Recognizing the Image of God in Every Body: Retelling the Story of Jesus and Zacchaeus

This is the story of an outsider, a man rejected by his community. Zacchaeus was short in stature, a tax collector with great wealth. He was rejected by those around him, reviled for the role he held within society. In fact, not only was he a tax collector, he was the chief tax collector. 

As Jesus and his disciples entered the city, people were not prepared to make any room for Zacchaeus to watch the big event.    He had to find an alternative way to view the happenings, and soe he chose a large evergreen tree that was easy to climb.

Jesus passed the crowds of people flocking to see him and paused to look up at Zaccheaus. With a sense of urgency, he called out to the man to come down. This must have shocked Zacchaeus as even though he was very much rejected by society, Jesus knew him by name. Not only did he know him by name, he wanted to stay at his house! Why would a man who people were declaring the Son of God want to stay with him? Yet, we do not see a man who hesitates; instead, we see a man full of joy, thankful to be called by name by Jesus. 

This desire to request hospitality from Zacchaeus harkens back to Luke 10 when Jesus sent the 72 out to build the early church. They were to go into the towns and spread the gospel, going from town to town and finding those who were ready to receive the good news. In this instance, it was Jesus himself who entered Jericho and immediately looked upward into the sycamore tree to ask Zacchaeus to share a meal. 

Murmurs erupted from the crowd. Why him? While the crowd rejected him, called him a sinner, and questioned why Jesus would accept him, Jesus valued him, regardless of his status or stature. We see Zacheaus be seen and known by Jesus and immediately choose to live a life worthy of Jesus. He dedicated his life to giving back to the poor and repaying anyone from whom he had stolen, far beyond the expected interest. The love and respect that Jesus offered have a significant impact on Zacchaeus.

At this point, Jesus offered him the ultimate gift–eternal life–calling him a son of Abraham. He welcomed Zaccheaeus into the house of God, naming in front of the crowd that he, too, belonged to their community, despite their previous rejection and isolation of him  from Jewish life. As Amy Kenny reminds us, “his healing doesn’t include any physical change or curing but alters his social station.” 

Perspective by Terry DeYoung

Without a critical or nuanced lens to interpret Scripture, the church tends to perpetuate and even sanctify ableist attitudes. Thankfully, scholarship has emerged in recent decades that sparks fresh insights into biblical texts and interpretation, transforming conversations and people in the church. 

Personally, Amos Yong’s exploration of Jesus’s interaction with Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) prompted me a decade ago to examine my own experience of being short in stature. Yong, a professor and theologian, invites readers to imagine this despised chief tax collector as a dwarf, making this familiar account become far richer than the popular Sunday school song. This approach to the text led me to investigate dwarfism more deeply.

My disability is apparent to anyone who sees me. Somewhat less obvious—except to those who know others in my birth family—is that my bone condition is part of the dwarfism family; it makes me 12 inches shorter than my non-disabled brothers and father. At barely five feet tall, I might stand up to a foot taller than Zacchaeus however, neither of us would find it easy to climb a sycamore tree, reach into standard kitchen cupboards, or drive a typical automobile without attracting teasing gestures from others who wonder how we can simultaneously see over the steering wheel and reach the gas pedal.

In what ways might thinking of Zacchaeus as a dwarf change our image of him as not only a despised person but as an easy-to-mock public spectacle—his four-foot frame waddling ahead of the crowd, straining to climb a sycamore tree and then laboring to get down again after Jesus had singled him out?

As Yong points out, why have traditional interpretations of the Zacchaeus story made little of the possibility that he was a dwarf? And what implications might this have for how the church traditionally has read any biblical story that features disability?

I regularly encourage people to read the Bible through a disability lens or ask people with disabilities how these stories come across to them. It’s one way to begin to challenge our own ableist approaches to reading Scripture.

Re-visioning the story

When you hear the name Zacchaeus, can you easily recall the childhood song from Sunday school – “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he….”? (A song I now hear sung and realize how truly demeaning it is!) Art has always depicted Zaccheaus high up in a tree looking down on the crowd below. Jesus is looking to the man, beckoning for him to come down. 

What if we chose a different entry point to the story to focus on? What about the beauty of Jesus sitting across from Zacchaeus in his house, sharing a meal with him, showing him that he has worth and value? Is that not a key point in the story – the fact that Jesus sees past the life choices that Zaccheaus has made, paying no attention to any sort of physical limitations and simply wanting to share the kingdom of God with him? 

Zacchaeus, in being seen by Jesus, immediately demonstrated his desire to be in a relationship with Jesus. After that one demonstration of hospitality and community that Jesus invited him into, he turned to those around him to show care. He gave some of his wealth to the poor and returned all the money he had stolen from people in his community, giving back much more than he originally took–much more than the law would have required him to give. By the love and respect that Jesus showed him, we see a man who chose to reach out to the community that had previously rejected him and leaned toward them, making amends and recognizing his rightful place in the lineage of Abraham. 

Yes, the story is about Jesus seeing him, but it is that further intentionality of sitting with him in his own home, the home of a much-detested chief tax collector, that is the central moment in the story. In that moment when the two sat face-to-face, Jesus saw him and did not hold Zacchaeus in judgment like everyone else who knew him did. There is no power imbalance present, just the love of Jesus filling the space.