Zacchaeus, the tax collector

It is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time and today’s gospel reading is about Zacchaeus, the tax collector, written in Luke 19:1-10. As we learned from this story, Zacchaeus was not just a simple tax collector hated by the Jews, but a chief tax collector, which means that he had many other tax collectors under his command, which therefore made him very wealthy. Let’s read this story from Luke 19:1-10.

“19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

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.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

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When we went to Jericho, our tour guide showed us the sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed in order to see and be seen by our Lord. How did we know that this was the sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed? Well in the middle of the town of Jericho, there was only one huge sycamore tree, so it was easy to conclude that this was the very tree mentioned in the Bible. Anyway, knowing where the tree was located wasn’t important, what is important is knowing that this story is one of repentance!

As we read on, you will notice that our Lord Jesus Christ must have known who Zacchaeus was because he invited himself into his house, to which many people were aghast as it was generally known to be the house of a sinner. That our Lord invited himself into the house of Zacchaeus scandalized the crowd for they knew Zacchaeus was a great sinner, and men of God do not eat in the house of sinners.

Arriving in the house of Zacchaeus, he immediately told our 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.” I’m pretty sure that for a long time now, Zacchaeus had agonized having sinned in his line of work where the Jews considered his kind a pariah. But then as we’ve been told, the Romans didn’t give him a choice; either collect for the glory of the Roman Empire or be damned by the Romans.

What is not mentioned in this gospel story is that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector, therefore his tax collectors under his command were just as trouble as he is since the Jews turned them into a pariah that the Jews hated after hating the Romans. We know very well that our Lord has been referring to tax collectors and comparing them to Pharisees, like what we learned just last Sunday where we read in Luke 18: 9-14 about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Just imagine that between the two prayerful fellows, our Lord Jesus justified the prayer of the tax collector, a sinner rather than a man of the temple, a Pharisee.

What we see in this story is that Zacchaeus a chief tax collector would humiliate himself by climbing up the sycamore tree like a child in order to get a glimpse of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just imagine how he felt when the Lord Jesus recognized him from up the tree and invited himself to stay in his house. That triggered Zacchaeus to repent his sins and pay for his other sins and salvation was granted to the entire household of Zacchaeus.