Luke 19:1-10 Commentary

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he… You probably know the song. But have you ever wondered why it only tells part of the story in Luke 19.1-10? We sing of Jesus inviting himself over, but we never voice the part about what happens when Zacchaeus fully welcomes Jesus in!

And that got me to thinking: do Zacchaeus and Jesus even make it to his house before everything changes? This time reading through the story, I’ve been struck by Zacchaeus’s eagerness at every stage. So much unlike the religious folks we’ve been hearing be chastised and challenged, who grumble away in the presence of Jesus and who are time and again speechless when Jesus reveals their own sinful hearts and habits, Zacchaeus is hungry for Christ’s presence. Like the tax collectors and sinners before him in Luke 15, he’s come looking for a chance to hear Jesus.

To be sure, Zacchaeus is still a guy with issues. As the text points out, not only is he a tax collector, but he’s the chief one—a wealthy man at the top of a pyramid-scheme network where each person skims off the top and exploits the system for their personal financial gain. Everyone hates him. No one is kind to him or wants to help him get a view of the road where Jesus is sure to pass by. He’s not welcome among them because he’s done so much wrong to them.

But there’s something in Zacchaeus driving him to see Jesus. He runs (a very undignified thing to do) and climbs a tree further down the road, presumably where there aren’t a lot of people gathered yet so there’s no one stop him or obstruct his view.

In Zacchaeus’s eagerness there is a hospitableness—an openness to hear what this Jesus will say. This hospitableness or openness seems rather important to what will come next.

Jesus also proves himself hospitable. It is a trait we know so very well from the Gospels. Jesus can make himself at home with anyone, but he’s really looking forward to bringing the lost home. Jesus comes to the part of the road where Zacchaeus is watching, and he invites himself to dinner. Much to the chagrin of everyone else, of course. Jesus welcomes the ‘worst’ of us, the excluded and the hated (for valid or invalid reasons), so that we might be transformed by his loving presence.

Zacchaeus’s eagerness abounds. He “came down at once and welcomed [Jesus] gladly.” The text doesn’t say this, but when we read this story we get no sense of pride or that Zacchaeus thought so highly of himself that he deserved to have Jesus come to his house. No, the sense we have been given throughout this story is of his desire to be in contact with Jesus.

I can’t help but wonder if this story is a picture of how the Holy Spirit prepares us for our encounters with Christ. At every turn, Zacchaeus is dogged in his attempts to see Jesus, and when Jesus comes to him, he doesn’t shy away in shame or cower in embarrassment of being a grown, wealthy man found in a tree. Even while everyone else watching this scene plays out grumbles and calls Zacchaeus a sinner—a true fact we might add—Zacchaeus fumbles and bumbles his way down with everyone watching and stands before Jesus, gladly welcoming the Lord to come home.

But do they even make it to his house before we hear Zacchaeus describe his transformation? He is eager to repent and restore his wrongdoings, to walk in the grace of Jesus and the way of sharing with one another that Jesus embodies. Verse 8 seems to me to be in response to verse 7: Zacchaeus knows that the people calling him a sinner are not wrong, and he is eager to share his commitment to being different because of Jesus. He says to the Lord—making Jesus his master instead of money (!)—that he will repay and make recompense for the ways he has done harm.

Zacchaeus’s hospitality expands as part of his repentance: he is willing to give it up (something other rich folks have not been able to stomach in the Gospel of Luke). And Jesus tells Zacchaeus that he has found his freedom. With God as his master, and not money, Zacchaeus has been found by the Son of Man and become part of God’s family. I can only wonder what Zacchaeus’s eagerness to be part of this story resulted in next!

Textual Point

As mentioned above, Jesus calls Zacchaeus a “son of Abraham”—a significant identity marker for an outsider. But Jesus also infers that Zacchaeus is one of the “lost” he’s comes to find and bring home. This is the same descriptor that marks the “lost” parables in chapter 15 (the sheep, the coin, and the sons). Jesus is ever expanding—even if subtly—our understanding of the scope of his restoration work.

Illustration Idea

As the American Civil War came to an end, as recompense for slavery and its lasting prejudices as well as to pave the way for the new America, an effort was made to redistribute wealth, land and authority to African-Americans in the South. Union General William Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with black leaders to ask them what they wanted and needed as emancipation spread; their answer was clear: land where they could safely live and provide for themselves. William Sherman gave Special Field Order No. 15 in January of 1865, commonly referred to as “40 Acres and a Mule.” This order came with military protection for families to establish communities and farms on 400,000 acres of land from South Carolina to Florida. We can think of it as the sort of four-fold offer Zacchaeus makes in our text as he repents of his old way and sets out to make amends and to serve those who he has harmed and benefitted from. Over 40,000 freed people took up the opportunity, but sadly, America’s pattern of being unable to see through reconciliation projects brought the project down as Andrew Johnson reversed the order during his presidency in the fall of 1865.