(P)Review Bible Study: Luke 19:1-10....Crime and Punishment...and Forgiveness...and Punishment?

    In our home we have a simple rule:  if you did something wrong apologize, then hug.  Actually hugging goes with pretty much everything, we're pretty huggie. But most of the time that is about all there is to it. Sometimes though, there is a wrong done that comes with more than a hug worth of recompense.  Every so often there comes the dreaded grounding.  With life being what it is today the grounding usually has an electronic element to it.  Grounding from TV, grounding from smart phones, grounding from video games, grounding from the internet...the possibilities for the modern parent are seemingly endless. The hard part for us as parents is that when we impose these, often quite short-term, consequences we all have to live with the outcomes.  A No-TV-Grounding either means sending an individual away to be alone while we all watch without them, which my wife and I hate (we are all about the Family-Time), or working around the punishment for the whole family.  

But, consequences are consequences. Real life has consequences and removing those consequences, no matter how temptingly pleasant that may seem, has some dire...well...consequences.  In real life there are few thing that happen without consequences.  So, how does forgiveness work into all of this?  Is forgiveness letting a person out of the blame and consequence of their actions or is there something more at play here?  Maybe forgiveness is actually the key to dealing with consequences....

Jesus is big on forgiveness and often finds time to forgive folks who seem otherwise irredeemable.  Take this guy for instance:

Luke 19:1-10 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "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."Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

    Tax collectors were hardly thought of in fond terms in the ancient world and Zacchaeus was certainly not on good terms with any of his neighbors back then.  

     A quick lesson on Roman occupation.  Romans liked to hire local individuals to do their dirty work and there were a few main reasons:  the locals knew how to motivate the rabble, it took the focus off of the Romans, and the work could be contracted out cheap.  Tax collectors were Jews who were tasked with the job of collecting the taxes for the Romans.  This made them both traitors to their country and to their God.  Usually they would make up for the indignity of the office by imposing higher taxes than the Romans asked for, and then taking the excess for themselves.  If you didn't pay up they would send some soldiers by your house to break your kneecaps.  In short, they were extortionists.  
    Jesus' decision to go to Zacchaeus' house goes beyond socializing with the wrong element.  To eat with a person back then implied a filial relationship that made you temporary family with your host.  Jesus' choice to invite himself to be a guest at Zacchaeus' home is tantamount to Jesus sanctioning the misdeeds of this traitorous extortionist, either that or it implies a radical, act of forgiveness.  You can understand why people might have been miffed at him.

    After being extorted and bullied by their neighbor they were nowhere near ready to let him off the hook so easy.  They expected that there needed to be some consequences.  Jesus' offer of companionship came at no cost but the forgiveness it offered opened Zacchaeus' heart to realize his duty to address the consequences of his actions. His choice to give back four times to anyone he had extorted was not a random number.  In that day if the courts found you guilty of a crime where you had profited unfairly the sentence would be to pay back four times what you had taken unfairly.  Zacchaeus reacted to the forgiveness of his guilt by pleading guilty to his crimes and offering fair restitution.   

   Just to be clear, let me outline that order again...Jesus invited himself to stay at Zacchaeus' house (in and of itself either a tacit approval of Zacchaeus' lifestyle, which seems HIGHLY unlikely, or an equally tacit act of forgiveness) and THEN Zacchaeus was freed to deal lovingly with his sin and make restitution, facing the consequences of his actions.  

Let's compare: 

Crime committed...punishment offered in the form of being maligned and socially ostracized....results: Zacchaeus remained unchanged and unrepentant.  

Crime committed...forgiveness offered in the form of Jesus opening the doors to companionship and love...results: Zacchaeus is drastically changed and imposes a righteous punishment on himself that he happily and willingly submits to, making amends for his actions. 
   
When we humans think of justice are we really thinking of what is just, or are we just thinking about what gets us even?  In the Kingdom of God justice is about more than just us.  In the Kingdom justice sets the wrong right for everyone:  the one wronged and the one who did the wronging.  I God's Kingdom justice serves all the people and sets all the hearts right.  Are we looking to serve the sort of justice Jesus did?