“Math for the Win" based on Galatians 5:13-21 and Luke 19:1-10

The math of the Zacchaeus story has always bothered me. Because if he gives half of what he has away, and then he gives back what he took inappropriately TIMES 4, he has negative income really fast. Right? Which would mean he can’t fulfill his promise. But he is a tax collector so he can probably do math, so why did he say it?

For the first time in my life, this week, I let myself finish that thought. Because, despite the fact that math isn’t usually a great source of Biblical insight, the decades of annoyance about the math just couldn’t be silenced.

If the math is impossible, I started to wonder, does that mean that Zacchaeus is actually saying that he doesn’t defraud anyone? Because if that is the case, then it would follow that he isn’t actually a bad guy, despite being a tax collector! Which would mess up a whole lot of what I thought I new about this passage.

So, like you do, I did some digging in my favorite commentaries, and (shock of shock for those who listen to me regularly) the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels had something to say about this that I found important. Namely that the Greek verbs that Zacchaeus speaks “I give” and “I pay back” are in the present tense, which indicates that even before meeting Jesus, “Zacchaeus is already practicing this kind of compensatory behavior. The trouble is that the crowd does not believe him. He therefore bristles a bit at the stereotyping behavior of the crowd and responds to Jesus with a description of his customary behavior.”1

As someone who heard this lesson in Sunday School and learned a very annoying little song about it that never quite leaves my head, this is kinda crazy to learn. Zacchaeus was a good guy all along! He didn’t have some conversion experience upon meeting Jesus, what he actually had was a chance to be SEEN and KNOWN for the faithful human he already was- and the actions of Jesus in going to his house and in giving him a platform to speak were actions of HEALING between Zacchaeus and the community, because afterwards they could see him as he was and accept him as part of their communal life.

And, for the record, NOW it makes sense why he climbed that tree – if he was already a man who lived his faith, of course he’d want to see the guy whose live shined with God’s light.

Thanks math.

All of a sudden, this story resonates with some universal truths. Because, who among us hasn’t been misinterpreted, misunderstood, perceived in the worst light and desperately wished to be heard well, understood, and appreciated for who we are? I fear the answer is that no one has been excluded from that horrible human experience. The one where the good things you do go unnoticed or sometimes even are intentionally brushed away, and the mistakes you made are used to define you, and no space is given for you to talk about what your actual intentions were nor that you are sorry for the harm you caused. Everything you do or don’t do gets interpreted as bad, usually without anyone even talking to you about it directly.

It is awful stuff, right?

And it is common.

And it feels terrible.

Oh how I wish this were one of those things that didn’t happen in the church. However, this is a thing that happens in the church. (If you didn’t know that yet, YAY!!!!!!!! And sorry to burst your bubble.) I guess, for me, it helps a little bit that Paul speak to this as well, because this being a universal human and church failing at least means it isn’t just my own personal failure of leadership that this happens here sometimes too. I take what I can get.

Galatians, being one of the authentic letters of Paul, is a source of great wisdom and insight that still manages to annoy me immensely. In this case, I really hate that he engages in “body soul dualism” and attributes all the evil stuff to bodies. I pretty emphatically disagree. In my opinion, my worldview, body soul INTEGRATION is where it is at. Our bodies are full of useful information about who we are, how we are, what feelings we have, and what we need. Our bodies guide us to the fullness of our humanity, and as we make space for the fullness of our humanity we move toward the Divine as well. Which I think is really important.

Now that I’ve argued with Paul, I can move on and say that I agree with his opening point that being free in God should not be taken as a reason to bite and devour each other. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves – the ones near and far, the ones in the church and out of it. If you are being distracted by his long list of “bodily desires” and those have been used against you in the past, let me offer the words of Dr. Wil Gafney on this, “In this case the author is focusing on excessive desires and self-gratifying desires rather than condemning the care and ending of one’s body and health. Mutual sexual gratification would seem to be beyond rebuke.”2

Now that we’ve de-escalated our responses to Paul, what we can do with his wisdom that people who seek to be loving to each other sometimes chew each other up and spit each other out – like people did to Zacchaeus? He recommends “walking in the Spirit.” I recommend staying in your body. Really. I recommend letting yourself be mad, or sad, or disappointing in another, and then checking to see if there are any other emotions around it, and then finding out what thing(s) you value are violated and then thinking about what might make those better – and then if you can thinking about what the other person may be feeling, needing, valuing – and then TALKING ABOUT IT WITH THE PERSON.

Yes.

WITH the other person.

Because the Bible is really clear that the best way to deal with each other is directly. Even though it is really hard. Can you imagine if someone had said to Zaccheaus, “Hey, you are in a really awful profession, but you claim to be a decent guy. That doesn’t add up to me, can you help me understand?” Or even, “I think you took too much money from me.” Or, “You claim to love God, but you seem to love money. Does that seem true to you?”

Those wouldn’t be easy conversations, but they might have changed everything. I have been so grateful in my ministry for the people who say, “I see you doing this thing, and I think you should be doing that thing,” and say it to me directly so we can chat! I’ve also been grateful for those who say, “I was really offended by this thing you did.” Because we can figure out together what matters to us together and how to find an answer for the future that works for us both. And no one else is stuck in the middle, or pulled into drama, and no one is being maligned. It is a hard, beautiful thing.

I think that’s the miracle of what Jesus did with Zaccheaus – he reconnected him to people so the people could talk to him again, ask him questions again, call him out even. He opened up the lines of communication. Because that’s what it means to be in community – it means to be in communication with people, including in difficult communication.

Thank God Jesus called Zaccheaus out of that tree, and thank God his math SO CLEARLY didn’t add up so he could become multi-dimensional to us, and THANK GOD other people have been misunderstood so we don’t feel alone, and most of all thank God for the times when people are brave enough for the hard conversations. Those are the most holy ones.

Amen

1Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p. 303.

2 Wilda Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church (New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2021), p. 278.

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 3, 2023