Dr. Rodney Plunket

Many of us know the New Testament (NT) story of Jesus and Zacchaeus (see Luke [Lk] 19:1-10).  The events of that story took place near the end of Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus entered the Judean town of Jericho and a man named Zacchaeus climbed up a tree so he could see Jesus as Jesus passed by.  Zacchaeus was a short man, so he needed to climb the tree in order to see over the crowds.  But Zacchaeus was also the chief tax collector in Jericho and an extremely wealthy man.  One does not expect such a person to climb a tree to see anyone.  His willingness to do so indicates the degree of desire which he had to see Jesus.  It may also indicate that He was a humble tax collector not given to haughtiness or pretense.

So there he was, perched in a fruit tree, when Jesus walked right to that very tree, looked up at Zacchaeus, called him by name and said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).  Notice Jesus’ words.  “I must stay at your house today.”  The word translated “must” indicates throughout the Gospel of Luke that what is taking place has been planned by God.  It means that it is important to God’s purposes that the designated event occur.  Jesus has found the man whom God had led Him to Jericho to see.

But why?  Why Zacchaeus?  I think that a look back through the preceding chapters of Luke makes it easier to answer that question.  Notice that in Luke Jesus interacts with many people who were, for one reason or another, outcasts–
–social pariahs.  The Jewish religious establishment criticized Jesus often because He spent so much time with those whom they referred to as “sinners.”

In Lk 15, we read the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the Prodigal Son.  That chapter makes clear, in verses 1 & 2, that Jesus told those parables in response to the Jewish complaint that He should not be spending time with such low life.  You see the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son all represent, in these parables, the “sinners” whom the Jews wanted Jesus to stay away from.

But we also must notice the way that the persons whom the Jewish establishment rejected are so often described in Luke.  They are described by putting together two nouns.  The two nouns are “tax collectors” and “sinners.”  A devout Jew of Jesus’ day would not eat with a tax collector because such a person was considered ritually unclean due to their involvement with the Roman Imperial authorities.  The fear that one might have touched a tax collector is one of the reasons that the Jews ritually washed their hands before they ate; they feared that just touching such a person might religiously poison their food.  And Jewish laws in Jesus’ day did not allow a tax collector to hold a “communal office” or even give “testimony in a Jewish court” (Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 4:522).

The view of the Gospel of Luke, however, is entirely different.  John the Baptist, in Lk 3:12, is asked by a group of tax collectors what they should do to show the proper fruits of repentance.  John does not tell them to change jobs; he tells them to be fair (Lk 3:13).  And Jesus Himself even calls a tax collector, Levi, to follow him as an apostle, and Levi does follow Him (Lk 5:27-32).  And Jesus eats with tax collectors regularly.  He clearly does not fear being defiled by them.

So Jesus had come to Jericho to meet Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, the only person referred to in that way in the entire (NT).  And, to make matters worse, Zacchaeus is rich.  Take a person holding a hated position; make that person rich; the hatred only increases.

So when Zacchaeus and Jesus walk together toward Zacchaeus’s house, the crowd grumbles; they complain.  They complain loudly enough that Zacchaeus hears it and stops.  I know that the New International Version says that he “stood up,” but the verb here can and, in my judgment, should be rendered as stopped, which is the rendering employed in the New American Standard Bible.  Anyway, Zacchaeus responds by turning to Jesus and saying what is most naturally and lit­erally translated by the Revised Standard Version.  The RSV in Lk 19:8 says, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

Now most English translations render the verbs “to give” and “to restore” here as future verbs, i.e., “I will give” and “I will restore or I will give back.”  But the Greek verbs here are both present tense verbs.  Now, it is not impossible in Greek for a present tense verb to have a future meaning (such is called by Greek Grammarians, a futuristic present).  But, for such a rendering to be chosen, the more normal time reference of the verb has to be impossible or unlikely.  Here, I do not think that the natural understanding of these Greek verbs is unlikely at all.  Read as normal present tense verbs this story is telling us that Jesus has been sent to Zacchaeus to help expose how unjust Jewish religious intolerance really is.  He has been sent to bring salvation to him, and salvation here has the idea of Jesus the Savior staying with this “son of Abraham” and, thereby, making clear that this man is not outside of the love and care of his God.  Jesus is saving Zacchaeus from the feeling foisted upon him by His fellow Jews that he is sinful, wicked, and separated from God’s people.  Jesus makes clear that he is a son of Abraham and that the very reason that Jesus is going to Zacchaeus’s house rather than someone else’s is due to the unfair treatment which he has been receiving.

If you read this passage with the words in verse 8 as words of repentance and change (i.e., reading the relevant verbs as future tense verbs) then it is the grumbling of the crowd which causes Zacchaeus to repent, and grumbling is not normally a positive thing in the Bible.  I think it is better to view Jesus here confronting, as He so often does, a social stigma that was unfair and unjust, a stigma based upon religious elitism rather than upon the actual deeds of the person or persons concerned.

But what I want to notice this morning is the lesson that this passage gives us for the use of our wealth.  Jesus revealed the goodness of Zacchaeus by giving Zacchaeus a stage on which to communicate the generous way that he used his wealth and compensated for any mistakes that he made.  He gave half of his goods to the poor.  If he took more from anyone than he should have, then he gave them back four times more than that.

In the days of Zacchaeus we in this assembly this morning would all be considered wealthy, and I suspect that many within the religious establishment would have doubted our religious purity as a direct result of that wealth and the types of jobs we do to create it.  I want us to follow Zacchaeus’s model.  I want us to be surprisingly generous in the way we use our wealth.  I want us to pay our money forward, forward into eternity, by using our wealth to bless others and by using our wealth to give glory to God.

About six months ago I received an email from Jill Moudy.  I want to note just three sentences from that email.  Jill referred to a sermon that I had preached.  She said, “Several weeks ago you preached a sermon on the evils of too much stuff.  Necessary, of course.  But I wish you would work on a sermon about how to bless others with our stuff.”  She went on then to make clear what she meant.  She did so by giving several examples of Broadway members who, as she put it, “go about quietly doing good with their money, their homes, their cars, etc., etc., etc.

She told of someone here at Broadway giving a young couple “a free Christmas tree and stand” a couple of weeks before Christmas.  She told of another couple who open their home to the youth and regularly provide supper for their Wednesday night “Crew” group.  Jill referred to a Broadway woman who gave her a beautiful teapot just because Jill admired it.  Jill said that the teapot “has not only blessed me, but the kids at the Children’s Home who have enjoyed extraordinarily wonderful chocolate milk from its elegant spout.”  She referred to people at Broadway who buy cars bigger then they need so that they can transport kids, widows, or anyone else who needs help.  There are people who secretly pay for camp tuitions or youth group retreats so that scholarships can be offered to kids who otherwise wouldn’t get to go.  There are people who open their homes to the lonely for holiday meals.  There are people who, though their resources are barely covering their own expenses, share their homes with people who need a place of refuge for a while.  And these are just the people I know about!!!

These are great examples of creative generosity.

Jill’s email was the seed from which this sermon sprouted.  But the idea also grew inside of Jill.  She taught a great Wednesday evening ladies’ class several weeks ago.  Her lesson focused on ways that Christians can go about doing good with our money, homes, cars, etc.  She collected more stories from others, stories of creative generosity, stories of people paying it forward.  Most of these stories tell of the creative use of our stuff.  Some of them relate great uses of God-given talents.  All of them tell of unselfish service to others.

One story was of a mother and father who bought a house with a basement.  The main reason was that “they wanted to have the basement available for young families in need to be able to live there until they were on their feet.”  The primary users of that space were young couples who were in school training for ministry.  A couple would move in and stay “til they graduated.”  Another person remembered a father-in-law who “always paved and gave paving materials free or at cost to churches, the Children’s Home, and LCU to name a few.”

One woman remembers that when she and her husband’s first baby was born a couple paid all of the expenses of that birth.  She also remembers that “[a]nother couple loaned them the money to pay their income tax and then wouldn’t accept repayment of the loan.”  The couple that received that generosity was later able to do the same for someone else.  A legacy of creative generosity was born and carried on.

Jill’s collection relates how one of our women for years went on Thursdays to shampoo and roll the hair of another Broadway woman, now deceased, who was wheelchair bound.  Broadway members have given frequent flyer miles to missionaries so they can make unscheduled trips home.  They also give those miles to Broadway members who need to visit the mission field.  One of our brothers for years has been blessing children and adults with his great cookie baking ability.  We have members who provide homes for missionaries who are in the states on furlough.  We have members who provide cars for missionaries on furlough.  And, of course, we have members who give generously to this church’s regular budget, to Mission Special, to Children’s Home Special, and the October­Fast special offering that goes to the Food Bank’s Second Helpings program.

Last Sunday night I was with a large Broadway Growth Group.  We all met at the ranch of one of our Broadway families.  They bought that ranch and built that ranch house, about an hour from Lubbock, so that they could share it with their brothers and sisters in Christ.  The fellowship that night was wonderful.  We all left feeling closer to each other.

We have lots of stuff.  But the persons who pay it forward realize that it is not their stuff at all.  It is from God, and God really owns it.  The persons who pay it forward use it in ways that show forth the heart of God, the giver of all that we have.

I read a story this week of a teacher who had herself attended the school where she was teaching.  On the first day of school , she usually knew all of her students, their parents, and grandparents.

But the story had to do with a year that was different.  That year brought a new student from the south.  His name was Danny, and his parents were not well off.  He was not very good in most subjects, but he was “a remarkable artist.”  The teacher showed him special attention, and included extra art projects in the curriculum to be able to give him positive feedback.

The room mothers organized the kids in order to buy the teacher a Christmas present.  Each child was to give a quarter toward the teacher’s gift.  It was supposed to be a secret, but the teacher easily could tell what was happening.  She knew that Danny would not be able to contribute a quarter.

The day of the Christmas party arrived.  Danny asked for some red construction paper and a marker.  The teacher was surprised but did not hesistate to give him what he wanted.  Later Danny asked for a piece of tape.  She gave it to him gladly.  After the party was over and everyone had gone, the teacher “found a folded piece of red construction paper on her desk.”  She opened and read with tears streaming down her face the following message.  “To my favorite teacher.  You have always been there for me, and I really appreciate it.  I couldn’t afford to get you anything so I am giving you everything I have.  Merry Christmas.  Love, Danny.”  Inside that piece of construction paper Danny had taped a dime––every­thing he had.

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