8
Luke 19.1-10
4 November 2001
Given at Chatswood Church of Christ
Sydney Australia
“Today salvation has come to your house”
The woman drives me nuts. She has no manners to speak of, at least nothing Dale Carnegie would recognize as good manners. She insults her guests and treats them with disdain and condescension. Amazing. Quiz contestants and company spokesmen quake before her. But what's behind Anne Robinson's forbidding image? She has been described as acting like a cross between Cruella deVille and Hitler's mother, a dominatrix, a bossy school ma'am, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and a POW camp commandant. All this for her current role as presenter of the quiz program The Weakest Link UK, in which the contestants are able to vote off their rivals to win a relatively small amount of money.
It has also earned her the title of the Rudest Woman on Television by readers of TV Times. And she loves it. "The program is a conspiracy between me and the viewers", she told BBC News Online. "We're curious as to what on earth the contestants are doing there." Her co-conspirators love it too. The program is attracting more than six million viewers. Her contemptuous and dismissive phrase "You're the Weakest Link, goodbye", has become something of a national catchphrase.
The losers take the silent Walk of Shame, leaving, as the presenter likes to remind them, "with nothing". And the program's success has added to Anne Robinson's considerable wealth.
She reportedly earned £2m last year and has delighted in telling everyone so. And there is more to come.
Here in Australia of course we have our own knockoff version. Cornelia Frances is the presenter. Known as the feisty Morag from Home and Away, Cornelia is purpose-built for the role of host for The Weakest Link.
She is the first-ever female host of a game show in Australia.
Born in Liverpool, England, she went on to star in several of Australia’s most successful programs. Prisoner, Cop Shop, Division 4 and Homicide, as well as movies like Outback and The Man From Snowy River II.
Like a strict headmistress, she takes no nonsense, has the capacity to challenge the contestants, think on her feet and carry the demeanor of the host from beginning to end. While most quiz show hosts work hard to make both the contestants and the audience feel comfortable and cozy, Cornelia does neither. Her aim is to keep contestants on their toes and test their mental strength.
Cornelia’s catchphrase comes when ejecting a losing contestant: ‘You are The Weakest Link. Goodbye!’
In Bible days, also, being a weak link was no great honor. In fact, the weak were the dismissed, the tossed, the vacant. Weakness invited contempt. Weakness allowed others to conquer. And in contrast, God was seen as the God who conquered, the God of strength. Listen to these quotes,
[2Sam. 22:2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
Psa. 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Prov. 18:10 The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.]
Into that situation, the Son of Man/Son of God, Y’shua enters and since the beginning has been calling the weak and underprivileged; the outcast and dismissed into His family. Today’s lesson is no different. The tax collector is welcome today. There are conditions as we will see, but remember this phrase, by the presenter in the First Century, “You are the Weakest Link, Hello.” Let’s read Luke 19
Today’s lesson features a man named Zaccheus, whom every child knows was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. But beyond this singsong reminder of his being vertically challenged, what else do we know of this man? And what do these things tell us of him and of the Saviour Jesus who meets him that day?
First we know his profession. Let’s look at the career of a tax collector in Roman context and see how Jewish people and certainly the Jewish messiah would have seen him. Or so we will expect.
Taxes were collected everywhere. Just like the GST, and the ATO today bring up images of being contemptible, so it was then. We think of the tax men as the weakest links in a free flowing economy, don’t we? Back then, the tax collectors took in Harbor-dues which were higher than ordinary tolls, and smuggling or a false declaration was punished by confiscation of the goods. Thus the publicans also levied import and export dues, bridge-toll, road-money, town-dues, etc.. If the peaceable inhabitant, the tiller of the soil, the tradesman, or manufacturer was constantly exposed to their exactions, the traveler, the caravan, or the peddler encountered their vexatious presence at every bridge, along the road, and at the entrance to cities. Not because of the fear of anthrax, but due to taxes, every bale had to be unloaded, and all its contents tumbled about and searched; even letters were opened. It must have taken more than Eastern patience to bear their insolence and to submit to their “unjust accusations” in arbitrarily fixing the return from land or income, or the value of goods. There was no use appealing against them, although the law allowed this, since the judges themselves were the direct beneficiaries by the revenue. They before whom accusations on this score would have to be laid, belonged to the order of knights, who were the very persons implicated in the farming of the revenue.
Of course, the joint-stock company of Publicani at Rome expected its handsome dividends; so did the tax-gatherers in the provinces, and those to whom they on occasions sublet the imposts. All wanted to make money of the people; and the cost of the collection had of course to be added to the taxation. We can quite understand how Zaccheus, one of the supervisors of these tax-gatherers in the district of Jericho, which, from its growth and export of balsam, must have yielded a large revenue, should, in remembering his past life, have at once said: “If I have taken anything from any man by false accusation” — or, rather, “Whatever I have wrongfully exacted of any man.”14 For nothing was more common than for the publican to put a fictitious value on property or income.
Another favorite trick of theirs was to advance the tax to those who were unable to pay, and then to charge usurious interest on what had thereby become a private debt. How summarily and harshly such debts were exacted, appears from the New Testament itself. In Matthew 18 we read of a creditor who, for the small debt of one hundred denarii (about a hundred days’ wages for a foot soldier or common laborer.) has a fellow slave tossed into debtors prison. What a shameful act. He had just been forgiven of a debt immeasurable to a common man. His debt had mounted into the capital of our day into the millions of dollars. Yet the amount he is owed is utterly trivial compared with what has already been forgiven him. This obvious comparison is intentional by the Lord. He wants to highlight and make very obvious the contradiction of the actions
In Jewish tradition, the rabbis in ancient Israel intensely disliked “the publicans.” They pronounced them as weak links to be sure. It often went to the excess of declaring them incapable of bearing testimony in a Jewish court of law, of forbidding to receive their charitable gifts, or even to change money out of their treasury (Baba K. 10.1), of ranking them not only with harlots and heathens, but with highwaymen and murderers (Ned. 3. 4), and of even declaring them excommunicate. Indeed, it was held lawful to make false returns, to speak untruth, or almost to use any means to avoid paying taxes (Ned. 27 b.; 28a). And about the time of Christ the burden of such exactions must have been felt all the heavier on account of a great financial crisis in the Roman Empire (in the year 33 of our era), which involved so many in bankruptcy, and could not have been without its indirect influence even upon distant Judah.
The second thing working against Zaccheus was his location. Isaiah describes Galilee as Galilee of the Gentiles. The rabbis commented about Upper Galilee beginning “where sycamores cease to grow.” The sycamore, which is a species of fig, must, of course, not be confounded with our sycamore, and was a very delicate evergreen, easily destroyed by cold (Psalm 78:47), and growing only in the Jordan valley, or in Lower
Galilee up to the sea-coast.
Galillee was a place of Jewish weak links.
On figs, there is an interesting commentary in verse 8. Zaccheus says if he has falsely accused anyone, he would repay. That’s good.
And he says he would repay them four times. Almost the extreme repayment required under the law in case of theft (Ex 22:1; 2Sa 12:6; cf. Pr 6:31).
But the word used of false accusation is the Greek compound word, sycophant— esukofanthsa, from
sukon, a fig, and fainw, I show or declare; for among the primitive
Athenians, when the use of that fruit was first found out, or in the time of a dearth, when all sorts of provisions were exceedingly scarce, it was enacted that no figs should be exported from Attica; and this law (not being actually repealed, when a plentiful harvest had rendered it useless, by taking away the reason of it) gave occasion to ill-natured and malicious fellows to accuse all persons they found breaking the letter of it; and from them all busy informers have ever since been branded with the name of sycophants. POTTER’S Antiq. vol. i. c. 21, end. In other words, the sycophant dobbed someone in and curried favor of the king or leader.
Here Zaccheus says in the place of the fig tree, that figging someone in (as they might have said it in our parlance) was no longer the way of life, but following Y’shua was. He admitted to being a weak link, Jesus agreed, and welcomed him.
We may well receive him joyfully, who brings all good with him. Zaccheus gave proofs publicly that he was become a true convert. He does not look to be justified by his works, as the Pharisee; but by his good works he will, through the grace of God, show the sincerity of his faith and repentance.
Of such men — despised Galileans, unlettered fishermen, excommunicated publicans — did the Lord, in His self-humiliation, choose His closest followers, His special apostles! What a contrast to the Pharisaical notions of the Messiah and His kingdom! What a lesson to show, that it was not “by might nor by power,” but by His Spirit, and that God had chosen the base things of this world, and things that were despised, to confound things that were mighty! Surely this offers a new problem, and one with a harder solution than many others, to those who would explain everything by natural causes. Whatever they may say of the superiority of Christ’s teaching to account for its success, no religion could ever have been more weighted; no popular cause could ever have presented itself under more disadvantageous circumstances than did the Gospel of Christ to the Jews of the day, and of our day. Even from this point of view, to the historical student familiar with the outer and inner life of that period, there is no other explanation of the establishment of Christ’s kingdom than the power of the Holy Spirit. He would say to you and to me… ‘you are the weakest link, Hello, and come on in.”
Invitation
So… let me ask you. Have you met Jesus, the One who welcomes weak links; the One who forgives sins and who tells us to forgive others? Do you know the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost, and that was you? Will you confess Y’shua? Will you humble yourself and be converted and become like a little child? If so, if you would like to receive Him now, pray this prayer and receive His love and grace. Father, forgive me in the name of Y’shua for all my sins. He was the Savior and the fulfillment of all prophecies about Messiah. He is the one and the only one who can save me from my selfishness, from my sin. I acknowledge Y’shua as that one who wants to free me, and who alone can free me. I repent of my sin and accept Y’shua as my deliverer. By faith I am now born again by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, please talk to me after the service is over, so we can talk about growing in this knowledge and this relationship with God.
Luke 19:1 ¶ Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
Luke 19:2 A man was there by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
Luke 19:3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.
Luke 19:4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
Luke 19:5 ¶ When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
Luke 19:6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
Luke 19:7 ¶ All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”
Luke 19:8 ¶ But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Luke 19:9 ¶ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”