Amy C Walters

Zacchaeus | Luke 19:1-10

A lot of Jesus’ teaching in the Book of Luke has to do with money–mainly the negative power it has over people. Then, in the story of Zacchaeus, we see a wealthy man who suddenly gives away most of his wealth. Because Jesus transformed his relationship with money.

Jesus has been talking a lot in recent stories about money. In Luke 12, the Parable of the Rich Fool, taught us that greed is isolating, and that we have to guard against it. In Luke 16, there’s the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, showing that money fights for our affections. Also in Luke 16, there’s the Rich Man and Lazarus, demonstrating how money can make us comfortable, ignoring the needs that are around us. In the previous chapter, Luke 18, there was the story of the Rich Ruler who turns away from Jesus because he can’t let go of his money to trust and follow Jesus alone. One story after another highlights money’s negative power over people. 

And now we come to this story with Zacchaeus, another rich man. Will money have the same grip on him that it’s had on the others? It seems that it doesn’t. 

At the end of the story, we have a remarkable scene. Jesus is at Zacchaeus’ house, which he has invited himself to after finding Zacchaeus in the tree. Suddenly, Zacchaeus stands up and tells Jesus, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I repay four times the amount.” 

Zacchaeus here is giving away most of his wealth. Right off the bat, half of it is pledged to the poor. And then from the other half, he’ll repay four times the amount to anyone he has cheated. Most likely, he has cheated a lot of people to gain this wealth. This is huge. 

After this announcement from Zac, Jesus says to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house because this man is also a son of Abraham. And the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” 

So it seems from the way this story is laid out that Zacchaeus is saved because he’s giving away his wealth, either from following the law or from his good deeds outweighing the bad. But remember, we need to dig into these things and not just go with a surface understanding.

It’s not the case that Zacchaeus is saved because of his generosity. Instead, his generosity is an outflow of what has already happened in his heart. There are several things that point to this.

First, if Zacchaeus is saved because his generosity simply fulfills the law, then he would have only needed to repay people 120% of what he cheated, not 400%. In Leviticus 6:2-5, it says that if anyone has cheated his neighbor, they have to return what they have taken by extortion and add 20% to it. So it’s 120%. Zacchaeus instead repays four times the amount. He is going above and beyond what the law requires. So it’s not just about following the law to earn his salvation.

Second, and more importantly, we need to remember the previous story of the Rich Ruler. In it, Jesus says, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” What is he referring to here? What is impossible with man, but possible with God? Salvation, particularly the salvation of rich people. Jesus is saying that a rich man cannot save himself by his good deeds, by giving things away, or by the very nature of being wealthy. Salvation is only possible when God is the one who does it. 

Thirdly, Jesus concludes this story by saying, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Jesus is the Son of Man. Saving the lost is his purpose, is his work. He is the one doing the work of saving the lost. Not people saving themselves by good deeds. Not Zacchaeus saving himself by giving his money away. 

This means that, first of all, that Jesus is God. He just said that salvation is only possible through God. And now he says that he has come to seek and to save the lost, to bring salvation to the lost. Jesus is God. 

Jesus is also saying that an encounter with him is what changed Zac’s life. Zacchaeus giving away his money is not the salvation itself. It is evidence of the transformative work that Jesus is able to do, to take a greedy man like that and transform him into someone who is so generous. 

In Luke’s telling of this story, he packs a lot of time into a few short sentences. He says that Jesus invites himself over to stay at Zac’s house. Then the crowd grumbles that Jesus has gone to be the guest of a sinner. Then Zac is standing up and giving away his fortune. In those few short sentences, several hours have gone by. Jesus says he’s staying at Zac’s house. The crowd grumbled that he was the “guest of a sinner,” which implies he really did go to Zac’s house. And Zac standing up implies that he has been sitting down, probably, to a meal. So this is several hours of time that Luke has compressed into a few short sentences. 

The point is that Jesus and Zacchaeus have spent time together. And that time with Jesus is what has transformed Zacchaeus. 

Our key truth for today is that Jesus transforms your relationship with money. 

Remember that Luke is writing this account to someone he addresses as “Most excellent Theophilus,” in Luke 1:3. With an important title like that, Theophilus was probably high in society, powerful and wealthy. Luke is a doctor, an occupation that back then was also typically very wealthy. So Luke himself probably is a rich person. Luke includes these stories in his book to demonstrate that following God will impact your wallet. Wealth itself is not the problem, but instead should be used to tell others about the kingdom of God. 

Zacchaeus is using his wealth to demonstrate his repentance, to show how much Jesus has changed him inside and out.

Back when I was in college, I spent two months in Vietnam on an internship. While I was there, I encountered a lot of poverty, and it was really hard for me to wrap my mind around what to do about what I was seeing. One day when I was really struggling with this, I talked to a Christian couple I had met there. And they shared with me how they used their money in the context of relationships. They were generous with money, intentionally spending it with people they saw on a regular basis. They bought bread from the same person. They took their car to the same place for repairs. They bought more postcards than they’d ever need from the same guy in the tourist part of town. They did this to build friendships so that they could one day share the gospel with them. They saw their money not as something to be kept for themselves, but as a way to bless others and build relationships.

That lesson really impacted me because I am stingy by nature. I want to hold on to my money to keep it for myself just in case I need all of it. But what they taught me and what my parents have taught me through their generosity is that money is a tool to reach other people.