In a world drunk on humanist “justice” that redefines evil, sacrifices the innocent, and crowns the state as savior, one short tax collector climbed a tree and discovered the only payment that actually works. Read or listen to this sermon to uncover why Zacchaeus’ cash couldn’t buy salvation, why humanism’s bloodlust never ends, and how Christ’s infinite restitution finally sets the oppressed—and the oppressor—free.
Proper 26
Psalm 32:1-8; Isaiah 1:10-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10
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I.
You will notice that today’s gospel reading is not a parable. In fact, we are done with parables for this year. Today’s reading recounts a real-life event, the meeting of Zacchaeus and Jesus.
Last week, we studied the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector. Today, we read about a real-life tax collector, a chief tax collector — and rich. It’s not too hard to imagine Zacchaeus was the inspiration for the justified tax collector we read about last week.
The challenge with last week’s parable, and even the parable of the persistent widow from the week before, is to avoid the easy reading of them. “Persist in prayer and God will answer.” “Beat your breast in sorrow for your misdeeds and God will forgive you.”
Zacchaeus’ fourfold restitution to all those whom he has defrauded also seems to fit this pattern, and therefore poses the same challenge. In response to Zacchaeus’ act of self-atonement, even Jesus Himself says, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
However, it is a mistake to think that salvation comes to Zacchaeus because he made restitution, or because the tax collector beat his breast in contrition, or the widow persisted in prayer. If the story of Zacchaeus and these parables are so easily misunderstood, why read them?
Because our lives are episodic and parabolic. Things happen to us and we look for meaning in the events of our lives.
Jesus’ parables and the episodes of His life not only teach us what to do, their deeper meaning reveals our spiritual condition as we do it.
II.
Like the parables, worship is also easily misunderstood. You might therefore ask why bother to go to church if it can be misunderstood?
Today’s reading from Isaiah begs that very question. “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” God asks. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats.”
To put that in terms more familiar to us, God might say: “I have had enough of your professions of faith, of your testimonies and witness; I do not delight in your praise music sets, or in your pipe organs and old meeting houses.”
But here’s the thing. It’s not that Judah and Jerusalem were getting the ritual of worship wrong. Sometimes they did. The prophets often preached against idolatry, as Jeremiah did last week, but this week, Isaiah is focused on the worship in the Jerusalem temple.
His criticism is not of their method, it is of their hearts. Verse 15 says, “even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”
The key point in our reading from Isaiah is that hypocrisy in worship proves the worshipers are insincere in their profession of faith.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus passes through Jericho. Not too far from where we sit today here in Woodbury is the city of Waterbury, Connecticut. There used to be a theme park there called “Holy Land USA” and you can still see the big cross from the park on I-84.
In Jesus’ day, Jericho was a kind of “Holy Land” as well because many of the priests who served the Jerusalem temple lived there when they were off duty. Thus, the presence of the chief tax collector in Jericho — this sinner, this covenant breaker — was particularly upsetting to these good people.
We read last week that the Pharisee praying in the temple despised the tax collector who had also come there to pray.
This is why Jesus’ invitation to dine with Zacchaeus draws their ire: “And when they saw it they all murmured, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’”
Let’s pause here to point out that in last week’s parable Jesus declares the tax collector justified and this week He is eating dinner with one of their chiefs.
This is what we call nowadays “doubling down.” Jesus is doubling down. These tax-farming extortioners are justified. The Pharisees and the priests of Jericho are not.
It is Zacchaeus who responds to quiet the murmuring crowd. He tells Jesus, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
That was a practical thing for Zacchaeus to do. His motive may have been nothing more than to quiet the crowd, to keep a riot from forming, and to conduct Jesus safely to his home.
If so, then this underscores that, like the persistent widow’s prayers, and the tax collector’s breast beating, Zacchaeus’ restitution has no merit of its own.
But there is merit in Christ’s words. In Luke 19:9, Jesus says, “And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.’”
What an insult Jesus has just hurled at those priests of Jericho, those ethnic “sons of Abraham” by blood descent, but not, apparently, by faith!
He is saying that the covenant breaker has equal standing with the covenant keeper, more in fact, because this particular covenant breaker, Zacchaeus, is now saved.
Application: If we ask how he is saved we are forced to draw the same conclusion Paul does in Romans 4:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
The key to understanding how Zacchaeus is saved is Jesus’ reference to Abraham. Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham by birth, as a blood descendant, but then so is everyone in the murmuring crowd. Therefore, we must apply the gospel’s logic to understand how “salvation has come to this house.”
A false gospel will tell you that Zacchaeus’ eagerness to climb the tree to see Jesus saved him. A false gospel will tell you Zacchaeus saved himself by making fourfold restitution. He covered his sins by covering his debts.
But Jesus says otherwise. He is saved because he is a son of Abraham. Like Abraham, Zacchaeus’ faith is accounted to him as righteousness. His eagerness, his tree-climbing, his fourfold restitution all bear witness to his faith, but they do not save him.
This brings me back to my point about worship and going to church. Only when we understand that worship, church attendance, and even church membership count for nothing in themselves, only when we understand that they should bear witness to our faith, only then is our worship worthy of God. Only then do we grasp the point of coming to church or even have reason to join one.
III.
God commands us in Exodus 20:8, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Since this commandment comes from God, it requires our obedience as His creatures. The people of Jerusalem understood this and obeyed. They kept this commandment.
Yet God says in Isaiah 1:13, “Bring no more vain offerings… sabbath and the calling of assemblies… my soul hates; they have become a burden to me.” Why?
Because there is no merit in just obeying the law. This is what Jesus means in Luke 17:10, “So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
In other words, of course you’re supposed to attend Sunday services, make a profession of faith, be baptized, and join a local congregation. Yet, when you’ve done all that, still you must say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”
The merit is in our faith, our hope, our love for God, not because these are worth more than works, but because this is how God chooses to count things. Our faith, hope and love for God express themselves in good works, specifically the good work of obeying His commandments.
This is very different from saying we are saved by obedience. It is not the sacrifices of the temple. It is not the restitution that Zacchaeus makes. It is the faith, hope, and love for God that those sacrifices and restitution signify and make real.
Obeying the law of God bears witness to our faith in God and makes that faith tangible. It allows our religion to descend from lofty spiritual heights, our belief to escape from mental abstractions, to put real money in the hands of a real widow and bring an orphan under a stepfather’s care.
That’s why the test of our faith is whether or not our obedience is total. Israel and Judah gave God only partial obedience, which revealed their compromised faith. It was a faith compromised by dual loyalties.
It was not for neglecting to offer sacrifices that God rebuked his people in Isaiah’s preaching. God hated their liturgically correct worship because their hands were “full of blood.”
There is no justice in the streets of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah. Criminals oppress law-abiding citizens, and orphans and widows are abused and neglected.
The solution was not a partial one. Jerusalem did not need to call more “solemn assemblies” (Isaiah 1:13) or celebrate the new moon, sabbath, and “appointed feasts” (v. 14). Jerusalem needed to “cease to do evil,” and “learn to do good” (vv. 16-17).
It is very easy for the church to turn her worship into a shadow of what it is supposed to be, and when her faith is only half-hearted, that’s exactly what her religion will become: a shadow, a type of what it should be, but isn’t.
Our worship is supposed to be a symbol of a faith so total that we obey God in all aspects of our lives: as individuals, as families, as nations, and as the church.
But only God is capable of a faith so total that it is worthy of Him. Only God is capable of an obedience so total that it would be acceptable to Him.
IV.
In this way, Zacchaeus’ fourfold restitution is merely a shadow of the total restitution that God requires and intends to accomplish for His people.
Whether Zacchaeus understood his gesture this way or not we don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It’s about to happen anyway. “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Salvation has come to Zacchaeus because Jesus has come to Zacchaeus. There is no other reason. Even though Zacchaeus was a sinner, even sin could not break the connection between Christ and His creation. Zacchaeus was never really lost. Jesus always knew exactly where to find him, and, on that day in Jericho, He did.
Some of you can tell me the day and the hour Jesus found you. For others, He was always with you. You’ve never known a day without Him.
Jesus stopped in Jericho, but He was on His way to Jerusalem to fulfill what was lacking in Zacchaeus’ restitution. There, He also made restitution for you, too. That means you can stop trying to atone for yourself. If this is new to you then you are in the right place. “Today salvation has come to this house” — means it has come to your house.
Jesus offered Himself in obedience to His Father’s will. He offered Himself in faith that God would not allow His Holy One to see corruption.
Jesus the Son made restitution for the sins of the whole world to God the Father. Zacchaeus made restitution to the men he defrauded. If he could not find them, he substituted the poor and gave them half.
The poor took the place of those Zacchaeus defrauded, just as Christ took the place of all us who steal, through our disobedience, from God.
While Zacchaeus could not find everyone he stole from, fortunately, Jesus has never lost track of even a single hair on our head. He knows exactly where to find lost thieves. He died between two.
V.
I will end by drawing out the implications of Zacchaeus’ fourfold restitution.
The first implication is that it is appropriate to go “above and beyond” what is required when dealing with our fellow man. Attempting to go above and beyond when dealing with God is impossible and masks hypocrisy.
Zacchaeus isn’t simply paying back what was stolen. He’s not even returning what was defrauded with interest. Zacchaeus makes a fourfold restitution. If he extorted $100 from someone, that meant he gave back $400.
This is significant in light of Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees. The Law of Moses only required the principal be returned, plus one-fifth as restitution.
Numbers 5:7 says, “he shall confess his sin which he has committed; and he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it, and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.”
Jesus faulted the Pharisees for going above and beyond the law. Last week, we read that the Pharisee boasted in his prayer “I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.” Here, Zacchaeus is doing the same thing, going above and beyond.
The significance is this. It ties Zacchaeus’ story to the reading from Isaiah. God says in Isaiah 1:13, “Bring no more vain offerings.” When the Pharisee goes above and beyond, it is his vain attempt to restore his relationship with God, to “get right with God.”
When Zacchaeus goes above and beyond, it is to restore his relationship with his fellow man. There is nothing Zacchaeus can do to get right with God. A fourfold restitution is not enough to get right with God. Only the blood of Christ shed for Zacchaeus’ sake on the cross will be sufficient restitution. This is why Jesus must be the one to say, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
The second implication is that getting right with your fellow man is proof that your worship of God is sincere. Again, from Isaiah, “...cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Now, there is a humanistic way to do all that and then there is the biblical way.
The humanist ceases to do evil by redefining it. Good is no longer what the Bible says it is, but what sinful men chose to indulge in.
Exodus 32:6 describes this humanistic redefinition of good and its genesis in false, idolatrous worship. While Moses is on Mt. Sinai receiving the law from God, the people become a law unto themselves: “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” (The word play is used here as a euphemism for sexual perversion.)
The humanist seeks justice by redefining oppression to mean wrong done to men, or to groups of men: blacks, indigenous people, women, sexual minorities, rather than what the Bible says oppression is: the end result of breaking God’s law.
Humanist justice requires a kind of human sacrifice. Men are sacrificed to atone for the wrongs done to women. Whites must be sacrificed to blacks, Christians to non-Christians, heterosexuals to homosexuals, boys and girls to nonbinaries and furries.
Humanistic justice can never be satisfied. It is bloodthirsty. It is the mob. There is no “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world,” in any humanistic system of justice.
By contrast, in a few moments, during our Communion Service, we will commemorate the “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world” that Jesus made for us on the cross.
The humanist defends the fatherless and pleads for the widow by usurping flesh and blood fathers and husbands, elevating the state to the role of the father and husband.
Just the other day I was texting with our representative, Karen Reddington-Hughes, and she called out the failure of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF). In response to that failure, she lamented that Connecticut’s families, particularly those families that chose to homeschool, are, once again, being targeted.
Here we have a real-life example of the state usurping the roles of fathers, husbands, and families, and, at the same time failing (to no one’s surprise) to fulfill those roles. Then, they use their failure to justify a renewed assault on these same fathers, husbands, and families.
This brings me to the third, and final, implication of Zacchaeus’ fourfold restitution: it is up to covenant-keeping men and women to “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
When we expect the state to do these things for us, we assign a messianic role to the government. The Name of Jesus may be on our lips, but we act as though salvation comes from Caesar. Too many Christians thing and behave this way. We are, for all intents and purposes, idolaters.
Zacchaeus makes voluntary restitution, above and beyond what the law requires. Voluntary comes from the Latin voluntas, which means will, desire, or choice. If we value self-government, we will defend the voluntary nature of justice. It is up to us to put things right.
This does not mean we take the law into our own hands. Zacchaeus is not a vigilante, but vigilance is required. Kings are only too happy to be called divine, legislatures only too eager to exceed their authority and their competence.
Preached on November 2, 2025, at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut (https://www.firstchurchwoodbury.org).
