Insights

Rev Gav

What is salvation?

Luke 19.1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”

Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

Reflect

To us Bible teachers, we look at the story of Zacchaeus, and we see a mine deep with metaphor and meaning!

In the gospels, the attention is in the detail, and the first detail mentioned by Luke in this story is: “Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town.”

Jericho! This was the first Promised Land town to be conquered by the Israelites — led by Joshua. The walls of Jericho fell by the power, not of people, but of God, and Joshua is the Hebrew form of Yeshua or Jesus, meaning ‘God saves’. So, Joshua #1 entered Jericho with the power of God, and in this story Joshua #2 also entered Jericho with the power of God. Hmmm! Coincidence? I do not think so!

In the first story, of Joshua, the town of innocent but powerful people in Jericho were not liberated but captivated, and the authorities were not integrated but conquered. In the second story of Joshua (our story about Jesus), the powerful, chief Tax Collector (someone high up and colluding with the Romans) was not captivated but liberated — Zacchaeus was not conquered but integrated. Oh, and did you know the name Zacchaeus means ‘innocent’? Do you see the mind-blowing, major tipping-up-on-its-head, flipping-it-over, reversal going on here?

We have not made it much beyond the first sentence and already we can see this story has a deeper meaning. We are already out of our depth and treading water, so let us swim to the deep end of this gospel pool!

Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus and because either Jesus or Zacchaeus is short (we do not know which), Zacchaeus climbs a tree, but not just any tree! No, Luke specifies the exact kind of tree and it is labelled as a ‘sykomorean’, or for you botanists out there, it is a ‘Ficus Sycomorus’, a kind of fig tree. The thing about this species of tree is that, well, it is a bit shite. The fruit is inferior to commercial figs, and its cheap fruit were only collected by the poor, but this is Luke’s gospel, right? You just knew this story would have something to do with the poor!

Trees are often used as symbols for people, and the fig tree was traditionally and biblically used to represent the chosen people of God, therefore Luke’s use of an inferior fig tree, with a Roman-colluding authority climbing all over it, well… you get the picture!

And what did Jesus do? He looked up at Zacchaeus and told him to ‘come down’! Yes, come down from the tree, but also, climb down from using the poor and disadvantaged for your own personal and Roman authoritarian gain.

Feeling giddy from all this meaning yet? Firstly, there is the connection with Jericho and all the associated parallels, and secondly there is the metaphor of the fig-tree. This is heady stuff, and it is all pointing in one direction.

Jesus tells Zacchaeus that he is going to have supper at his house — a great honour and privilege for Zacchaeus — and just in case we have missed the thrust of the story, Luke points out that we are reading a counter-narrative story. The people were ‘displeased’ that Jesus would go and eat with a ‘sinner’. The narrative of the Messiah should have been one of conquer and captivation where the Romans were overthrown by God’s power and might, not dindins!

Then, in the story, Zacchaeus does an incredible thing, he said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” In a case of theft, the Roman law required a person to give back four times the amount that was stolen, and this apparent admission of his guilt and corrupt collusion was admirable, but to give half his wealth to the poor, well that was unheard of! The poor, the ones who he had been oppressing, so beautifully symbolised through the climbing of that Ficus Sycomorus.

But the story does not end there because Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.”

By calling Zacchaeus a ‘Son of Abraham’ Jesus welcomed him into the family of God where Zacchaeus was officially adopted as God’s child, and more than that, Jesus described Zacchaeus’ actions as salvation taking place in the here and present. Salvation is about liberation from oppressive ways of living and a reversal of fortunes for the oppressed.

Jesus sums up the whole ‘reversal’ narrative in his final statement where he says, “The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” The story of Jericho is reversed, Roman authority and power is reversed, the innocent are liberated, and the poor are provisioned. Talk about the gospel in a nutshell (or should that be a fig of fruitiness?)

In the same way that life-transformation for Zacchaeus came through an encounter with Jesus, so we become transformed by that same encounter. Like Zacchaeus, Jesus calls us by name, asks us to ‘come down’ from our positions of authority and oppression of the poor, and to commune with him. Jesus wants to find us and save us in the here and now and forever.

When we break bread together, we do so as a symbol of Jesus eating with us. It is a way of us welcoming Christ into our hearts and homes, and a symbol of us allowing God’s love to change and transform us from the inside out — a reversal of the persistent narrative in our own lives where we put ourselves first at the expense of others.

Therefore, today, may salvation come to your house, and may you experience God’s saving love in the here and now and forever.

Amen.