ZACCHAEUS'S EXAMPLE

In the Gospel of Luke, we have “enemies who love": those who actually serve the least, who actually take the side of those whose only hope is God, who completely subvert expectations.

If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, then we will grow, grow, and grow in the realization that over and over in the New Testament, we are reminded how the people hated the Romans, the Samaritans, and tax collectors. But in Luke, the Roman Centurion, the Samaritan on the road connecting Jerusalem to Jericho, and Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, are presented as models of faith. They are "enemies who love."

The Centurion not only loved the Jewish people and built their synagogue, he also loved his slave dearly and sought help from the Jewish community when the latter was ill and close to death. We all know about the Samaritan who was a neighbor to the Jew who fell into the hands of robbers.

Then, there is Zacchaeus in Sunday's lection. There are two important things in the passage that many English versions do not emphasize. Scholars have been raising these points for a long time.

First, he was young, not short. And he was a very young but very rich chief tax collector, not just your regular hated publican. The passage tells us how the people ostracized him. For them, he definitely did not belong. For them, he, most definitely, was not a child of Abraham.

Second. The verbs in verse 8 are in the present tense. Even present progressive. Not future. Zacchaeus did not promise to give back half of his possessions to the poor. He did not promise to pay back those he has defrauded four times as much. HE WAS ALREADY DOING BOTH! He was already doing acts of justice which Jesus commanded the rich to do in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

For Jesus, Zacchaeus was, most definitely, a child of Abraham!

Friends, many times we love playing God. We decide who are in and who are not. We decide who are saved and who are doomed. Salvation is God's gift. It is not ours to give.


*art, "Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN

Pharisees loved God and country, were very religious, highly trained, upright, and totally against the Roman Occupation of Palestine. They were loved by the masses in contrast to the elitist Sadducees who belonged to the ruling class. Let us not forget that Paul, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Gamaliel were Pharisees.

In Sunday's lection, the Pharisee was telling the truth. Everything he said in his prayer was true.

Publicans or tax collectors were probably the most hated people during Jesus’s time. They worked for Rome and were considered collaborators and traitors.

In Sunday's lection, everything the tax collector said in his prayer was also true.

Both men were truthful. What's the difference?

The tax collector judged himself and found himself needing God's mercy. The pharisee judged the tax collector and found the tax collector needing God's mercy.

Then and now, we all need God's mercy. Especially those of us who, like the pharisee, think we don't.

*art, "The Pharisee and the Publican," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

THE WIDOW AND THE UNJUST JUDGE

This Sunday's lection is not about prayer. Most of the time we hear sermons that tell us that if we persist, like the widow, in prayer, pleading to God, then God, like the judge, will relent.

Stop imagining that the judge in the story is God. He is not. He is a judge--an unjust judge, at that, like many in our country today. (There are exceptions, of course, like RTC Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar.)

And then there's the widow. Widows are among the three most dispossessed people in Bible times (along with orphans and strangers), pleading for justice like so many in our country today. The thousands of widows caused by Duterte's War on Drugs. Tens of thousands of widows brought about by militarization, by large-scale mining, by human trafficking, by the US-led War on Terror, by powers and principalities fueled by insatiable greed and lust for profit. All crying out, all relentless, all persistent in their quest for justice.

And the unjust judge relents. Not because he had a change of heart. The situation changed because the widow never gave up. Morning, noon, and night. Rain or shine. She was in his face. Standing her ground. She never lost hope. She wore him down. She fought for justice and justice prevails at the end.

Friends, justice must alway prevail. This is why we should always choose justice.

*art, "Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow," John Everett Millais (1829-1896), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

KRISTER STENDAHL AND THE NINE LEPERS

During my first year of graduate school, I had the privilege of presenting a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. I did not expect Krister Stendahl* to be in the audience--he was in the front row. I did not expect him to come up the stage after the presentation and introduce himself to me--he did.

I did not expect him to remember me when we saw each other again in the following year's SBL meeting in Boston--he did remember me. He even remembered my paper, and asked if he could join me for lunch. Those very priceless moments with Bishop Stendahl seem surreal to this day.

He was interested in my argument that faith being a response to grace resonated with "utang na loob" being a response to "kagandahang loob". And that the best way to respond to grace by faith is to to pay it forward. The best way to love God, our Parent, is to love our sisters and brothers. I used the story of the ten lepers to unpack the concept. And the narrative is Sunday's lection.

We expected the ten lepers who were healed to go back to Jesus to express their gratitude. But only one returned to do so. And most of our interpretations have celebrated this one who returned. How about the "ungrateful" nine? Is it not possible that they paid it forward? Is it not better if an act of kindness is repaid by doing an act of kindness to someone else instead of returning the favor?

Isn't serving the people--especially widows, orphans, and strangers--the greatest expression of our gratitude for God's grace?

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*Krister Stendahl (1921-2008) was Bishop of Stockholm (Sweden), theologian, and New Testament scholar. He served as professor and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. His works on Paul are required reading in many seminaries.

+art, "The Healing of the Ten Lepers," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).