Mosaic Teaching 144 - Luke 19:2-11

Mosaic is an in-depth teaching discovering Jesus through all four of the Gospel accounts in the Bible. This teaching is led by Rev. Dr. Chad Foster, reaching into the Hebraic roots, Jewish roots, Torah references and messianic fulfillment of Jesus to find truth and life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Mosaic Teaching Service. Today, this is teaching number one hundred and forty-four in our time, going through the four gospels of Jesus of Nazareth from that authentic first century Galilean perspective. We're kind of in the midst of a discussion with Jesus en route to his final destination, his final time in Jerusalem before his great passion. And so we'll pick it up there in the Gospel of Luke chapter 19 this morning. But first let's uh bow our heads and begin with prayer. Let us pray. Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning. And grant that we would so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that by patience and comfort of your holy word, we would embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given to us and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. In a mosaic, we value our Bibles, love our Bibles, always encourage you to bring your Bible with you to the Mosaic Teaching Service. But if you need a Bible today, it's not a problem at all. Just grab one in the pew or chair around you, sometimes or uh underneath you in a chair or something like that. Uh and if you don't have a Bible to call your own, uh you can take one from the pew or chair around you and accept that as a gift from us to you. Uh or if you know someone who needs a Bible in their life, whether that's a neighbor or a co-worker or someone you go to school with, uh, you can take a Bible and give that to them. But if you will, please take a Bible, hold it up, and repeat after me. This is my Bible. Jesus is who it says He is. I am what it says I am. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. My mind is alert. By God's grace, my heart is receptive. The Bible is the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living word of God. My encounter with the Bible today will transform and grow my faith. And we say together, in Jesus' name, amen. So let's open up those Bibles to Luke chapter 19. Uh, we'll be picking up around the third verse, but kind of set a little bit of the context since we kind of ended things in teaching 143, right as uh things were getting started uh with the town of Jericho. So, what how things have been progressing is Jesus has been gathering quite an entourage from the Galilee and surrounding areas, which would have been normal for the day, uh making his way to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. That would have been a big deal. So by this, it wouldn't have just been mom and dad and some brothers and sisters. This would have been all of the cousins, this would have been the neighborhood, this would have been, you know, distant relatives, you would have traveled in just massive caravans uh from the Galilee uh to Jerusalem and along the way, obviously, just like not unlike our journeys, even in our vehicles, right? Uh if you're having uh a long drive down to Florida, you're gonna have, you know, those conversations in the car and so forth. So uh as Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, he's been having conversations uh not only with his disciples, and many of them focused on discipleship, but also Jesus has been very focused on getting them prepared for what was going to be coming their way. Uh again, we're a little bit biased because we do know the rest of the story. They did not. Uh we know he's preparing them for his eventual uh, you know, betrayal, his passion, his death, his resurrection, even his ascension, and how they are going to be taking over his movement and carrying it into the world, into the nations. Uh he's preparing them for that. And even in uh teaching 143, we saw for the third time he very clearly, uh, without any ambiguity, point blank tells them that he's going to be handed over, that he's going to be betrayed, that he's going to suffer, that he's going to die. Uh and the response again is that they don't understand this. This isn't connecting uh with them. They're thinking this has to be some kind of parable, that he's speaking some kind of mysticism, uh, because you know their mind can't fathom a Messiah suffering and dying. But they are pretty clear on the fact that something big is going to happen when they get to Jerusalem. And so part of this journey, therefore, uh will take them through uh the town of Jericho, which is where we were last week. We spent a little bit of time talking about Jericho, uh, this mass wilderness, think desert, all brown and dry, but right in the middle of all of that is this city of palms, because uh a series of springs right there that made Jericho just this very fertile place in the middle of the desert. And because of that, it's the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. And uh so uh Jesus makes his way into uh that city uh and part of the discussion they'd been having up to that, which is important for the context of today, is right, they have been uh having discussion on servanthood. If you want to be first, you must be willing to be last. Uh, that the Son of Man didn't come in this world to be served, but to serve. Uh and you had Peter, I mean James and John, uh, their mother kind of asking Jesus if their if her two sons, uh James and John, could be on his right and his left. That is when uh she was anticipating when Jesus would make it to Jerusalem, when he would assert himself as the king Messiah, when he would remove Rome from having this oppressive role over the Jewish people, uh, when he would set up his own cabinet and so forth, that he she Jesus would make sure that James and John had prominent positions of power, uh, that, you know, and so Jesus wanted to speak into that, that it's the nations, that it's the Gentiles that worry, people like Herod. So as they're approaching Jericho, they would have seen Herod's palace that was built in Jericho, and Jesus uses that as an example and says, you know, it's people of the world that are obsessed with power and lording power over people. That's not how things are going to go in my kingdom. That's not what this is all about. That's going to prove very important in the conversation that he's going to have with Zacchaeus. And so as they enter into Jericho, uh, Jesus, as is often the case when he enters into a town, uh, his name precedes him, his reputation precedes him. Uh people come and want to encounter him. And so a man named Zacchaeus, who is Jericho's tax collector, which means he's wealthy, he's powerful, he's everything that the world would deem as successful and powerful. He is that, but he also would have been viewed very low from an observant religious point of view because he would have been seen as a traitor, uh, because he would have been taking from the Jewish people and giving it to Rome. Uh, and so, but Zacchaeus is interested in Jesus, and that's kind of where we left things last week, and so we'll pick it up now in Luke chapter 19, verse 3. Let's read this verse together. Zacchaeus tried to see who Jesus was, but he could not on account of the people, because he was of lowly stature. So a commotion going on in the streets of Jericho captured this tax collector's curiosity. A large crowd was forming up and people were pressing in to get a look at some type of notable person. After a few quick inquiries, Zacchaeus learns that a famous holy man, a Galilean healer from Nazareth, was passing through his city with his disciples. And so Zacchaeus naturally wants to see this holy man. Um, because again, if you're a person of power and you're a person of prestige, and someone with a person of reputation comes through your town, guess what? You're gonna want to interact with them because, after all, you're the important person in town, and so as an important person, you need to see important people. But the crush of the crowd prevents Zacchaeus from getting close. He couldn't see over the shoulders of the people that were pressing around the celebrated rabbi. But I want you to notice the irony of the text. Don't just get caught up in the fact that it's trying to describe Zacchaeus as a wee little man. All right? That's actually not the point of the story. It's more about the irony of the story. That although Zacchaeus occupied a position of considerable prestige, of considerable political power, that he had great economic influence and power, none of that enabled him to see Jesus. That is the irony of the text. That even though, from a worldly perspective, he had absolutely everything you would ever want. He had money, he had connections, he had a big house. You name it, Zacchaeus had it, but guess what? None of that enabled him to see Jesus. And here we aren't talking physically. Okay. While on the simple level of the story, you could say this was because he was a man of diminutive stature, it's also pointing us to the deeper reality because of the greater context, remember? What's the conversation Jesus has just been having with his disciples, right? That to be his disciple, to be a member, a citizen of his kingdom, it's about being willing to be a servant. It's about willing to be someone uh who's uh going to be last and not first. Uh and so it's pointing to the deeper reality that these worldly standards do not help us reach Jesus, they don't help us reach any kind of status in Jesus' kingdom, they don't help us see Jesus. So Zacchaeus ran ahead of the advancing crowd and scurries up a sycamore tree overlooking the street before the group arrived. And maybe he had perhaps uh used that maneuver many times before to get a better view of things in the street. And no one apparently pays attention or sees him go up the street. Now, Jericho, the city of palms, and last week I think I showed you a picture of modern-day Jericho with all of its palms, uh, was uh renowned for that. But in the Talmud, Abashaul says there were many sycamore trees in Jericho. And in fact, if you go to Israel today and you're in your tour bus and you stop in Jericho uh and your bus stops, there will be lots of uh vendors that will come around your tour bus and try to convince you that that tree you're looking at right there is the tree that Zacchaeus climbed into, right? And of course, they'll be ready to sell you a little uh wooden camel for five dollars and uh take you around to their uncle's restaurant just down the street, and right, or sell you some more souvenir. That is not the tree that Zacchaeus was in, but that is no less a sycamore tree in the city of Jericho. Um the sycamore is a type of evergreen fig tree. It grows predominantly in Lebanon, in Israel, parts of Egypt and South Africa, and it does grow pretty big. They can grow up to be 60 feet or more. Uh they have a wide trunk, a broad canopy, which makes them easy to climb and can sustain human weight. I mean, you can even look at that tree, right? You can tell uh the low big branches. I mean, that's that if you had a kid, you know your kid would be all over that, right? Um and so it's made for climbing. As Jesus and his entourage passed under Zacchaeus' tree, Jesus looks up and he calls to him and he says in Luke 19, verse 5, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. Now, did Jesus recognize the notorious tax collector of Jericho? More likely, and Jesus had no prior knowledge of the man, his name, his position, or even his perch in the tree. Instead, he intuited from the small man's presence through his prophetic power of the Holy Spirit. But in a flash of insight, he knows his name, he knows his occupation, he knows all about him, and he sees him as a lost sheep of Israel that could be brought back into the flock. Zacchaeus was, of course, thrilled at the honor of hosting a renowned sage in his home. Now, at this level, this isn't because Zacchaeus has had his religious experience, right? Uh in the world of the ancient Near East, hospitality was a big thing. Uh, and it was also a very big deal if you were able to host someone that was uh renowned, uh famous, or well known in your home. And in many ways, it would kind of be the same today if you know fill in the blank with someone you admire, whether that would be uh a politician or uh a sports figure, uh let's say uh Aidan Hutchinson from the Detroit Lions is uh he's going to be uh a guest speaker for our youth group uh on Sunday night, and we need uh someone to host him for dinner. Uh we'd probably have no shortage of people volunteering, right? To uh, I do I can I have a great big backyard, right? I do a mean brisket or whatever, right? Uh you would want to do it for a variety of reasons, right? And not all of them uh because you just are all about serving, right? Uh and so in many ways that's gonna be Zacchaeus at first. And so he's gonna not refuse the request, he's gonna be very honored by this. Uh and then you think about it on Jesus' end, ordinarily a religious person would not cross a tax collector's threshold. Um and so Jesus here is once again, uh, as it describes in places like Luke chapter 7, verse 34, but other places, proving himself to be a friend of the tax collector and the sinner. Uh Luke is the only gospel writer to tell the story of Zacchaeus. So the four gospels, it only occurs in Luke. And the story fleshes out Luke's penitent sinner versus hypocritical Pharisee motif. This is a very common motif in Luke's gospel that isn't present in the other gospels. And you may recall how in the previous chapter of Luke it contained the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector as they were praying in the temple. Uh let's keep reading in the text here, the guest of a sinner. Uh let's read uh Luke chapter 19, verses 6 and 7. Let's read that together. He immediately came down and took him in with joy. Everyone who saw this was complaining, saying, He has come to lodge in a sinner's house. So the opportunity to host the rabbi from Nazareth, it delighted Zacchaeus. Again, we've talked about some of the reasons. Right now, it's not a religious reason, it's more of a social reason, a hospitality reason, a cultural reason. It fits more into the motif of the worldly reason of Zacchaeus is this person of power and influence and prestige, and now this person that has all these people surrounding him, out of all of the people surrounding him, he's chosen Zacchaeus to be the place where he is going to go and lodge that evening. And so Zacchaeus hurries down the tree, beaming with his pride, like a man unexpectedly honored by a speaker in the midst of a large assembly. And he landed in the midst of the crowd of Jericho citizens who had assembled to see a rabbi. And he proudly accepts Jesus' invitation. And with his head held high, he led Jesus and his disciples to his no doubt opulate home. Now, the people of Jericho, they did not share this tax collector's elation. Remember, the people of Jericho would not have respected Zacchaeus. They would have seen him as a traitor. We even talked about last week, and we even looked at some of the Jewish writings where it said it was permissible, it wasn't even considered a sin to lie to a tax collector because they're always lying, and so you're just merely protecting yourself, uh, that they couldn't be trusted in a court of law, so they couldn't give testimony, uh, that you were better off facing a wild bear than having a conversation with a tax collector. We talked about the way they were viewed last week. And here Jesus has all of these people coming to see him for religious reasons, whether they were wanting healing, or whether they were wanting advice or whether they were wanting to be forgiven or whatever it may be. They wanted to become disciples and become followers. Uh, and then he chooses Zacchaeus. Uh, the turn of events would have shocked them, it would have appalled them, it would have offended them, it would have caused them scandal, it would have caused them to start, no doubt, talking about Jesus in a very negative light. Like, man, we sure got that guy wrong. Like, there's no way that's the Messiah. Like, if he's the Son of God and he theoretically knows everything or he has prophetic insight, he surely would have known who Zacchaeus was and he wouldn't want anything to do with Zacchaeus. He clearly has a bad judge of character because almost every household in Jericho. Would have been pleased to host Jesus. Why did he choose to honor the most low life of Jericho? That would have been their thought. And even the Mishnah, one of the oral traditions that became codified for the Jewish people, it prohibits accepting charity from a tax collector because their money is considered stolen. And so there would have been many from a cultural point of view, not a biblical point of view, but a cultural point of view, that would have seen Jesus going to Zacchaeus's house, they would have seen that as sinful because for Jesus to eat food there or to receive hospitality there would have been like Jesus participating in stolen goods. That's what their culture would have been saying. A similar social taboo probably extended to accepting anything from a tax collector. So to accept hospitality from Zacchaeus would have been seen as Jesus kind of almost in essence partnering in his crimes. But at any rate, it crossed the line of social ostracism imposed by general consensus. And so the citizens of Jericho ostracized Zacchaeus and his entire household from the Talmud. In Tractate Shavuot, folio 39, it says, There is not a family of a tax collector in which they are not all tax collectors, nor is there a family of a robber in which they are not all robbers, because the rest of the family protects him. And so the people of Jericho bore the burden of the oppressive Roman tax strategies administered by Zacchaeus. And from their perspective, in Jericho, from Zacchaeus's whole family, from his whole household, and from anybody connected to Zacchaeus. And now that would have included Jesus. They had been victimized by his cheating and his extortion, and Jesus' decision to lodge at his house, it seemed like a sellout to the enemy. It cast serious doubt on the integrity of Jesus' character and on his prophetic acumen. They must have remarked, if this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person he is hanging out with. And like the Pharisees who lodged the same criticism previously, the people of Jericho muttered in verse 7, He's gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. How surprised those same residents must have been, as we're going to see in just about a day's time, to have Zacchaeus come knocking at their door, only to find this so-called sinner and scoundrel repaying them four times the amount he's overtaxed them. And at that point, Jesus' choice of company, well, it probably made better sense to these residents of Jericho. But let's keep reading in the text. The Zechut of Zacchaeus. Remember a few teachings ago, probably teaching 142 or so, we talked about this Hebrew word Zechut when we looked at the rich young ruler on the road to Jerusalem, this individual who came to Jesus and said, What must I do to have eternal life? And we kind of really broke that down to find out what he was asking. And that conversation, and we found out what it was getting at was this idea of Zachut in Hebrew. You know, he he was in the right relationship with God, so to speak. He believed in God, he believed in scripture, but he had gotten to this point where he felt he'd been there and done that. That he, you know, he'd read his Bible, he had understood this Bible, he knew his theology. There was nothing anybody could teach him anymore about theology. He knew about God, and nothing more to learn about God, and yet he was a young man, and so what else was there to do? And so he needed another standard. And that's when Jesus talked about the good, right? Remember that? There's no good but God, there's no good but the word of God. And Jesus says, You already got it all, man. Like, you know, go and sell everything and come and follow me, right? And he wasn't sure about that. Zakut is this idea of going above and beyond what we might think of in Christian terminology as sanctification, you know, now that I've been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, through the work of Christ alone, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit alone. I think I've crossed all of the reformation ideas, so you know my theology sound. I've got all of that there. Now what? How do I live my life? How do I live that out? That's Zachut, right? What does this mean? Um, and so this is what Zacchaeus is eventually going to face after he has an evening with Jesus that is going to forever change his life. And unfortunately, uh the Gospel of Luke doesn't really clue us in a whole lot into that conversation or that evening or what happened that changed everything. We just know about the change and the transformation. But something changes for Zacchaeus. And so he has this prompting now of, I've got to do more, I've got to respond. All right, that's what I mean by the Zachut of Zacchaeus. So let's look at Luke chapter 19, verse 8. Let's read the verse together. Zacchaeus stood and said to Jesus, Look, my master, I'm giving half of my property to the poor, and if I have extorted anyone, I will return to them four times as much. So Zacchaeus welcomes the rabbi and his disciples into his luxurious home, where he had a splendid table set out before them, no doubt. And Jesus does not hesitate to eat the tax collector's food, even though it probably had not been properly tithed or prepared according to the more stricter standards. Instead, Jesus is living by the instructions that he gave his disciples back in Luke chapter 10, verse 8. When you enter and a person receives you, you eat what is set before you. And Zacchaeus quickly absorbs Jesus' teaching and Jesus' message. And very likely the curious text collector had heard the preaching of John the Baptist, because if you look in the back of your Bible at a map and you find Jericho, you will find that John the Baptist used to baptize in the Jordan River, not very far from Jericho. So John the Baptist was also quite a celebrity, and his biggest fame was around the area of Jericho. And so there's no doubt Zacchaeus knew who John the Baptist was, and he had heard John the Baptist's message. And remember, Jesus takes over John's ministry. To the tax collectors, John had said these words in Luke 3, verse 13. Collect no more than what you've been ordered to. In other words, John said, I know you got a job to do. It's not wrong to do your job. It's not sinful to do your job. So just do your job. Because tax collectors could set their own salary. And their salary was whatever they collected over what Rome said to do. Well, that's the sky's the limit. And John's like, you know what's fair. Do what you're supposed to do. If Zacchaeus had heard John's message, it had not brought him to any kind of repentance. The story does not indicate that Jesus in any way rebukes Zacchaeus, nor does it relate any eloquent sermon or outstanding miracle other than the miraculous identification of Zacchaeus in the tree. But it doesn't offer us anything else which Jesus might have performed to bring about Zacchaeus' sudden change of heart. We just know what happened. So something happened in that home. But instead, Jesus simply goes and he's a guest in the house. And as far as the story tells us, and Jesus just honors the man that other decent people consider to be despicable. And maybe that's part of the lesson for us in this. The reason why Luke remains silent on the actual conversation and actual things that transpired between Zacchaeus and Jesus. Because maybe what we're supposed to pick up on here is that Jesus was willing to show honor to someone that everyone else showed no honor to. Jesus was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to someone that everyone else had completely written off. And so Jesus took notice of him, honors him with his presence, and this changes who he is. Zacchaeus then commits to a course of practical repentance, and he became known as what in Hebrew would have been called a Baal Teshuvah, that is a master of repentance, a penitent. He stood up at the table and he declared an oath, saying, Behold, master, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and have I've defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much. So Zacchaeus promised to return four times what he had cheated from the people. The reparation exceeds the amount mandated by the Torah. The Torah requires that at minimum he should have returned what he owed that he'd wrongfully taken, plus one-fifth the value. So that's his zakut, right? He takes what the Torah said and then he goes beyond it. Okay, so uh instead of just uh returning what he wrongfully took and one-fifth the value, he ups it to four times. The Torah also required thieves to repay twice the amount stolen, and he doubles that to four times. Livestock rustlers could pay even steeper fines. The Torah requires the rustler to repay four up to four times, five times the value of the theft. So Zacchaeus selects for himself the most severe category and declares that he would restore up to four times the amount that he had cheated. In addition, Zacchaeus pledges half his wealth to the poor. This magnanimous, you know, this amazing gesture far exceeds anything that is required from him from the biblical law of the Torah. It was an act of Zihut signifying his genuine repentance. So in biblical understanding, repentance is more than just saying you're sorry. It's more um than an act of, what is it, you know, uh attrition, you know, saying you're sorry because you get caught. It's uh contrition, it's in it's also uh shown in your actions. And so a sudden and absolute declaration of indep of repentance coupled with a generous act, it's contrasted against the rich man Jesus had encountered just a little bit earlier on, and just a couple of days before, on the other side of the Jordan River, as they were making their way to Jericho. That rich young man could not part with his wealth in order to follow Jesus in discipleship. And so sometimes in Mosaic, because we break things up by the week, we kind of lose the flow of the narrative. That rich young ruler, while that was like three or four weeks ago for us, was only like a day and a half ago for Jesus and the disciples. So it would have been fresh in their memory and the narrative flow, it's very recent. So it's all part of this one continuous lesson. Uh, and so Zacchaeus is kind of the contrast to that. Uh Zacchaeus' radical plan to begin giving his half his wealth to the poor, use the remainder to pay back to his victims, uh, was certain to divest him of all of his wealth. Uh, so he was willing essentially to sell everything he had and follow Jesus. So, again, a great contrast to that rich young ruler that they would have just encountered not that long ago. Let's keep reading in the text. Salvation has come to this house. Luke chapter 19, verses 9 and 10. Let's read the verse together. Jesus said to him, Today this house had salvation, for he is also a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. So the rich and wicked tax collector had lived at enmity with God, and as Jesus had just earlier taught his disciples, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich and wicked person like Zacchaeus to enter the kingdom of heaven. They now had seen a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. His deeds had reserved him earlier a place in Gehenna, but now he has a place in the kingdom. And we think back to that phrase, it's easier for a rich man, uh, or it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than a rich man to enter. How did that happen? Right? If you had to unwind the rope, but remember a camel and rope were the same? And what did Zacchaeus do? What was the thing that bound his rope up? His money, his wealth, his prosperity, who he was, he unraveled all of that. And because of that, he entered in. So again, all of this is fitting in with this continuous narrative that Jesus has been teaching his disciples on this trip to Jerusalem. And so when Zacchaeus repents, Jesus announces to everyone, today, salvation has come to this house. In the same sense, he had once declared in Luke 4, verse 21, today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. He saw the great salvation of the promised messianic era at work in the lives of individuals. The tax collector's sudden and dramatic repentance vindicated Jesus' fraternization with sinners. And Jesus capitalized on the move moment, and he used it to explain why he entered the house of a sinner to bring salvation. And so this is a teaching moment for his disciples, because remember, he's preparing them for after not only his death and his resurrection, but after his ascension, when they become the leaders of his movement and they are sent out into the world, right, they're going to be sent out into the places of darkness. This is Caesarea Philippi all over again. Jesus didn't take them to Jerusalem to say, here's where I'm going to build my church. He takes them to Caesarea Philippi, right? The place of pagan worship, the place where Baal worship was centered, the place where in the book of Enoch, where uh the fallen sons of God and the fallen angels made their pact with Lucifer to war wage war against God and to ruin humanity. That's where he takes them and says, It's here that I'm going to build my church. In other words, it's in the darkest places that you have to go to bring light. And Jesus lives that out for them in a very real way so that they could see in a very concrete way, this is what they are supposed to do as well. And so he enters into the house of the sinner to bring salvation. And so he argues rhetorically, he too is a son of Abraham, and the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. The point of the saying is that even though he's come to one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he's still part of God's people. And though the rest of the rest of the that society, the rest of Jericho, though they had shunned him and excluded him from the flock, and Jesus was there to argue for his inclusion. And like the good shepherd pursuing the one lost sheep, he sought him out and returned him to the flock. And like the father welcoming home his prodigal son, he received Zacchaeus with celebration. And that day there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over the one sinner who repented. And Paul transmits this teaching of Jesus when he says in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 15 it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that the Messiah Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And now the story, as they're in Jericho and heading to Jerusalem, Jesus is going to take opportunity to use the parable. We won't actually get to the parables today, but we'll kind of get ourselves ready for it next week. It's going to be kind of two parables in one, and they're going to be in the category known as the journey parable. Okay? So let's look at Luke chapter 19, verse 11. Let's read this together. When they heard this, he spoke a parable once more, because he was coming close to Jerusalem, and they were thinking that the kingdom of God would soon be revealed. All right, so while the disciples and the guests around the table of Zacchaeus listened to this exchange, Jesus then decides this is a great teaching moment. And so he's, as is classic of him, as classic of a rabbi, he decides it's time for a parable. But it's going to be more like two parables combined into one. It's going to be what we will call the parable of the ten menas and the parable of the king's return. Jesus may have combined the two parables into a single narrative to make the message especially pertinent to Zacchaeus the tax collector, or he might have originally told two separate parables that Luke combines into one. The Gospels, we must always remember, are not intended to really be full transcripts. Each gospel writer shapes the material as the best they see to fit their narrative as they are shaped by the Holy Spirit. But both stories are variations on what are known as the journey parable. Jesus' journey parables involve the idea of this. A man goes away on a very long journey. He leaves behind some servants who are entrusted with property or some kind of responsibility. And then they don't know when their boss, their master, when he's going to come back. But they have this responsibility. They have this property that they're supposed to manage, that they're supposed to take care of, that they're supposed to be stewards over. And then at some point, the master, the boss, he comes back. And when he comes back, it involves either reward or punishment for how those servants stewarded what was entrusted to them. The theme does have variations. Have the parable of the ten virgins who await the bridegroom, but each of the journey parables calls for personal responsibility in the absence of direct supervision. And again, Jesus is trying to get his disciples there, Peter, James, John, and the others, ready for a time when he will go away. Now, this is kind of twofold. There's going to be a time where he's going to go away, such as when he dies, for a very short period. What will they do in that short period of time? How will they steward what Jesus has given to them? Will they fall away? Will they forsake the teachings? Will they, oh, I don't know, go back to fishing? And then there's also on a greater fulfillment of this. When Jesus ascends with the promise that he will return, what will his followers and his disciples do in the meantime? How will we steward the kingdom? And how will we be found when he returns? And so the journey parables prepare disciples for a coming time of Jesus' absence. Okay? And so, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told the journey parables of the ten minnahs and the king who returned, as it says, quote, because he was near Jerusalem, and they, the disciples, they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. Like they don't know what's going to happen, but they're clearly sensing something big is about to go down. And their intuition was right. They had no clue what, but their intuition was right. For three years, Jesus had been proclaiming the advent of this messianic era, that he had been proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and this fateful trip to Jerusalem was marking a critical moment. The disciples naturally assumed that the consummation of all of this would occur when they arrived at the Holy City. Okay, but what they were expecting and what happened were two different things. And so Jesus was trying to prepare them for that. And this journey parable, these two journey parables are part of that. But these journey parables go beyond that, including for the time after his ascension, but also still apply to us because he hasn't returned yet. So how are we stewarding what he has entrusted to us? Those will be the things we can think about as we read the parables next week. So we will pick it up there next week with the journey parables here in the Gospel of Luke.