Reflection by Frances Flatman on next Sunday's Readings :-
In a period when we have witnessed the collapse of yet another British administration and the scrabbling for power of other would-be’s, it’s salutary to reflect on how our scriptures view these shenanigans which also disturbed the ancient world they inhabited.
The Wisdom writer lived in Alexandria and was writing around C 50 BCE in very uncertain times. Palestine had already been occupied by Pompey; and Egypt itself, ruled by Cleopatra, was far from stable and would shortly become a Roman province. Caesar would cross the Rubicon, and precipitate a colossal civil war in the Empire which would see fighting in Italy and Greece which would spread out to other provinces until peace was eventually restored by Octavian/Augustus, the last man standing. At this time then our author wrote to put everything in its context, reminding his readers of the insignificance of earthly things in the sight of God, who nevertheless ‘Love(s) all that exists.’ He understands God as ‘All merciful, one who holds nothing in abhorrence.’ Indeed God “Spares all things because all things are yours.’ In a time of chaos and confusion, with dog eating dog, he is very positive in his outlook on the world, quite simply because he places his whole trust in the Creator.
We are now following Jesus as he nears Jerusalem (Luke 19:1-10) and his passion, and have just heard his third and final prediction of his passion as he strives to help his followers appreciate what the salvation he brings, what Kingdom life, is about. He offers his love to children, those of no account, the blind, and the rich rulers like Luke’s patron Theophilus. Yet it still appears that the crowds and the disciples have their own socially engendered values about who will be accepted and who not.
So Luke includes the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. In Greek this is the Hebrew name for a righteous man, but, as we hear that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector of the city and had grown very rich, he would have sold the franchises to lesser men and also kept the lions share for himself, collected by his army of thugs; and lived in the Roman style completely estranged from his Hebrew brethren. So clearly righteousness was a long disregarded virtue in his life. He would have been an object of immense hatred by the crowds who pressed around Jesus, often pious Jews whose lives he made a nightmare by his demands. Tax collectors always overcharged in order to recoup the losses they incurred by purchasing the tax collecting rights. Zacchaeus is a man quite beyond the Pale, viewed with contempt on all sides; and for Jews, quite beyond redemption. Clearly no temple sacrifice or ritual washing would bring this man ‘back from the dead.’ Yet in order to demonstrate precisely just how loving God is, Jesus does the unthinkable – he reaches out to this man who is such an outcast. In fact, what we find here is not merely a meeting between Jesus and Zacchaeus which sorts things out, but the beforehand workings of the Spirit, of grace which has obviously grabbed Zacchaeus already. Now in Semitic society males and especially rich men neither ran (haste would have necessitated a slave to do the job); nor would he ever have demeaned himself by shinning up a tree for a better look at some scruffy itinerant prophet, (he would simply have sent for him.) Contrary to all social norms, Zacchaeus does both, and Jesus to the utter horror of the crowd invites himself to dine at the man’s house, thereby apparently colluding with his evil activities and becoming ritually impure by contamination. Indeed, the crowd ‘murmured’. This was deeply disturbing, far worse than healing leprous outcasts or associating with dubious women, for this man is inexorably associated with their enemy occupiers and the defiling of Israel. There is a moment then when our chief tax man, cognisant of the grace bestowed upon him both previously and now in the actual person of Jesus, quite simply surrenders to the love of God and changes completely offering to give half of his property to the poor – those he had exploited - and return four times the amount he had cheated from any claimant. In Leviticus 6, atonement for such theft must be repaid plus one fifth, so that Zacchaeus offers to repay far more than the law required. We must I think see this ‘miracle’ of redemption in some shape as an image of the enormity of Jesus’ own gift of himself to the world he both made and redeems. Certainly, the comparison is not complete, but in the sacrifice that Zacchaeus makes we can find something of the self-surrender which Jesus himself will so shortly make on the cross and; within this story is a hint of the shock and scandal that event will continually bring into our lives, as Jesus smashes down the boundaries we all build between ourselves and others we find unacceptable; child molesters, rapists and the incurably sexist and bigoted. ‘You spare all things because all things are yours.’ We have to allow the cross of Jesus to challenge us in this way, that’s what he was and is about.
Perhaps that’s why in his letter to the Thessalonians, (2 Thess 1:11-2:2) a community very close to Paul’s heart, he prays for them to ‘Be made worthy of his (God’s) call.’ Thessalonica after all was a pagan city, and it’s Christians, converts to the faith, would have frequently struggled to live out their lives in the faith, faced as they were by the daily, even hourly demands of pagan life, and the values they had inculcated from birth. Learning to live with grace, facing the unexpected and the downright difficult and not going along with the crowd, or not succumbing to their pressure can be a challenge many of us will not live up to more times than we would like to remember. Knowing that we are loved and redeemed by one who was simply blind to boundaries, can be a great consolation and source of hope for lots of us.
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