Posts Tagged ‘translation’

Whose ministry – Mary’s or Martha’s

July 19, 2025

Pentecost 6 – 2024

Luke 10:36-42

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to different roles and responsibilities and who encourages us to use our different gifts and abilities in the sharing of the gospel. Amen.

I am sure that I don’t need to tell you that Peter, James and John were part of Jesus’ inner circle. They were witnesses to his transfiguration and were close to him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ.  It may surprise you to know that these three are largely absent from the Gospel of John. In that Gospel, the significant players – those with a speaking part – are Andrew, Phillip and Thomas. This leads to the conclusion that peter, James and John played a significant role in the communities behind the Synoptic Gospels but not in the community from which the Gospel of John emerged.

The different characters suggest that in the emerging communities behind the Synoptic gospels Peter, James and John were people of some significance but that in the Johannine community others – specifically Andrew, Phillip and Thomas – were leaders for it is these three who have speaking roles in the fourth gospel.  

In a similar way, if women are given a significant role in a gospel it suggests that they also had an important role in the emerging church.  In a society in which women were relegated to the margins, the fact that they are mentioned at all is significant. This is most clearly demonstrated in John’s gospel, in which nearly half a chapter is devoted to the role played by Mary Magdalene as a witness to the resurrection. What is more Mary is given the responsibility of telling the disciples that Jesus is risen which making her the Apostle to the Apostles. 

It seems that at the time the gospels were written the memory of those who played foundational roles in the early communities is still fresh. Even though the church is settling down and conforming more to the world around it, women who played important roles in the early communities cannot easily be written out of the story.

This is particularly evident when it comes to the sisters Martha and Mary who are mentioned twice in the gospels – here in the gospel of Luke, and in connection with the raising of Lazarus in John’s gospel. In both accounts the women are depicted as women who make up their own minds and in John it is Martha not Peter, who identifies Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. 

Unfortunately, thanks in part to our translators, in Luke, the roles of Martha and Mary are domesticated and circumscribed. It is easy to read the account of Jesus’ visit as a silencing of both women – Mary who passively sits and listens and Martha who is described as distracted. The translation and the subsequent stereotyping of the two women creates a binary between action and contemplation that continues to this day and suggests that the role of women is either passive listening or busy organising.

The account of Jesus’ visit to the home of the sisters takes up only seven verses, so there is much that we do not know. We do not know for example how old the women were, what their financial status was or why there is no male in their household. Nor do we know if Jesus turned up alone or (more than likely) in the company of the twelve, whether he dropped in for a meal or planned to stay for a day or two. What we do know is that the culture of the time placed a high value on hospitality – think for example of the man who wakes his neighbour in the middle of the night so that he can have some bread for an unexpected guest.

Clearly, in the absence of a brother or husband, Martha is the householder. It is her responsibility to ensure that Jesus and those with him are made welcome and fed. As the householder, she naturally expects Mary to help.

Our translation leads us to believe that Jesus chides Martha for her preoccupation with getting ready when in fact Jesus may be offering her sympathy in recognition of the demands of her ministry. Margaret Wesley translates verses 40 and 41as: “But Martha was overwhelmed by many ministry responsibilities, so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the ministry by myself? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are going to so much trouble and you have so many responsibilities to worry about!” 

But does Jesus chastise Martha for wanting to determine Marry’s choice – yes perhaps. Note that the Greek tells us that Mary is commended for choosing the good (not the better) portion, that of a student. Martha’s fault, if she has one, is that of not recognising that it is not her role to determine Mary’s path. God’s call on Mary is not for Martha to determine. Both women are called to and assume ministry roles – one of deacon, one of student – neither is better than the other, both are necessary. 

Before we consign Martha to the role of easily distracted, shallow woman and elevate a silenced Mary to the ideal model of womanhood, we need to unpack Luke’s purpose in telling the story, the blinkers worn by translators, and the preconceptions we bring to the tale from the ways in which we have heard the story in the past.

Before we apply stereotypes to anyone in our society, before we assume that know their interests and their capabilities, before we limit and define their roles and their contribution, we need to be sure that we know the full story, we need to understand the lens through which we see and the assumptions that we bring to bear.

We are all called to serve in a multitude of different ways. The one who calls and equips is never one of us, but always God.

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Persistence or trust?

October 15, 2022

Pentecost 19 – 2022
Luke 18:1-14
Marian Free

In the name of God Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver. Amen.

Allow me to read the first parable again.

And he said a parable to them. Concerning their necessity always to pray and not to become discouraged, saying,
“Some judge was in some city; God was he not fearing, and people was he not respecting. And a widow was in that city. And she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Avenge/grant me justice against my adversary.’
“And not did he wish at that time. But after these things he said to himself, ‘if even God I do not fear no people do I respect, yet on account of the trouble this widow causes, I will avenge her, so that not into the end, coming, she will give me a black eye.’”
And said the Lord, “Hear what the unjust judge says. And will not God make vengeance to his elect, those who cry to him day and night, and will he be patient upon them? I say to you that he will avenge them swiftly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, then will he find faith upon the earth?

Now I imagine that translation might have taken you aback. It is awkward because it is a literal translation, and it is confronting because it forces us to see the parable in a different light. It is however a more translation and as such helps to give us a clearer sense of the parable’s meaning.

Collectively, we have a tendency to be complacent, if not lazy, when it comes to matters of faith. For example, when it comes to the bible, if or when we read it, we presume to know and understand it. Very often, we see what we expect to see rather than approaching the text afresh and asking questions and exploring it more deeply to see what else it might reveal. Familiarity does not so much breed contempt as it encourages complacency. It is easy to assume that what we have been told – at Sunday School or in a sermon – remains true for all time. This is especially true of the parables. We know the parables so well, they. Have been explained to us so often, that we can sum them up in a single phrase. The prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the barn builder and the persistent widow all bring up images not only of the parable, but of the meaning of the parable.

It is comforting and reassuring to have at our disposal stories that encapsulate what it is to be a neighbour, that illustrate how much God loves us or show the foolishness of storing up one’s wealth. Every now and again though it doesn’t hurt to be challenged, to have our traditional interpretations thrown into question or to see a saying or a parable in a new light because nothing is set in stone no one alive today was present to hear Jesus teach and even our gospel writers are the second or third generation of followers.

Before our gospels were written in their current form, Jesus’ teachings were conveyed orally. Over time different leaders will have given them different emphases depending on the needs of their audiences. When the gospel writers finally gathered Jesus’ sayings into a form of biography, they made decisions about the order in which they would present Jesus’ teaching and life. In the process they also included their own editorial comments – creating a narrative and sometimes interpreting Jesus’ words for the readers. The story didn’t end there. During the course of history, the bible was translated – first into Latin and then into the common language of the people. Translation led to another layer of interpretation. No matter how dispassionate they tried to be, each translator came to the scripture with a pre-existing bias which imposed itself on the text.

Few of us are aware of such biases and of what we bring to the text.

The literal translation of today’s parable of the widow and the judge is a good illustration of the problem. Even though the word εδικεω (edikeo) means to avenge, our translators have chosen (for whatever reason) to translate it as justice. Vengeance is a strong and uncomfortable word, and it certainly doesn’t fit with our received learning that the widow has no agency, that she needs someone to take her side. Yet there is no suggestion in the parable that our widow is powerless OR that she is meek and vulnerable. Indeed, she is arguing her case before the judge, without anyone to support her. She wants revenge and she will get it by wearing the judge down. When the judge finally gives in, it is less because of the widow’s persistence and more because he is afraid that she will resort to violence if he doesn’t give her what she wants.

This is a much more likely scenario than the one we usually associate with this parable. Jesus’ parables are intended to shock us, to challenge our conventional way of thinking. If we domesticate them (have the widow seek justice not mercy) we take away their sting – the point that Jesus is making to force us to re-think the way we see the world. Luke’s addition to the parable does just that. The parable proper is the story of the widow and the judge (verses 2 through 5). By adding an introduction and conclusion, Luke uses Jesus’ parable for a specific different purpose. Luke’s introduction and conclusion – Jesus told them a parable about the need to: “pray always and do not lose heart” and concludes that God will give justice to those who: “cry to him day and night” suggest that he uses it to encourage Jesus’ followers to pray – even when the circumstances seem to mitigate against prayer. (Luke’s additions and the translators’ preference for justice rather than vengeance contribute to a picture of a widow who is vulnerable and praiseworthy.)

But, as Amy-Jill Levine points out – in this parable neither the judge, nor the widow are ‘moral exemplars’. The widow seeks vengeance and will not stop until she is satisfied, and the judge allows himself to be corrupted or at least compromised – by giving in to the widow, even though he presumably did not think she had just cause.

The point is precisely that God is not like the judge, and we are not to be like the widow. God does not need to be worn down by our consistent pressing and cannot be forced into acting against God’s nature. We are not to be like the widow – taking things into our own hands, battering God into submission, or trying to bend God to our will. God can be trusted and God will grant justice to God’s elect. Our task is not to persist, but to trust, to believe that it is in God’s nature to bring about justice and that God will hear the cries of the broken-hearted and oppressed.

“Vengeance is mine” says the Lord in Deuteronomy (32:35)
If there is vengeance to be taken, God will take it. So we can leave it to God.

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Get over yourselves – be as a mustard seed

October 1, 2022

Pentecost 17 – 2022
Luke 17:5-10
Marian Free

In the name of God – Source of all being, Word of Life, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Apparently the Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard said that “we need to forget all Christian language for 100 years”. It is a radical statement, but one that deserves to be taken seriously. There are so many “givens” that we now take for granted – especially when it comes to our biblical texts – that we are in danger of losing the original meaning of a text or of reading into a text what we expect to be there, rather than being open to what is actually there. Starting with a clean slate (abandoning inherited interpretations) would provide an opportunity to see our faith and our texts with fresh eyes and to glean a new – more accurate – understanding.

Today’s gospel provides one such example of the way in which we have read things into the text or used a text for our own purposes. This is because a) we approach the text from a particular viewpoint and b) because the literal translation of the Greek doesn’t immediately make sense.

The gospel this evening consists of two apparently unrelated texts – a demand for faith on the part of the disciples followed by Jesus’ example of the relationship between slaves and masters. Examining these texts anew and without the baggage of our existing understanding shows them to be closely related and makes it clear that they are less about the amount of faith one has and more about a life of faith as servants of God.

A traditional interpretation of our text is that if only we had enough faith, we could do astonishing – if extremely odd – feats. Doing the extraordinary – uprooting and re-planting mulberry trees, healing the sick or turning water into wine – has become, at least for some, a benchmark of the degree of faith that one has. Behind this is an assumption that faith is somehow quantifiable, something that we can measure, a benchmark that we should aim to reach. The implication is that it is possible to have too little faith, or that faith and the performing of miracles are intimately related.

Three things argue against this interpretation.

First is the context. The disciples’ demand to have their faith added to follows Jesus’ instruction to forgive. (Forgiveness might be miraculous, but it has nothing to do with the moving of mulberry trees.)

A second argument against the idea that Jesus’ saying has to do with the amount of faith one has is revealed by an examination of Greek text. When we do that, we discover that the translators have done what they often do – they have added words. This is because it seems to them that the original text needs additional words in order to make sense. The presumption seems to be – if the disciples have asked Jesus to add to their faith, Jesus response must be related to the size of their faith – which is what the NRSV English translation suggests. “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” The Greek however says nothing about the size of a mustard seed. A literal translation of the sentence is: “If you had faith as a mustard seed.” Our translators have replaced “as” with “the size of” probably because the idea of a mustard seed having faith presents its own difficulties!

Finally, the fact that the author of the gospel has paired Jesus’ saying about the mustard with the example of the master and slave, suggests that his intention was that we read the two sayings together. Jesus’ example is image from everyday life with which Luke’s readers would have been familiar. In the highly structured culture of the first century, each person fulfilled their assigned role with no expectation that they would be singled out for praise simply for doing what they were meant to do. This interpretation is further strengthened when our attention is drawn to another translation issue.

The final line of Jesus’ example is translated as: “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” Behind this assumption is the view that slaves would be self-deprecating, or worse that the early Christians (whom we assume to be the slaves) think of themselves as having little value in God’s (the master’s) eyes. We see Jesus’ example quite differently when it is pointed out that the word translated as “worthless” is actually the negative of the word “need”. The sentence could just as easily read: “we are slaves without need.” In other words, the slaves do not need to be thanked for carrying out their role because fulfilling their role is sufficient reward.

In the light of these three points – context, translation, and pairing – it becomes clear that Jesus is not childing the disciples for their lack of faith, rather he is chastising
them for imagining that faith is a commodity – something that can be owned, measured and used. A mustard seed has no choice except to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. A slave has little choice but to do what their master requires. Jesus seems to be encouraging the disciples to be satisfied with fulfilling the purpose for which they were created and with living out their God-given vocation.

He might just as well be saying: “Get over yourselves! Faith is not something to possess but a state of being – in relationship with God and in relationship with others. Be happy with who you are. Live out your vocation faithfully. Trust God to work in and through you and get on with living.”

Jesus says: “Have faith as a mustard seed.” “Be content with the person that you were created to be.”
Our response might be: “We are slaves without need.” “We will live our lives faithfully, allowing ourselves to be used for God’s purpose rather than striving to be what we are not.”

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Not about gender but wholeness

July 16, 2022

Pentecost 6 – 2022
Luke 10:38-42
Marian Free

In the name of God in whom is perfect freedom. Amen.

The work of a translator is not easy. If, for example, a translator came across the word ‘read’ in an English text, they would have to determine from the context whether it was in the past or the present tense. Someone new to English would find it hard to understand why ‘good, better, best’ were not formed in the same way as other comparative adjectives ‘good, gooder, goodest.’

For obvious reasons, Inuit has something like twenty words for ‘snow’. How is it possible to accurately capture the correct nuance of ‘snow’ when translating it into another language?

In the case of modern languages, the work of translation can be assisted by speakers of that language. For example, an Inuit can tell a translator if they have captured the meaning of ‘snow’. The work of translating ancient languages, languages that have not been spoken for thousands of years, is much more difficult and relies to some extent on guess work. Translating biblical texts is even more complex because it is difficult for the translator to approach the text with unbiased eyes. Previous centuries of use and interpretation of the bible mean that it is almost impossible for a translator not to bring preconceptions to the text.

Today’s short story about the dinner at Martha’s home (in which Jesus apparently chides Martha for being busy in the preparation of food and praises Mary for sitting at his feet) is one such example . For much of its history this tale has been interpreted to imply that there is some sort of hierarchy of ministries – that the ministry of serving does not carry the same weight as that of being attentive to the word and that women’s work does not carry the same weight as that of men (Mary has chosen the better part). It didn’t matter what the work was. Being in the kitchen was (in a patriarchal world view) nowhere near as significant as that of being in the board room. (No matter that until the 1950’s in Australia that women were excluded from these supposedly more important forms of service!)

A number of factors come into play when we try to understand what is happening in this account – among these are the translation of the Greek into English, the cultural context of the story and Luke’s purpose in telling it. To begin with the last. Luke, as you may or may not know, is also the author of Book of Acts in which he is concerned with the origins of the church. Niveen Sarras points to Acts 6 as another instance in which there is a discussion about the various roles of ministry in the church. In Acts the gentiles complain that their widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The apostles decide that they cannot afford to give up their ministry of teaching and ask the gentiles to choose seven men to wait at tables – to serve food, the very thing that Martha is doing . This will free the apostles to teach. Martha’s ministry of service ideally frees Mary to respond to Jesus’ teaching. There is no hierarchy in ministry – service, teaching, prayer are all of equal value and being committed to one ministry does not prevent someone from exercising another. That Luke is using the story of the two women to illustrate ministry in the church is further supported by the strange positioning of Martha’s story – between the parable of the Samaritan and his selfless service and the disciples’ question about prayer.

Hospitality is both a biblical and a cultural imperative. Sarras, a Palestinian Christian, gives us an insight into what this might mean. She writes that in present day Palestine, hospitality is not only a cultural expectation, it is “an invitation to the stranger to be a part of the family circle”. Now, as in the first century, it is a matter of “breaking barriers and providing protection to guests no matter the personal cost.” In such cultures the expectation is that the women in the family will do all of the cooking and the preparation, and it would be unusual for the women to join the male guests until all the preparation is in hand. “Failing to be a good hostess means disrespecting the guest.”

Martha’s concern to look after her guest/s is then perfectly appropriate.

Lastly a look at the Greek is informative. The words used by Jesus to describe Martha’s worry and distraction are violent and destructive – meaning having by the throat and the dragging apart of something that should be whole. Jesus is not criticizing Martha he is seeing Martha. He can see that behind her resentment and anger is a fractured person – “you are anxious and distracted by many things; one is necessary”. Jesus wants Martha to be whole (one) not torn apart (many). Jesus points to Mary, not because sitting at Jesus’ feet is better than preparing food, but because she is not divided, bitter and unhappy. Mary has chosen the good (not the better) portion.

It is important to understand that this story is not gendered. It is not intended to imply that women’s work, represented by Martha, is of little value, and that ‘men’s work represented by Mary is what matters when it comes to discipleship. Nothing could be further from the truth. By inserting this account of the two women, between the story of the Samaritan and the teaching on prayer, Luke appears to be making it clear that women, as well as men have a ministry in the church and that women, no less than men, can be used to illustrate the ideal. Ministry of any kind is only truly effective when it is offered from a place of wholeness and self-assurance, rather than from a position of brokenness and insecurity.

May that which is broken in us be made whole that we might freely and wholeheartedly serve God and serve our neighbour.

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Joining the battle against evil (some thoughts)

September 10, 2021

Pentecost 16 – 2021
Mark 8:27-38
Marian Free

In the name of God who demands our complete commitment. Amen.

During the week I did some research for a short piece on William Tyndale. Tyndale lived in England in the 15-16th centuries in a time of great political and intellectual foment that was the Reformation. Few educated people could be unaware of the ideas that were coming out of Europe at that time -ideas that were considered seditious and dangerous because they threatened the authority of both church and state. At the same time scholars like Erasmus who had escaped the Ottoman invasion of Constantinople had brought with them to Europe and England copies of the Greek Bible. This made it possible to read the New Testament in its original language rather than in the Latin translation.

Educated at Oxford and Cambridge, Tyndale was by all accounts a person of great intellect. He was fluent in 8 languages including Greek and Hebrew. He became obsessed with translating the Bible into English from its original Greek and with making it available to the greatest as to the least so that everyone could read the Bible for themselves. When he read the Greek, Tyndale noticed that a number of errors had been made in the Latin translation – a translation that supported the theology of the the church and which served to keep the people in a state of fear for their immortal souls.

Tyndale’s enthusiasm for understanding the scriptures was to cost him his life, but every English translation since has relied heavily on his work. (In the King James’ Bible for example, more than 80% relies on Tyndale’s translation.

Translation is important. Only a small proportion of Christians are fluent in New Testament Greek and those who are not are entirely reliant on their work. The problem is that no matter how dispassionate the translator, translation always involves a certain amount of interpretation as the scholar tries to discern the intent of an author who is removed temporally, geographically, and culturally from their own time and place in history. Often there is no English word or phrase to exactly match the original and sometimes an interpretative decision has to be made by the translator. The situation is made worse by the fact that the original Greek was written in capital letters and without punctuation. This leaves it to the translator to decide where sentences begin and end and where commas, question marks and so on were intended.

Evidence of the difficulties faced by translators (and therefore by ourselves the readers) can be illustrated by today’s gospel. A reading of the Greek would suggest that this is the “Gospel’s most verbally abusive passage”. C. Clifton Black points out that three times Jesus or Peter tells the other to “shut up”. Unfortunately, perhaps to avoid offending our sensibilities, or to gloss over the obvious conflict, our translators have softened the language. Instead of “shut up”, the translators have used language like “sternly ordered”, and “rebuked”. Even then the force of the language is not entirely hidden. A reading of the gospel as a whole reveals that “rebuked” is the verb that is used to silence demons and to quell the gale. It is a word that is brought to bear when Jesus wants to assert his authority over the powers that oppose him.

What we have here then, is not a simple disagreement between Jesus and Peter. Nor is it merely a case of Peter’s misunderstanding. It is a battle between the forces of good and evil – Peter, as Jesus’ response indicates, representing Satan. Jesus, in this moment has to firmly and finally put down all opposition to his mission. He has to completely defy any attempts to make him (and his ministry) conform to any earthly expectations. He has to ensure that his disciples understand that to stand in his way, or to stand against him, is to do the work of Satan.

Both Jesus and Peter use confronting language for a confronting situation. For the first time, Peter is being forced to come to grips with who and what Jesus really is and what it means to follow him. Peter is being faced with the fact that Jesus’ mission will not end in triumph, but in apparent failure. It is not surprising that he reacts so strongly – Jesus’ negative thoughts must be dispelled! On the other hand, Jesus, who has already stood against the devil in the wilderness, knows his own strength and will not let even his closest friend dissuade him from his purpose.

Even in our translated versions of the gospel, this is a difficult passage. We do not expect such strong language from Jesus but perhaps now, more than ever, we need to hear Jesus’ rebuke of Peter. Society may be changing, but by and large the church still has a comfortable place within it. The cross has lost much of its offense. For many, following Jesus is as much about living “good lives” as it is about risking everything to confront the forces of evil that exist in the world – corruption, greed, selfishness etc. We are relatively content to go about our lives without facing the injustices that condemn others to poverty and despair. Today’s gospel challenges us to rethink what it means to follow Jesus.

Jesus’ rebuke of Peter is followed by his asking us his followers “to take up their cross and follow him”. Are we who claim to follow Jesus willing to risk our comfortable existence to do just that?

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No really! An honest and moral tax-collector?

October 29, 2016

Pentecost 24 – 2016

Luke 19:1-10

Marian Free

 In the name of God who, through the Holy Spirit makes intelligible the unintelligible and continually opens our eyes to new ways of seeing. Amen.

 

The art of translation is a complex one. A translator cannot simply and mechanically change one word for another, but must make a number of crucial decisions, some of which can completely alter the intention of the speaker or of the writer. It is not just a matter of exchanging one word for another, but about determining the mood or the meaning behind the words and about creating a text that flows. This means that all kinds of decisions need to be made along the way. This is as true of Bible translations as it is of any other translation.

Taking the New Testament as our example, the translator is confronted with a number of issues that include:

  • deciding on which of the surviving texts is likely to be the most original[1]
  • determining where the punctuation should go[2]
  • and, where a word has multiple meanings making a decision as to which meaning best fits the context.

A good example of the latter is the word “πάσχω” (pascho from which our word Paschal comes) that can mean either “to suffer” or “to experience”. The meaning of a particular passage would change dramatically depending on which of the two possibilities the translator decided would work best in that situation. Given that there is an emphasis on suffering in the gospels, it is not surprising that “pascho” is more often translated as suffering in other New Testament writings.

By and large, translators endeavour to be objective but that can be difficult when it comes to Holy Scripture. Centuries of prior interpretations and theological understandings intrude on the process as do centuries of picturing Jesus in one way or another. It can happen that a translator is unable to give an exact translation because to do so would conflict with the way in which he or she have become accustomed to think of the meaning of a story or parable, or because they are unable to shed the ways in which they have become used to thinking of the person and nature of Jesus.

None of the above explains the usual translation of the story of Zacchaeus. Most of us know the story of Zacchaeus well. Zacchaeus is a tax-collector (one of the most reviled people in Israel because not only does he work for the Romans, but he almost certainly has enriched himself at the expense of his own people). He is also short. When Jesus comes into the town, Zacchaeus finds that he is unable to see because of the crowds – crowds who definitely will not move to provide a space for him to move towards the front. So he forsakes his dignity and climbs a tree in order to be able to see Jesus. This has the added benefit that Jesus can see him. To the shock and surprise of the crowd Jesus invites himself to dinner. In their eyes, Jesus is not only insulting them, but worse he is validating someone whose lifestyle clearly declares him to be a sinner.

According to this version of the story, Zacchaeus has a conversion experience as a consequence of Jesus’ acceptance of him. He declares: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” It is an extraordinary and extravagant response to Jesus in the vein of the woman (a sinner) who anointed Jesus. It makes perfect sense, but is this the best translation, is this the meaning intended by the author?

In this instance Greek verbs – “give” and “repay” are unambiguously in the present (not the future) tense. In fact, translated accurately the text has Zacchaeus say: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I pay back four times as much”. This throws an entirely different light on the story. Read this way it appears that Zacchaeus is already more generous than every other pious Jew who only gave away 10% of his income. Further, it may well be that Zacchaeus is very careful not to defraud anyone so that he can avoid repaying four times the amount.

Zacchaeus seems to be the exception to the rule. He is an honest and moral tax collector – one who has been unjustifiably excluded from society by his neighbours. This is a surprising and shocking revelation. We are much more comfortable with our first century prejudices that have allowed us to judge and exclude Zacchaeus on the basis of externals, his role as a tax collector? It is much easier to believe that Zacchaeus’ extravagance is a result of his encounter with Jesus than it is to accept that his largesse precedes his relationship with Jesus and is the reason why he is so keen to seek Jesus out and why Jesus finds him in the crowd.

If we accept this version of the story, then we have to accept that it is not Zacchaeus who needs conversion, but the crowd who grumble and who are resentful that Jesus has chosen Zacchaeus with whom to eat. They have not understood Jesus’ message of God’s inclusive love, they cannot bear to witness Jesus’ befriending/eating with the marginalised and outcast and they are quick to pass judgement even though they do not know the full story.

How often do we do the same – judge and exclude on the basis of externals? How often do we take the easy route and allow stereotypes to inform the way that we think about a person or group of people. How often do we take the view that we know as well as God who should be included and who excluded from our company, from our church?

The story of Zacchaeus is a stark reminder that there are always, always exceptions to the rule, and that while we are busy judging, we may simply be demonstrating our meanness and small-mindedness in comparison to the others generosity and openness.

What a tragedy it would be if we were to discover that those we whom exclude and revile are in fact closer to heaven than ourselves; that our attitudes to others, rather than demonstrating our righteousness expose our prejudices and readiness to judge. Would we rather be able to share Jesus’ wisdom, Jesus’ inclusive love and Jesus’ welcome or would we rather stand with the crowd and grumble that he doesn’t behave the way we expect him to? The choice is ours.

Only God can see the secrets of the heart so let us look to our own hearts and leave the judging to God.

[1] No original texts exist. Translators work from copies of copies that naturally include mistakes made by the copyists.

[2] Ancient Greek was written in capital letters, with no gaps between the words and no punctuation

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