if half is good enough, why does he require everything?

How can half of his possessions be enough for Zacchaeus, but Jesus required everything from the rich young ruler? If the rich young ruler offered half, would Jesus have to say “good enough”?

The Italian market, Philadelphia

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Luke 19.8-10

Zacchaeus said to the Lord, “Half of my possessions 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.”

When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him to give everything he owned to the poor. Now Zacchaeus offers to give half of his possessions to the poor and Jesus declares, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Why? Why was Zacchaeus let off so easy? If Jesus had asked the young ruler to give half, he might have done it, but everything was too much. If Jesus had told Zacchaeus “it’s not enough: you must give it all”, Zacchaeus might have retracted his offer and refused to give anything.

Then we have Jesus’ other comments: “he too is a son of Abraham; the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost”. Was the rich young ruler not a son of Abraham? Did Jesus not come to save him also?

We briefly answer the first one by noting that not all Israel is Israel and that being a true son of Abraham is not by being a physical descendant but by being a spiritual descendant. The second can also be answered: Yes, Jesus came to save everyone, but “the lost” are those who are outside the fold (tax collectors and sinners), not those who think they are already in it (the rich and the honored). We will return to those two questions later, because there is more to be said, but the larger issue is why the rich Zacchaeus was praised for giving away half of all he owned while the rich young ruler was not given that option, and why Zacchaeus was never tested with the more weighty requirement of giving it all.

It doesn’t seem right. How can the demand be a full cup in chapter 18 but only a half cup in chapter 19? When Jesus said that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”, was the eye of the needle purposely squeezed to an impossible size for the young ruler but opened up for Zacchaeus?

The answer is this: a civilian letting go of half is noteworthy, but a soldier talking along half is ridiculous. Imagine someone trying to be in the military and lugging along half of his possessions. It cannot work. The image of Robert De Niro’s character in “The Mission”, hauling the weight of his ruined life up the mountainside, is an apt image: a person gets nowhere and helps no one by lugging his baggage along. No soldier is allowed to do such a thing for the very reason that it is then impossible to be a soldier. If you want to keep your things, don’t join. It’s no sin to be a civilian. Stay where you are. But it is absurd to enlist as a soldier and expect to keep all your stuff.

And so there is the crucial difference between chapters 18 and 19. To the rich young ruler Jesus added that fateful phrase, “then come, follow me.” He did not say such a thing to Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was left alone to continue his civilian (but not sinful!) life. But Jesus wanted more of the rich young man. He wanted him. He wanted him to be part of his inner group. Only to a precious few did he utter that phrase, “then come, follow me.”

No, the rich young ruler hadn’t asked that question, but Jesus had that answer for him, and so his refusal was not just to the selling, but also to the going.

After the rich young ruler was turned away the disciples, astonished, asked “Then who can be saved?” We can lay aside that question for the moment by noting that it was the disciples who asked this, not Jesus who said it. His reply, “What is impossible for men is possible for God,” does not necessarily strike the target in the middle: neither of their question nor of the rich young man’s refusal. (Lest you complain, we cannot say that every utterance of the Twelve was Scripture. They were wrong many, many times. More often than not actually. The only important thing is what Jesus says. What the disciples ask in their ignorance and confusion is not our guide.)

Nevertheless, Peter then immediately wants Jesus to take note of the fact that they have left their homes to follow him. Peter might not have understood the nuances of all that was going on (he probably did not), but he did know enough to be alarmed that what Jesus was asking of the rich young man (leave, follow) was something they had already done. They understood the dual demand: sell everything, follow Jesus. But about Zacchaeus they registered no such alarm, and for good reason: Zacchaeus was not asked to join their group. They did not question “why does he get off with 50% but we had to leave everything?” They knew the answer: Zacchaeus was staying home. Their expectation was not his; his expectation was not theirs. But of the rich young ruler they understood and did not question why he was expected to give up everything, and only wanted Jesus to remember that they had already done it.

Now, about the other issues: “he too is a son of Abraham; the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost”.

In John 8.39 Jesus says to his detractors: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did.” And John says in Luke 3: “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ ” The message of the Scriptures is clear: Acting like Abraham is what counts. Claiming descendance from Abraham but then living in offense to God (and Abraham) is reprehensible.

And so Christ’s words in Luke 19 can mean only that Zacchaeus was not saved because he was a son of Abraham but was declared a son of Abraham now that he fitted within the spiritual lineage of the great man of faith.

But why? How was giving half of his possessions comparable to anything Abraham had done? It seems like a rather meager showing, especially since the passage says nothing of Zacchaeus acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah or expressing faith in Jesus for anything. Paul says that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. We have no hint here that Zacchaeus believed anything. He simply gave up half of his possessions. Is the price of righteousness half of everything we own?

The answer to that is long, but the short version is this: God saves who he wishes. Regardless for how any certain situation matches our formula for how salvation occurs, the measure of authenticity is not our understanding but God’s acting. If Jesus says Zacchaeus is now a son of Abraham, he is a son of Abraham. Our confusion is not a reason to question how it happened, but rather a firm warning to stay out of it. When God enters into a personal relationship with anyone, it is because he wants to, and insisting that it must match our template is a great offense against God. Our response is to be purely and only joy that the sheep who was lost is now found. Anything less is meddling in things we have no part in, and no understanding of. The fact that there are so many conflicting explanations for how salvation happens should be our clear message that this is not something God wants us to understand, for it is his business and his alone. Defining how he acts, when we have no way of knowing, and then requiring him to act according to our confusion, is asking for trouble.

The second statement of Christ, (the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost), is part and parcel a continuation of the first. Zacchaeus was the epitome of the lost sheep. He was a Jew, but a Jew that the Jews despised. Jesus befriended him because he needed a friend. Jesus went to his house because he came to seek out the sheep that had gone astray. And when Zacchaeus was pleased to have Jesus in his house and responded with joy and generosity, God responded in joy, because here was a man he liked.

What then of the ninety nine who apparently are still in the fold? Jesus answers that a bit later, down in verse 27:

But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.

The ninety nine who thought they had no need of repentance most certainly did. They would be given 40 more years, then their time for following Zacchaeus’ example would be up.

The answer to the problem of the rich young ruler is found in verse 26:

To those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

The rich young ruler had something that even Zacchaeus did not. Explanations that Jesus spotted an inclusion in this diamond and was handing him the loupe are wrong. Jesus saw a diamond. This was the young man’s Damascus road encounter. He said no. Later, Paul would say yes, and consider it all garbage. It wasn’t an impossible demand. Christ could have also taught him how to be content with weaknesses and hardships.