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8th November 2025
SaturdayReflection
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Meda Stamper
is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA)
"The Son of Man came to
seek and to save the lost"
Commentary on Luke 19:1-10
Here we find another story of a tax collector
and a sinner and of God's intention to seek and to save the lost.
Jesus is entering Jericho and will reach Jerusalem by the end of this chapter.
As he is passing through, we are introduced to Zacchaeus.
He is a chief tax collector, and he is rich.
Tax collectors, loathed as they were, are among the marginalized ones who cleave to Jesus in Luke.
They are among the lost whom he comes to seek and save.
The rich, by contrast, are viewed with suspicion in this Gospel, as in all of them, because wealth is a problem and a danger.
So the story, although it is familiar to us, actually begins on a note of ambiguity.
Will this be another tax collector who leaves everything and follows, or will this be another rich man saddened by the claims that the kingdom makes on him and his wealth?
The next two verses make clear that this is probably the former because this rich man is trying to see Jesus.
The word translated 'try' is elsewhere, including verse 10 in this passage, translated 'seek' or 'search' or 'strive', and people who seek the right things in Luke tend to find them.
In fact, as we hear in verse 10, people who seek Jesus tend to find that it was actually Jesus who was seeking them all along.
The good news about Zacchaeus might also be presaged by the use of the term 'short' or 'little'.
On the one hand, this is simply a short person, and that is how he ends up in a sycamore tree.
But this term, in the superlative, is translated 'least', as in 9:48, "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the 'least' among all of you is the greatest."
And so there may be a sense in which Zacchaeus by climbing that tree in the manner of a child and embracing his littleness, so to speak, becomes one of the least of these.
It is precisely because he humbles himself in this way that he is in a position to welcome Jesus just two verses later.
Jesus finds Zacchaeus in his tree and invites himself home with him, and Zacchaeus welcomes him rejoicing.
Zacchaeus resolves the issue of his wealth introduced in verse 2 by saying that he is giving half of his possessions to the poor and paying back those he has defrauded four times what he has taken.
The use of the Greek present tense in Zacchaeus' statements means that this commitment is ongoing, not something he will do only once, and it may mean that he has already been doing these things.
The importance of wealth and poverty in Luke is evident from early in the Gospel when, in her Magnificat, Mary speaks of the Lord sending the rich away empty and filling the poor with good things.
The poor (not 'in spirit' as in Matthew) are blessed in Luke's beatitudes for theirs is the kingdom of God.
The foolish rich man who builds bigger barns to contain his wealth dies with nothing to show for it, and his story is followed by the image of the ravens and the lilies and the instruction from Jesus (12:33-34): "Sell your possessions, and give alms. . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The story of Zacchaeus resonates, not only through the references to Zacchaeus' wealth and his intention toward the poor, but also because of the particular way in which Jesus responds.
First, he proclaims that salvation has come to that house, and we understand that the salvation is in the very person of Jesus, who has come to seek out and save the lost.
But he adds: ". . . because he too is a son of Abraham."
In other words, there is plenty of hope for the rich of the world as soon as they notice the Lazarus at the gate and do something serious about that.
Even the most marginalized and despised of the rich, the tax collectors, have a place in the bosom of Abraham, in the community of the blessed, when they seek the right treasure.
Zacchaeus' rejoicing expands into the rejoicing of the whole multitude of the disciples in 19:37 as they welcome their king who comes in the name of the Lord.
So Zacchaeus, climbing a tree to catch a glimpse of the king, but the difference is that when Jesus finds him and us, he doesn't then offer a welcoming, regal wave and retreat to a palace.
As Jesus puts it, salvation comes to Zacchaeus' house.
Jesus follows us home.
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This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
'Meda Stamper '
is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) with a Ph.D. in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary.
She has served in congregational ministry in the United Reformed Church in England
and has developed one-woman performances of John, Mark, Philippians, Jonah, and the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke.
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