Today’s reading
from Luke’s Gospel is one of the best examples I can think of about how biblical
translation is really something of an art rather than an exact science. The
fortunate thing about the inexactness of biblical translation is that it gives
us opportunities to see or hear or think about scripture in different ways.
Take our friend Zacchaeus, the tax
collector, as an example of how we might think differently. Most of us have
heard this story told and preached and discussed as a story of repentance. And anyone
who went to Sunday School probably remembers Zacchaeus was short. You might
remember learning a song in Sunday School about Zacchaeus. “Zacchaeus was a wee
little man.” That’s how the song starts. It goes on to tell how Jesus told
Zacchaeus to come down from the tree because Jesus wanted to come to his house.
The song finishes with, “Zacchaeus came down from that tree, as happy as he
could be, he gave his money to the poor, and said, ‘What a better man I’ll be.’”
Well, maybe.
There are two things going on here.
The first is, who was short? It’s really hard to tell from the way the Greek
reads. Grammatically speaking, the short guy could be either Zacchaeus or
Jesus. Take your pick. And while you’re chewing over the idea that your Savior
might be short, how about the second thing?
That second thing is even more
puzzling. The Greek uses the present tense for what Zacchaeus says to Jesus. And,
translated this way, it doesn’t sound as though Zacchaeus is in need of
repentance or feeling ashamed of what he does. It sounds a whole lot more like
simply telling someone what you do. More like this, “Yeah, I work for the IRS,
I mean the Roman government, but I only collect what’s due. And, half of what they
pay me, I give to the poor. If it turns out the records were wrong or I
collected too much, I give the person back four times as much as I took.”
The translation we have in most
bibles is the one Deacon Beth read, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have
defrauded anyone of anything, I will
pay back four times as much.”[1]
If we translate what Zacchaeus says in the present tense, as it appears in the
Greek, it means something quite different. And, it is likely how it reads when
scholars get done arguing about whether or not it was intended as past tense,
or pluperfect tense, and anyway, most of us have forgotten what pluperfect
tense is, even we ever learned it in school. What we’re talking about here
instead of future is our friend Zacchaeus saying this, “I give to the poor; I give
back four-fold.” I could keep going, but I’m pretty sure I’d not only bore you.
I’d also bore myself with all the ins and outs of tenses in language: present,
past, and future and a good many others as well.
But you know what? This gospel isn’t
really about nuances or shades or ins and outs of language. It’s about
acceptance and love. It’s about Jesus welcoming those we might not want to welcome because we’ve made judgments about
them. And because we have judged those folks, we’d sure feel better about
ourselves and about welcoming them if they’d come clean and repent.
Sure, yes, there are places in
scripture where repentance is stressed. But Jesus isn’t in the trading business
here. He doesn’t say, “You give me repentance and I’ll give you salvation.”
Instead, Jesus seeks out the least, the lost, those shunned and despised by
society and the world and he offers us all acceptance and love. Jesus finds others
in the same way he finds us.
What this story is about is being
sought and seen. It’s about being sought and seen by Jesus. And once found and seen, Jesus offers acceptance
and love.
When Jesus shows up and looks up,
seeking Zacchaeus in the tree, he really sees him. What Jesus sees is a man
people shun and despise because they think he is a sinner. Inside that sinner,
though, lives a hidden saint. Zacchaeus may look like a blatant sinner, but when
Jesus sees him he sees inside him to the hidden saint.
What would you need to see as Jesus
sees? What would you need to look inside a blatant sinner, and see the hidden
saint inside? And what do you need to see the hidden saint inside you? AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2016
No comments:
Post a Comment