Unrighteous Wealth (16) Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus understood Jesus message. When Jesus came to dine with him, he stood up and said,

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 (Luke 18:9).

This was not a grand gesture to impress Jesus. He knew that he was the owner of unrighteous wealth. Tax collectors became rich by stealing from their fellow citizens, using stand-over tactics. Zacchaeus was entitled to a fee for his services, but most of his wealth was unrighteous wealth.

Zacchaeus wanted to enter the Kingdom of God, so he knew what he had to do. He had to get rid of his unrighteous wealth. He offered to fourfold restitution to anyone he had stolen from. That is what the Law required (Ex 22:1). He no longer knew who he had acquired most of his wealth from, so he could not make restitution. That is why he gave half of his possessions to the poor.

Zacchaeus gave his wealth away, because he knew he could not take it into the Kingdom. Jesus did not need to say anything to him, because he understood Jesus message. We focus on the generosity of Jesus in coming to dine with a bad man. That is good, but dining with sinners counts for nothing, if you are clinging onto unrighteous wealth.

Parable of the Minas (1)

I always presumed this was a parable about stewardship of our talents. We must use what God has given until Jesus returns. After reading Jesus and Politics by Alan Storkey, I realised this approach is wrong and some gained new insights.

Jesus told the parable in the house of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:2). Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. He would have controlled all the taxes collected from part of Jericho, maybe the entire city. In Roman times, tax collectors were not benign impartial civil servants. They would often had paid for the position. They would extract as much money as the get, pay what Rome demanded, and keep the rest for themselves.

Tax collection was a path to riches. Only a ruthless man could hold this job, as he had to squeeze tax out people who could not afford it. He would become very rich for his efforts, but would be hated by the people.

Luke explains why Jesus told the parable. This one does not being with the usual expression, “the kingdom of God is like… ”.

While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once (Luke 19:11).

Many healings and the repentance of key people like Zacchaeus led many people to believe that the kingdom was go to appear straight away. Jesus knew he was going to the cross, so he did not want them to be disappointed. (Some of the disciples still had this view in Acts 1:6).

The parable gives important insights into Jesus thinking about the Kingdom. He had said all along that it was at hand. He would inaugurate the Kingdom by dying on the cross. However, it would take some time for it to be established throughout the world. Many of his followers would have to suffer persecution first. Like yeast, the kingdom would take some time to permeate the whole of society. On the other hand, he probably did not expect it to take 200 years, but he did not realise how slack the Church would become.