07_Biblica_2_AM_B_Kilgallen_Layout 1 30/01/13 13:17 Pagina 597 597 WAS JESUS RIGHT TO EAT WITH SINNERS AND TAX COLLECTORS? reasoning for his actions is not only convincing but revelatory. What was lost is now found, surely; but also what was dead now is alive. Jesus is giving a profound explanation of the result of repentance, against which one should evaluate the search for repentance. It is a matter of life and death, nothing less. The Pharisees and Scribes will not disagree about the relationship between earthly repentance and heavenly joy, though its pro- fundity can be hard to keep fresh in one’s mind. On the basis of this one parable, so dramatically forceful, Jesus’ critics see no relation between cel- ebration and searching: the father does not search for his son. But the point is not there. This third parable means only to reinforce what the first two parables had made clear: whatever can produce joy in heaven is worth doing. One cannot prefer not searching after sinners, if one is convinced that such searching is the way, the best and necessary way, to produce joy, and life. Chapter 15, the third attempt to answer the criticism that Jesus “wel- comes sinners and eats with them”, presents the justification for “search- ing”. Let us ask again: can joy at finding justify the search? That heaven rejoices over the result of Jesus’ winning over sinners is assurance that the means is justified by its effect. We should add to the praise of Wisdom by her children, then, the joyfulness of heaven as further proof that Jesus’ way of trying to convert sinners to repentance is valid. Yet, it is reasonable to look for a teaching beyond parable; we look for a clear example of the effect of Jesus’ fraternization with sinners. IV. Jesus and Zacchaeus (chap. 19) The fourth occurrence of this criticism, that Jesus ‘fraternizes with sinners’ in his public life, is in chap.19; the complaint is this time from a crowd: “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner” (v. 7), who, indeed, is a chief tax collector. Luke makes no mention of “eating and drinking”, but such activity can be presumed from the word “stay” (mei/nai), since one can assume such hospitality in this circumstance, given what we have read earlier. There are certain features of this story which distinguish it from the previous three examples already cited. For the first time we have a real individual and situation before us; previ- ously, we had groups mentioned, but no individual, and imagined figures in parable form. In addition, we have for the first time mentioned a general crit- icism of Jesus from a group traveling with him, not altogether the “people of this age”. Also, the suggestion that we are to see a tight relationship between “salvation” (“Today salvation has come to this house”) and repentance is, in the Gospel, first offered here. In addition, we read that Jesus “must stay” in Zacchaeus’ house; this is similar to Jesus’ earlier statement, that “he was sent” to call sinners, but dei/ me mei/nai (19,5) brings us much more directly into the sphere of the divine predestination which has determined all things. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati