Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”  So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.  But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”

Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”

And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:1-10

Think of the worst type of sinner there is. Who would be the highest on your list? In Jesus day the hands down winner would be the tax collectors. They were thought to be the most evil people on the planet.

When the Romans conquered a nation, they brought with them brutality and paganism. Yet, the most devastating burden they placed upon their defeated foes was high taxes. It has been estimated that the total tax burden on the common man in Palestine during Jesus’ day was about 30%.

We might think that is not too bad. Some of us probably pay a higher percentage than that. However, we must remember we in the West live in a society two steps removed from the simple agrarian society of the first century. The next step up economically from an agrarian society is an industrial society, and the next step up after that is an computer based or information based society. When a nation takes a step up, there is an enormous creation of wealth. For example, in the 20th century the United States went from an agrarian to an industrial to a computer based economy in about 100 years. In that period of time the US created more wealth than all the civilizations combined before the 20th century.

Therefore, “getting by” would have a completely different definition to us than it would the folks in the first century. Our “getting by” would be living like a king to them. If you take a first century common man who really is just providing the bare essentials for his family and you add a 30% tax burden, you have a recipe for disaster. People were having to sell their land or even themselves into slavery to pay their taxes. 

The Romans did not collect their own taxes. They let the locals do it for them. Collecting taxes for Rome was so lucrative that folks would pay the Romans for the right to be a tax collector. Therefore, the tax collectors in Jesus’ day were considered traitors to their own people. They were making enormous profits off the misery of the common man. Not only did the tax collectors cheat the people, they often used extreme measures to force payment. If a man did not pay, they would sometimes torture him in front of his family until he made payment. If that did not work, they would even torture a man’s family in front of him until he paid. If that did not work, the fellow could be sold into slavery or sent to debtor’s prison. 

Most people who walked by Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, would see only a worthless human being—someone whom God hates. Yet, what did Jesus see when He looked up in that tree? He saw someone whom God loved. He saw a Son of Abraham, and he treated Zacchaeus as such.

What would have happened that day if Jesus saw what everyone else saw when looking at Zacchaeus? If He saw a worthless human being, that is all Zacchaeus would ever be.

God calls us to see differently than the world. We are to see worth in those whom the world calls worthless. We are to love those whom the world calls unlovable. We can do this because our Savior died and rose to give His own worth to every human being. He raised the worth of even the worst sinner to the heavens. May we see the Zacchaeuses God brings into our lives through the grace of Calvary.