Eve took a bite out of an apple; Mary and Joseph, Jesus’s parents, found no room in “an inn;” and there were exactly “these three kings” at Jesus’s birth. None of those facts is scriptural, and yet they are are very much a part of our spiritual tradition. We learned those extrabiblical facts either from the uncle Arthur (Adventist children’s books) or singing in Cradle Roll or Primary Sabbath school classes.
Today’s text, of course, brings to mind another popular apocryphal verse: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he…”
As a second language speaker, I once wondered what it meant, “a wee little man.” I asked around only to find out that apparently poor Zacchaeus was vertically challenged, in addition to being looked down on as a tax collector. So, the “wee little man” was not much to look at until Jesus called him out, “Zacchaeus, you come down…”
Yes, that is what the song says, and it makes for a compelling story of the one who felt guilty, confessed his sins, and was redeemed by Jesus. What else to say or add to the classic story of redemption told in a catchy Christian tune?
There is an important detail that is not at all so “wee little.”
Some biblical scholars suggest that there is an intertextual connection between the story of Zacchaeus and Luke 18:15-17, the text that describes Christ’s attitude toward another group of outcasts: children. Such an idea stems from the fact that the Greek word helikia, as in helikia micros in Luke 19:3 commonly translated as “short in stature.” “Helekia” generally means a period of time, and it refers in the gospels to age or a span of one’s life (Luke12:25; 2:52; Matt 6:27; John 9:21, 23). Helikia is never used to describe a person’s physical appearance.
Zacchaeus, then, in this thinking, is most likely a younger person (which might explain his tree-climbing abilities.) The Zacchaeus story, then, follows on the heels of Jesus’ pointing the children as central to the kingdom of God (18:15-7). So what was it that compelled Jesus to share a falafel sandwich at the house of the head honcho of tax collectors?
The usual answer is that Jesus takes an opportunity to display mercy, forgiveness, and grace to a man who’d strayed far from the path. But there is another possibility. Some commentators view this more as a story of vindication and restoration of Zacchaeus from a low/outsider status back to a place of status—part of the community of heirs of Abraham. Like the children are moved from the margins to the center in the previous story, young Zacchaeus is restored to a place of welcome.
In this view, the problem for Zacchaeus is that people have perceived and labeled him as a typical toll collector — a scoundrel who cheats people. However, a possible reading of stories details may indicate that Zacchaeus is a business savvy young man of means who already was practicing justice and kindness at the time when he encounters Jesus. Notice the way the CEB translates the Zacchaeus’ words to Jesus in the present tense: “Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much” (19:8).
In other words, the original language of the Gospel of Luke opens a possibility for viewing Zacchaeus not as a confessing sinner, but as an unlikely exemplar of justice and integrity. The present form of the verbs in Zacchaeus’s response to Jesus conveys that he describes to the Lord what he is already doing, although the crowd, either intentionally or not, chooses to not see any positive aspects in Zaccaeus’s life. The toll collector also chooses humble self-assessment and shows willingness to correct his inadvertent mistakes, “If I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
With this way of reading, the Zacchaeus story becomes a positive counter to the story of the rich ruler in Luke 18:18-25. The rich ruler is challenged to give his possessions to the poor, which would mean stripping himself of his status and identifying with the outcasts, the poor. He, of course, does not do so. Could it be that young Zacchaeus is an example of one who does?
Reading this story as a vindication pronouncement of Jesus on behalf of Zacchaeus is very fitting in the context of the entire Luke-Acts narrative. By sharing a meal at Zacchaeus’s home Jesus insists on extending welcome to one whom social and religious standards had judged as outcast—just the reverse of the earlier rich ruler.
The story shows that human stereotypes often fail to embrace the inclusive magnitude of Christ. Jesus seeks communion with such people as Zacchaeus, who could have been wrongfully cast out by the dominating culture on the basis such factors as age, race, gender, social and economic statuses—and that’s what Luke’s gospel has been about throughout.
So, whether or not Zacchaeus was a short man or a young man, the song still gets the point right: “And a very happy man was he.” It seems like the song teaches us a very important gospel lesson that, ultimately, it is not a person’s physical or any other stature that matters in the end; rather it is their welcome status in Christ that counts.
Vadim Dementyev is Pastor for Community Engagement at the La Sierra University Church and sole Pastor at the Riverside Community Church.