gets a bad rap, perhaps because calls to repentance often come from megachurch and street preachers who are associated with a puritanical individual morality that is irrelevant to many and harmful to some. I don’t need to be told by a megachurch pastor with whom I have no personal connection that I’m destined for hellfire, and I don’t suppose you’re in the market for that either.
That doesn’t mean I have no need for repentance, though. There are components of my life — those borne of selfishness, fear, anger, and insecurity, for instance — for which I’d like to repent. Maybe coming face-to-face with Jesus would accelerate that repentance, but for now I like to think that I’m living more into my potential most days.
That said, when it comes to repentance, I think we dwell too much on our individual regrets. What about the systems of which we’re a part that do harm? Systems built on racism and nationalism and classism and sexism and other practices that make life worse for our siblings. Many who look like me continue to benefit from the privilege of being White and male and cis-gender and straight without acting as allies to those who don’t enjoy such privilege. As people of faith, we need to recognize such systems and the role we play in them. We all have our personal shortcomings, but standing up for the marginalized and others who have been denied justice requires a collective repentance.
There are other characters in today’s passage besides Zacchaeus and Jesus, namely “all who saw” their interaction. I mentioned the Roman occupiers earlier, and the feelings of those in the crowd living under foreign rule play an important role in this story. Alan Culpepper writes of how, “in Luke, the tax collectors function as the prototypical outcasts — those whom Jesus befriends. Roman officials contracted with local entrepreneurs to collect the prescribed indirect taxes, tolls, tariffs, and customs fees in a given area. These entrepreneurs, the ‘chief tax collectors,’ were required to pay the contract in advance. They would then employ others to collect the taxes with the hope that the amount collected would yield a profit. The system, not surprising, was open to abuse, and Jews who collected taxes for the Romans were assumed to be dishonest and were hated by other Jews for their complicity with the Gentile oppressors.” (Culpepper, 299)
Thus it’s understandable that the locals who paid taxes to Zacchaeus or his designees were resentful. It’s not hard to imagine that they might have intentionally blocked the view of Jesus, necessitating Zacchaeus’s tree-climbing. I suspect that, had I been among them, my thinking might have been that our guy had arrived, and the wealthy tax collector was not one of us, so he shouldn’t have a front-row spot.
That might help explain the words of Jesus when he said, “he too is a son of Abraham.” In doing so, “Jesus is reinstating Zacchaeus as a Jew and is bringing him the salvation promised by God to the Jews.” (Tannehill, 278) Zacchaeus is ultimately not one of “them” — he is one of us, those who occasionally or frequently stray from the best path. When that happens, we might find ourselves in a similar place to Zacchaeus, thinking we’re seeking Jesus when in fact Jesus is seeking us. (Culpepper, 302)
Those in the crowd didn’t get to select whose house Jesus visited, nor who was “in” and who was “out.” As Quinbert Kinunda writes, “Zacchaeus’ entry into God’s kingdom ‘through the eye of a needle’ (18:25) is a paradigm that is open to each and every person. The account invites the listener to be open to such a possibility.” (Kinunda, 63)
What weighs heavily on you? What weighs down your soul? What weighs down your life? What then might repentance mean for you? Beyond that, what might repentance mean for us? What policies, powers, and principalities are making life worse for the marginalized, and ultimately for all of our siblings and ourselves? How do we recognize the systems that do harm, collectively process the regret we feel for being a part of them, and, most importantly, move toward repentance? How do we resist the urge to be divided along the way, othering those who don’t share our point of view?
Those in power — and I realize the irony in my othering anyone while making this point — thrive on our divisions. They do all they can to accentuate the gulf that separates right from left, progressive from conservative, rural from urban, middle class from poor, White from people of color, queer from straight, older generations from young, and male from female. Conflict between those sides helps keep systems of injustice intact, and distracts us from finding commonalities.
Ultimately, policies that benefit the poor will also benefit people in the middle class. Policies that benefit rural populations will also benefit urban populations. Policies that benefit women and people of color and queer people and young people will also benefit men and White people and straight people and senior citizens. We have more in common with others than we might think, and finding that common ground is a good place to start conversations.
Jesus defied expectations by frequently including people who were different from most of his Jewish followers, and in doing so he provides a model for unity and reconciliation. As Grant Poettcker writes, “By allowing himself to be numbered among the distant, he brought all who are distant near to himself and thus near to God. Those who would imitate Christ must therefore imitate Christ’s solidarity with others and Christ’s own patience, particularly his patience with the Zacchaeuses.” (Poettcker, 487)
How do we we draw nearer to Jesus and to others? A first step would be to recognize what is keeping us apart. What is weighing us down? What is keeping us from being who we were meant to be? Which of our habits or possessions or patterns or relationships or tendencies do we consciously — or unconsciously — regret. Which continue to occupy space in our lives simply due to inertia?
Do you feel a movement within you urging you to extract and make room for something more life-giving? Is there something you would change if faced with the living gospel, as Zacchaeus did?
What would that look like on a larger scale? I wonder how some of our harmful systems and policies fare when viewed through a divine lens. I think of economic systems that keep the poor on the streets without food while others have more money than they can spend in a lifetime. I think of a health care system that pays for elective procedures for some while others suffer and die alone. I think of budgets that spare no expense buying ineffective weapons systems while true investments in our future struggle to survive. I think about the incentives given to the fossil fuel companies whose practices bring death, suffering, illness, geopolitical instability, starvation, and otherwise accelerate the climate catastrophe.
The story of Zacchaeus shows us that repentance is a step in a path that leads to reconciliation. It helps us reconcile with God and with our others, and it helps us realize a better life. Undertaken collectively and fueled by love and justice, it helps us more closely approximate the kin-dom of heaven, where we’ll all ultimately be found.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Works Referenced
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.
Gafney, Wilda C. A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W. New York City: Church Publishing, 2021.
Kinunda, Quinbert. “Listening to Rural Voices in Tanzania: the Zacchaeus Episode, Luke 19:1–10.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa №165 (November 2019): 50–64.
Poettcker, Grant. “Socrates, Nicodemus, and Zacchaeus: Kierkegaard and Halík on conversion and offense.” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology Vol. 80 Nos. 4–5: 482–494.
Tannehill, Robert C. Abingdon New Testament Commentaries: Luke. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.
