Zacchaeus the tax collector

Our gospel reading today is on the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time and it is a story that has been repeated and repeated many times over by the Catholic Church in order to let the faithful know its impact and importance for all of us sinners. It is the story of Zacchaeus The Tax Collector and you can read it in Luke 19:1-10.

“1[Jesus] came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. 2 Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who as a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man. 3 was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.

5When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” 6And he came down quickly and received him, with joy. 7When they all saw this, they began to grumble saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” 9And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

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I just arrived last week from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and our last stop in Israel was in Jericho as it is not far from the Jordan River, which is the natural border between Israel and Jordan. On our first day of the tour in Jordan, we went up Mt. Nebo, where Moses was allowed by God to see the Promised Land. This is why you must read your Bibles from the Old and New Testament in order to know what really happened in the time of Moses.

But due to Moses’ lack of faith (He was instructed by God to talk to the rock and strike it so water would gush forth, but Moses talked to the people and struck the rock and nothing happened. So he struck it twice then water came forth) in God he was only allowed see the view of the promised land from the Valley of Jericho to the land of Judah to the Negev desert up to the Mediterranean. Indeed, you can see all of this land from Mt. Nebo.

I was quite surprise to see that Ancient Jericho was really nothing but a small oasis. The ramparts that fell before Joshua and Caleb were probably twice the size of the Plaza Independencia. In Jericho, there was a sign that led us to a Sycamore Tree…where tourists stop to take photographs. For a desert area, the Sycamore Tree is a huge tree…and that’s probably the place where Zacchaeus climbed up to see our Lord Jesus coming in Jericho.

As I’ve already written about this story many times before, so this time allow me to take a quote from my favorite Catholic author, Dr. Scott Hahn who wrote his thoughts about today’s gospel reading. Dr. Hahn says, “In the figure of Zacchaeus in today’s Gospel, we have a portrait of a lost soul. He is a tax collector, by profession a “Sinner” excluded from Israel’s religious life. Not only that, he is a “Chief tax collector.” Worse still, he is a rich man who has apparently gained his living by fraud.

But Zacchaeus’ faith brings salvation to his house. He expresses his faith in his fervent desire to “see Jesus, even humbling himself to climb a tree just to watch him pass by. While those loftier religious statures react to Jesus with grumbling, Zacchaeus receives Him with joy. Zacchaeus is not like the other rich men Jesus meets or tells stories about. He repents, vowing to pay restitution to those he has cheated and to give half his money to the poor. By his humility he is exalted, made worthy to welcome the Lord into his house. By his faith, he is justified, made a descendant of Abraham.”

Dr. Scott Hahn certainly gave us a worthy theology on the story of the tax collector and how he redeemed himself before our Lord. But notice that our Lord Jesus Christ did not do anything at all? For sure, Zacchaeus already heard about this man from Galilee who has been curing the sick, making the blind see and casting out demons and, yes, that includes dining with sinners. Being an outcast by the Jews and Judaism, Zacchaeus has found salvation in the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having a contrite heart, he anxiously awaits for the coming of Jesus who finds Zacchaeus perched high up on a Sycamore tree in the hope that Jesus would see him and indeed our Lord beckons him to come down…and Zacchaeus did so and he even did more to show to the Lord that he is sorry for his sins by returning what he stole and paying it four times more. We can rename the title of this story the Confession of Zacchaeus!

This story tells you that God doesn’t even care what your sins were for as long as you are sorry for committing them. That’s what Zacchaeus did and our Lord Jesus Christ stayed in his house and justified Zacchaeus for he was a lost son of Abraham and our Lord restored him to God’s fold.

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