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