When he asked me to marry him I talked about it with my mother.
‘But you’re so far above him,’ she said.
‘I could wear flat shoes,’ I said.
‘No, I didn’t mean that, I mean socially.’
‘I could slum it for his salary,’ I said.
‘Yes, he’s going to be rich, isn’t he?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Marry him!’ she said.
So I did. I knew there was much more to Zacchaeus than his height and his penchant for making money. He was a good man with a fine mind and a generous nature. We were very happy at first. I sanded off all the corners of the tables so he didn’t keep hitting his head, and I remembered not to keep picking him up so I could hear him better.When we went out in the town together I made him wear a pointy green hat so I could spot him easily in a crowd.
We were very well-off, and happy enough with each other; but we had hardly any friends. That began to get to Zacchaeus, as well as being a Chief Tax Inspector, and not popular with the people; he knew many of the taxes were unfair, but did nothing about it. The Romans got greedier and greedier, and more and more people hated Zacchaeus for it.
‘Don’t we have enough money now?’ I said, ‘You could retire several times over
tomorrow, and still live out the rest of our lives in luxury.’
And he’d nod, and say yes,we could; and then he’d do nothing and go back tomaking money for the Romans and for himself, and making the people even more miserable.
So I began to hate him a little myself.
And then Jeshu came to town. I’d heard about him, of course, a young handsome, charismatic healer and preacher wandering the towns and countryside, drawing large crowds wherever he went. He’d been the talk of the Jericho Ladies Luncheon Club for weeks now.
It was early that afternoon when Zacchaeus came bursting through the front door, red faced and panting, with what appeared to be a sprig of sycamore sticking out from behind his left ear.
‘Hurry! Make haste! He’ll be here soon!We must be ready!’
I removed the sycamore sprig.
‘Zacchaeus?’ I said, ‘Have you been climbing trees?’
‘Yes!What of it?’ It was the only way I could get to see him. There was this vast crowd about him, and I could hear him, but see nothing, so I ran on ahead and – er –climbed a tree by the roadside.Why are you smiling? It was deuced difficult finding one with low branches, but I managed it; and found a branch from where I could see him, and arranged my robes in a dignified manner, so he could see I was a person of importance and standing. Confound it, woman, now you’re laughing at me!’
‘No, no!’ I said, fighting back tears of mirth, ‘Please, go on!’
‘There’s not much to tell, they all came along, and I was able to see him, you’ll see there is something special about him, and as he was passing he looked up at me and smiled and said “Zacchaeus, come down, and hurry up about it!” I must have looked a sight scrambling down, and some of the townspeople were guffawing in their common way saying that was the first time they’d ever seen a smile on the face of a tax-collector. And he hushed them with a wave of his arm, shook my hand, and
said, “I’ll be at yours for a meal in a little while,” and here I am, and we’d better make shift, for he will be here shortly!’
And he was, and we sat in the front of the house and entertained him and his friends to a fine dinner, and the servants more or less had the night off, as Zacchaeus was running about serving wine and food and oil, and talking one hundred to the dozen to this Jeshu, and there wasmuch good talk and laughter, that had never been heard under Zacchaeus’s roof before. And the townsfolk who had followed Jeshu to the door stood outside and grumbled that their hero should not be eating and talking and laughing with a bad man like Zacchaeus. I confess I kept looking in his goblet to see where all this bonhomie
was coming from, but he was on nothing but pomegranate juice. Eventually, he stood up, spread his hands towards the grumblers, and said to Jeshu, ‘Bear witness that tonight I pledge to give half my possessions away to the poor, and will pay back four-fold anyone who has been defrauded by me.’The grumbling ceased to be replaced by gasps of amazement. Jeshu stood up and said that a blessing had come to this house tonight, and that Zacchaeus was one of them again, a true son of Abraham.
Well, things did change after that. Zacchaeus made good all his promises, and resigned from the Tax Inspectorate the following morning. It made a considerable difference to our lifestyle, but we were not exactly in the poor house, as I had salted away a little every month in the Nazareth & Ptolemais Building Society. And we began to make friends, impressed by Zacchaeus’s open heartedness and generosity. I won’t say they will ever build a statue to him in Jericho (everyone would keep tripping over it), but he says when he goes he wants a sycamore tree planted over his grave!
Stephen Morgan (June 2009)