Thursday, 16 July 2009
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Offended by the Grace Shown to Zacchaeus
by Justin Holcomb of The Mockingbird Blog
I was offended by grace last night.My wife was reading the story of Jesus interacting with Zacchaeus from the Jesus Storybook Bible to our 6 month-old daughter. Usually, children’s bibles are filled with simple moralistic truisms, but this particular bible is spectacular in its ability to point to Jesus and his Gospel in every single story. I highly recommend it to parents who aren’t trying to raise mean little fundamentalists.
Back to the offense. As my wife read the story I found myself hating Zacchaeus because he was exploiting the poor. I was imagining him taking double taxes from elderly couples, letting his buddies off the hook of their taxes, and wasting the hard-earned money of hard-working people so he could live in luxury. It’s no wonder that people were shocked when Jesus went to his house for dinner.
No Christian wants to be on the side of Pharisees. They are the poster-children for cranky, up-tight, legalists who got Jesus killed. But there I was last night siding with the Pharisees against the tax collectors: “Jesus, you can’t associate with this man who exploits the marginalized. You have to preach against him, not eat dinner with him. This is your chance to really show that God is FOR the oppressed and beaten-down. Attack their oppressor."
I thought of Madoff going to prison for 150 years. I wanted the equivalent of that for Zacchaeus. That would be justice.
And then Jesus's message got through: grace is for the oppressed AND the oppressor, God gives me mercy and NOT justice, and God resists the proud BUT gives grace to the humble.
Thanks, Jesus Storybook Bible, for making Jesus’ message so simple and clear: "Salvation has come to this house because I have come to seek and to save what was lost."
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Comments (8)
I actually listened to a sermon about this as well.
The other message that I got from this is the changing ability of Jesus and his message to ALL those who are fortunate enough to hear it: don't forget that at the end of the interaction Zaccheus resolved to not only pay back all that he had stolen four times over but to be a much fairer tax collector.
That in itself is incredible in my eyes, and shows the absolute saving grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wow!
Geat point.
This reminds me of a bit in "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom. She and her sister are in the Consentration Camps, and Corrie'sister says something about "feeling sorry for them" and she replies "me too" only to realize later her sister was talking about the Nazi guards, not the prisioners. We hear "God forgives everyone" but I know I don't really think He means "everyone" sometimes. I wonder if there are people who think God shouldn't forgive me.... ~ L
It's easy to forget that Jesus offers forgiveness to all people. I think I focus mainly on showing love and compassion to the poor, the unlovable, the marginalised. I try not to be judgmental. And yet I am judgmental of judgmentalism. I am judgmental of churches that reject people.
Very well written Justin.
I would have the same response but I did not need God 's grace and forgiveness in my life.
Amrita
www.yesugarden.blogspot.com
Good job on making an old Bible story applicable to today's terms. Thanks for the book recommendation, too!
justme
cm
I was reminded of a post written by 'UnwierdIthink'(?) the other day about the thief on the cross & the fact that Jesus extended mercy to him, the 'scum' of the earth type thief (is there any other kind?). Someone responded with a rather 'cynical' statement: "Then Jesus accepts just about ANYBODY, if He accepts the likes of that 'dregs of society' lowlife thief----He (Jesus) really has a low bar of acceptance, it seems." In a sense, the answer is: YES!!!!!! The Gospel is scandalous to EVERYBODY, not just to the 'squeaky clean' Pharisee types. The message is; Jesus receives sinners--PERIOD!!!! The whores, tax collectors, the street urchins, the cheats, the murderers, the lowlifes--------even the pious 'nose-in-the-air'/'I'm-better-than-you' type sinners. His only requirement is that we learn "justice & mercy & walk humbly with our God". And in ANYBODY'S book, that's a steep challenge!!!! Yes, Jesus' bar of acceptance seems to be rediculously LOW, but it is also graciously HIGH! LAW--
and also, it's really easy for us to look at zacchaeus, and at others, who are Really Bad, and elaborate on just how bad they are, without even pausing to think about how we're contributing to the same problems. great post!