Conversations…
Five or six reclined about a tavern table each letting their thoughts (and eyes) meander over the girls, the door, their ales. All were perpetually ready to hear from or dispatch their own messengers into the city’s taxing business. “How much of it is an act?” Wondered a man beside Zacchaeus jarring the random conversations into some focus.
“An act?” replied another, “What are you talking about?”
“Jesus, of course, Jesus. How can you not have your ears to the ground on this? The whole city is buzzing this morning. That’s what I mean by an act. I mean he appears to be on the way to Jerusalem. Wanna make a name for yourself, do it in the big city, eh?”
“It ain’t no act,” came a succinct but firmly held opinion which evoked a sneer from another of their party.
“Bartimaeus?” offered another who said nothing more but just watched the impact of those words.
“Yeah, what do you do with that? Is there anyone who doubts he was blind?” Sniffing, pausing, and a guilty glance later he said, “Man, my brother and I we used to play some bad tricks on him when we were a kid. Taxes we called it.” That brought some chuckles, subdued ones, but each man could recall some things done with a furtive tread. Even now a lot of them were players in the murky world cobbled together by the tax collection business. That’s how these men made a name for themselves.
Finally a man rose, it was Zacchaeus. “I’m going to see Jesus,” he said and out the door he went leaving behind a quieted table.
Is that what happened?
Well, not likely just like that, but surely something more aligned with that than the cartoonish characters painted on the Bible stories. The men and women that Jesus involved himself with were not two dimensional, not anime, but full blooded, full worried humans. Like us they needed answers. Zacchaeus needed answers. We have no idea where he was before the snippet we are given in Luke 19. We can tell, though, that he wanted something from Jesus. A view only is all he expected, though, right?
1 He [Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. (Luke 19:1-4–ESV)
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