By Douglas Inglish
When Jesus came to eat at the home of Zacchaeus, it changed the life of a cheater. The presence of the Holy Spirit in his heart meant that there was no more room for self-dealing, dishonesty, or graft. Jesus coming to his house turned him into a new man, and he showed evidence of this change by dealing severely with his old self. He boldly declared that he intended to return to those he had robbed four times what he had wrongly taken.
That’s pretty impressive. He didn’t need a judge to order restitution plus penalties. He imposed the sentence on himself, and the penalties were higher than most courts would have considered. He was unquestionably changed. As he makes his declaration, you can hear the joy that wells up in his heart as he is relieved of his burden of debt.
But as you know, that’s only part of the promise Zacchaeus made concerning his wealth. In fact, I believe it is actually the less important part of his promise. Read his story again at the beginning of Luke 19 and notice the order of his pledge. Before he addressed his debt to his fellow man, he promised to make things right with God. Half of every- thing he owned was pledged to the poor even before he began to make restitution. The joy of having Jesus in his home was expressed in the joy of his gift to the mission.
Did he need to do that in order to be right with God? People of differing opinions can argue that one all day, but the opinion that carried the day came from Zacchaeus. Clearly he believed it was important to set things right in his own heart. He had a lot of baggage to shed, which he began by unloading half of his wealth and putting it where it could do some good. When you figure in the restitution, he may have had nothing left, but as Jesus confirmed, he had all that mattered: salvation.
I won’t argue whether it was necessary for him to make such a large offering, but I will argue for this point: Zacchaeus understood that his responsibility was not just to those he had cheated. He had a responsibility to those from whom he had taken nothing, and he placed them before the people he cheated.
I don’t believe I have cheated anyone, and I presume you don’t believe you have either. But even if I had, it would be a lower priority for me to make things right with that person than to keep things right with God. To do that, I must engage in the mission. An important element of being part of the mission is to share my wealth with the poor.
When we return tithe and make sacrificial offerings, it benefits those who are poor in this world’s goods, and those who are poor in spirit because Jesus has not come to their hearts. It’s our mission. When Zacchaeus joined in the mission his immediate response was to give sacrificially. It brought joy to him, and joy to his esteemed Guest.
That joy is ours when we engage in the mission through our gifts.
–Douglas L. Inglish is RMC stewardship director.