:"An Attentive, Offensive Love" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer, 4/6/2025
- Northminster Church
- Aug 12
- 6 min read
A sermon for Northminster Church
Luke 19:1-10
Intro
A good story
-you know it’s good, there’s a song
-one of the first ones we learn
-grew up in church - feltboards and coloring pages
-who doesn’t have a mental picture of that “wee little man?”
Rich and complex story
-wordplay
-Zacchaeus’ name comes from Hebrew for “fidelity” or “righteousness”[1]
-historical context
-Artist Lauren Wright Pittman discovered “...that Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore fig tree”[2] or Ficus Sycomorus
- it’s “native to the Middle East and parts of Africa… The leaves are similar in shape to mulberry and the fruit looks very similar to the common fig, except it's smaller.”[3]
-importantly, tree “...was a food source for poor people because the fruit was bitter and generally undesirable.”[4]
Irritating story
-Rachel Held Evans, “God has a really bad habit of using people we don’t approve of.”[5]
-Small tweak from Rev. Jeff Chu, “God has really bad habit of loving people we don’t approve of. Or…God has a really bad habit of showing mercy to people we don’t approve of. Or…God has a really bad habit of extending grace to people we don’t approve of.”[6]
Exegesis
-If there was every anyone Jesus should call on the carpet it’s Zacchaeus
-tax collector
-probably aware tax collectors are loathed
-”...phrase ‘tax collectors and sinners’ appears multiple times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.”[7]
-Matthew 21:31 Jesus has testy exchange with chief priests and elders and tosses as commentator Rev. Jeff Chu says, “a rhetorical grenade in their midst, saying, ‘The tax collector and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven before you.’”[8]
-tax collectors are ”stooges of the Roman Empire”[9]
-”They betrayed their own people and enriched themselves in service to the oppressor. And Zacchaeus was no average corrupt bureaucrat. He’d amassed immense wealth, climbing on others’ backs to the rank of chief tax collector.”
-Despite meaning of his name Zacchaeus “...has all the marks of someone who is neither”[10] faithful nor righteous
-he is “...both a chief tax collector and rich…”[11]
-Community sees him as “a sinner because he takes good from the Jewish people and gives them to Rome.”[12]
-Zacchaeus is more than a little villainous. More than a little unlikable. More than a little oily.
-At worst Zacchaeus is “a walking oxymoron.”[13] At best he’s “a deeply complicated human.”
-Exactly the sort of person that would cancel, ignored, not trusted in our society
-might wonder if he’s even worthy of mercy after breaking others’ backs to get where he is,
Wrong about Zacchaeus?
-Except…
-some scholars argue that traditional translation isn’t accurate
-later in story, after meeting Jesus Zacchaeus says, “I will give to the poor…I will pay back…”
-future tense
-”Some scholars argue that these verbs would be more accurately translated in present tense…”[14]
-Commentator David Lose,” …the verbs are actually written in the present tense. Zacchaeus isn’t repenting, he is rebutting his neighbors who started grumbling when Jesus decided go to his home. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor already; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I always pay back four times as much.”[15]
-”So if the verbs are in the present tense, why translate them as future? Because this is a case, as Greek grammar scholars contend, of a ‘future present tense’ – that is, while it may look like the present it’s really about the future.”[16]
-Here’s the problem: “...this story of Zacchaeus is the only place in the Bible – or in any other literature written in Greek! – where this “future present tense” occurs.”[17]
-What does this mean? David Lose: “... It means that those grammarians made it up.”[18]
-More importantly, it forces us to admit two things:
-One, “we are so convinced that… tax collectors are a disreputable lot we assume right along with the crowd that Zacchaeus is a pretty awful fellow…”[19]
-Two, “repentance must always precede a blessing…[and Zacchaues is] in desperate need of repentance.”[20]
-Said another way: in keeping with Lenten theme “Everything in Between” and this morning’s focus on righteousness and mercy: there might be some people so unrighteous that they aren’t worthy of mercy.
-Or if they are we really struggle to see where and how mercy can exist
-No small part of us is okay with “bad people” suffering a little
But Jesus…
-Would have been the case with Zacchaeus if not for Jesus
-would have remained a pariah
-seperated from community
-estranged
-vilified
-But Jesus seeks Zacchaeus just as he is sought by a man so interested in seeing him he climbs a tree
-Amist a crowd “clamoring for Jesus’ attention [this] day in Jericho…”[21]
-It’s Zacchaeus Jesus sees and chooses to spend time with
-This man who’s so estranged from his community whether fairly or not is the one to whom, “Jesus says, I will abide with you.”[22]
-not just a greeting
-not just recognition
-not just eye-contact and a wave
-But imperative statement, “...hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
-”God has a really bad habit of using people we don’t approve of.”[23]
Good News
-Today’s focus is righteousness and mercy
–righteousness is squirrelly word
-feels like a moving target
-overemphasized in some faith communities by impossible standards
-not understood by others, therefore not talked about much
-best definition is to be in “right relationship”
-with God
-with self
-with each other
-this story highlights last one, making clear that righteousness “can’t be practiced in isolation…”[24]
-that’s what makes Jesus response to Zacchaeus so striking
-doesn’t call him out
-”no loud shaming, no public humiliation.”[25]
-Rather as Rev. Jeff Chu say so well, “...this seems to be the gentlest calling-in. Faced with Jesus’ tender warmth, Zacchaeus descends from the tree, rejoins the people, and immediately…[engages in] a two-pronged act of reconciliation with both God and neighbor.”[26]
-Jesus’ merciful response to Zacchaeus is both startling and surprising from one who so often challenges the political authorities, but it also points out that “...perhaps God’s overflowing mercy should always surprise and disorient us a little bit.”[27]
-It isn’t just Zacchaeus who’s shown mercy as Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house…” not “to this man” which is an indication of the broadness of God’s mercy.
-Greek word soteria translated here as “salvation” “also means ‘deliverance’”
-”woven into soteria is a suggestion not just of cleansing but also of wholeness. In the communal culture of Jesus’ day, salvation meant the wholeness derived from belonging.”
-So whether he’s repenting of wrongdoing to his community or finally getting a chance to publicly explain his financial practices, through his encounter with Jesus Zacchaues is reconciled to his community.
-mercy is extended
-transformation occurs
-righteousness through right relationship is restored
-And despite what our response would be to a man like Zacchaeus, Jesus reminds us with a starling amount of gentleness that what works in this broken situation is “winsome grace, gentle mercy, and a love so attentive - and so offensive - that it [heals].”[28]
-That’s this morning’s good news and challenge, God cares for each of us and all the people we don’t know how to care for with a love that’s so attentive, so healing, so undiscrimination, so righteous as to be offensive.
-Thanks be to God for a love like that
[1] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III The Gospel of Luke, pg. 510.
[2] Lauren Wright Pittman, Everything In Between Visual Art Collection, Sanctified Art.
[3] Trees of Joy, https://treesofjoy.com/the-sycamore-fig-ficus-sycomorus/.
[4] Pittman, ibid.
[5] Rev. Jeff Chu, “Commentary on Luke 19:1-10,” from Everything In Between, Sermon Planning Guide, pg. 20.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid pg., 21.
[10] Levine and Witherington III, 510.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Chu, pg. 21.
[14] Sanctified Art, pg. 22.
[15] David Lose, “Luke 19:1-10,” from In the Meantime, post on Novemeber 20, 2013, https://www.davidlose.net/2013/11/luke-19-1-10/.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Rev. Chu, Ibid, pg. 21.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid, pg. 20.
[24] Sanctified Art, Ibid, pg. 20.
[25] Rev. Chu, ibid, pg. 21.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Sanctified Art, ibid.
[28] Rev. Chu, ibid, pg. 21.
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