Using Amy-Jill Levine's book “Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi” I want to retell the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus a couple of different ways to open up the option of more than one way of reading a these stories as parable.
· How do we feel when we read this story?
· Do we read verse 8 in the future tense, as something he will do in response to Jesus wanting to come to dinner, or in the present tense as a defence of against the grumbling. Or both? The Greek goes either way.
· What echoes of other stories in Luke do we hear?
· What uncomfortable questions does it ask of us?
You can read the notes here