“I cannot pay you now.”
Those were my favorite words. That meant that I could increase the debt.
“When can you pay me?” I said.
“In seven days.” He said to me. He stood at least two heads taller than me. But I knew that my presence made him feel like a smaller man. I relished in it.
“But I must inform you—” I searched the scroll in my hand for his name. “Asher, that the taxes are due today and the Romans do not like delinquency. Therefore, I will have to add twelve percent to your total bill if you wait a week.” I paused. The man said nothing. “I expect full payment next week,” I continued, “and there will be no extensions.” I liked to punctuate my demands by raising my voice. It was the only large thing about me.
“Fine.” He studied the ground. “I will have the money by then. But can you understand? The harvest hasn’t been kind to me and my family and—” I waved my hand to cut him off. I didn’t care how they made their money, the Jews. I just cared that they paid what they owed me. I mean the Romans. What they owed the Romans.
“That is of no concern to me.” I said. I scowled at the boy behind the man’s knee. His head was buried in his father’s cloak.
This man had many children. I saw them all milling about. There was this one behind his knee and one standing a couple paces behind him. His wife was holding two, one in her arms and another in her belly. I tilted my head. Yes. There was even one behind her knee as well.
Children. I did not like them. They reminded me that I was short, like a child. Was I being especially cruel to this Asher because he had a lot of children? Perhaps. Was I taking five percent more than the Roman government required? Yes. But it was my duty to teach these people a lesson. A lesson they never seemed to learn. That I was a somebody. That I, Zacchaeus, chief tax collector, could not be overlooked.
“I will need something as a promise that you will pay.” I said to the man. “You’ll get it back once you do. One of these children perhaps?” The woman gasped. I loved doing that. The man fumbled as he searched his person for something of value. I knew he would find nothing there.
“Her ring.” I said, ready to speed the process along now. I had seen it the moment I met them. She had a silver band on her finger, couldn’t have been worth more than two denarii. But I could deal in sentiment too. She took it off slowly, just slow enough to be irritating and handed it to me. I grabbed it and put it on my pinky. “Ok, next week.” Then I looked at her and kissed her ring. “We’re done here.” I said and I walked away before she began to cry. I knew she would.
I went home after that.
The rugs greeted me in their brilliant colors of saffron, crimson and gold. I wiggled my toes in their soft pile and sat down on one of the silk pillows, waiting for the rush to come. It was the feeling of vindication. It was like a drug to me. Each time I had the upper hand, each time I made someone squirm, I got the rush. Oddly, this time it didn’t come. Something else was gnawing at me and I didn’t like it.
I decided to polish my rings. I got out the wax and slowly removed each gem studded band from my fingers. Ten of them, eleven including the small silver band. I chucked that aside. Hers didn’t deserve polishing. I examined each stone, a sapphire, an emerald and a diamond. I stopped for a long time on the pearl. That was my favorite, it was my father’s ring. He had only worn one.
My father was also a tax collector for the Roman government.
As a child, I watched him whenever we walked in the market. He would smile at every person. Greet most of them by name. They never smiled back. Some even crossed the street when they saw us coming, grabbing their children like we would eat them for dinner. My father never seemed to mind, he just kept smiling.
“A man has to make a living somehow.” He used to say to me. “I’m no different than a carpenter. I just happen to be employed by the Romans.”
“Is that why everyone is so mean to us?” I said. “Because you work for the Romans?”
“Pay them no mind, son.” He would say.
But my mother paid them mind and I did too. We knew that we were outcasts. We didn’t belong anywhere. We were Jewish but the Jews didn’t like us because my father collected their taxes for the Romans and the Romans didn’t like us because they thought the Jews no better than mice in their pantries. We had a large table with fine food but no one to share it with.
We were a lonely bunch.
I could see it in my mother’s eyes when she watched other women chattering together walking hip to hip, shepherding children down the street. She held her head high like my father but sometimes she would set the table for seven. When I asked her about it, she said she just liked to set a proper table, but I knew she was imagining we were having guests.
I resolved to become something other than a tax collector. I did not wish the same for myself, for my future wife and children.
But the Romans came knocking. Making offers that were comparable to what my father received ten years into the job. I almost agreed on the spot but remembered my mother’s sad eyes.
I told the Romans I wasn’t ready.
I bought an anvil and a hammer instead. I liked metal and the idea that I could create things from it, bend it to my will. I could make things that would be beautiful and useful to the Jews. Maybe weapons, should we ever have to fight the Romans.
But then my father died unexpectedly.
He was sitting at the table with us one morning, speaking normally, laughing at his own jokes, bread crumbs flying from his mouth like usual and then he collapsed. He had seemed as healthy as our neighbor’s bull. My mother and I were shocked.
No one came during Shiva. We hired mourners but even they seemed to be secretly smiling at the sudden death of my father, the tax collector.
No one honored him. No one said kind words or brought a meal or paid him tribute. No one mentioned his crooked smile or the easy way he laughed or the fact that he was generally jovial and kind. No, they only saw that he collected taxes for the government, as if that made him less human somehow. And the worst is that he never even cheated them. I knew the numbers and he always took what was needed if not a little less. He tried to help them. A widow? He would reduce her debt a bit, throw in some of his own money. An ailing man? Same thing. I saw him do it many times.
But he was still ostracized, treated like a foreigner in his own hometown.
So I cheated them. I was so angry, I walked myself up to the Romans seven days after my father died and took up the Roman seal. I would collect taxes like my father. I would honor him if no one did. Then I would cheat them because they deserved it.
And that’s how I became chief tax collector.
There’s a thing about bitterness, though. It’s a heavy load. I was beginning to notice its weight.
I slid the polished rings back on my fingers, pausing on the little silver one, the woman’s. I sighed and got up. A knot had settled in the pit of my stomach were the adrenaline used to be. I went out into the street and found the man’s house. I knocked on the door.
“Here is your wife’s ring, there is no need for me to keep it.”
“This isn’t it,” he said. “It has too much shine.”
“I know, I polished it. I assure you it’s the same one. And please, take this one too.” I handed him the one with the emerald. I figured it would feed his family and pay his taxes for at least half a year. His eyes were wide. He wouldn’t take it. He acted like I was handing him a snake.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“You have many children. The harvest, you said, it wasn’t good. You need it and I do not.” I showed him my fingers gilded in gold and silver.
I put the ring in his hand and then left before he began to cry. I knew that he would.
A crowd was stirring in the street. It shifted and grumbled like a beast. I usually avoided crowds. They reminded me of my stature. I could never see over the heads of those in front of me so on top of wasting my time, they made me feel small. I turned to walk in the other direction and collided with a man. I fell in the mud. I looked up ready to start a fight, figuring I had been pushed by a fellow Jew because it happened sometimes. But I saw a kind face instead. He extended his hand to me and lifted me back to my feet.
“Zacchaeus,” he said. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for people to know my name when I didn’t know theirs.
“Yes?” I said.
“Your father,” he said. “I’m sorry about his death.”
I was taken aback. No one was sorry about his death.
“You knew my father?” I said.
“I loved your father. He was kind and had a generous heart.” He said.
“You loved him?”
“Your father gave a lot of his wealth away.” He gestured to my empty finger where the emerald had sat. “It is good to give things away. I would like to stay at your house, if you have room.”
“Who are you?” I said again. I didn’t know if I should run away from this man or hug him. I had never had both sensations at the same time.
Just then two men came up in a rush.
“Jesus,” the first one said, out of breath, “everyone heard you healed the blind man on the road. The crowd seems to be growing and we’re all exhausted. Can we stay the night here in Jericho?”
“Where will we stay, Andrew?” The second said to the first. “Do you know anyone in this fancy city? I sure don’t.” He rolled his eyes.
Jesus. That was his name. I looked up to tell the men that they could stay with me, but the crowd engulfed me like rushing water around a rock in a stream. I was being pushed further and further away.
“Jesus!” I yelled. But I couldn’t see him any longer.
I was desperate. I needed to speak to this man, to find out who he was and how he knew my father. If he loved my father, maybe he could love me too.
I looked and saw the mottled bark of a Sycamore tree. I had climbed them as a child. A child with no friends makes quick work of tree climbing. I scaled it as fast as a squirrel, secretly thankful for my small stature.
As soon as I was high enough, I looked down in the crowd and there he was, this Jesus. He was still looking straight at me, as if his gaze had never left.
“Zacchaeus,” he said loudly over the hum of the crowd. “Hurry and come down, we need a place to stay.”
I climbed down as fast as I could. The crowd parted as I moved through it. I felt all their eyes on me, boring into my back. I knew they were angry that Jesus, the one they desired, was speaking to me, their local vermin.
“Jesus,” I said when I finally reached him. “I am sorry for what I have stolen from my people. I will give it back to them four times what I have taken.”
Jesus put his hand on my shoulder.
“You have been forgiven, Zacchaeus. You belong to my father’s family as you are a son of Abraham. I am here to go to your house, no one else’s.” He gestured to the grumbling around him.
I cleared my throat. I didn’t want him to see me cry but he smiled at my tears, as if the crying was expected, as if he knew that I would.
###
Consider reading Luke 19:1-10 to see Jesus’ compassion for Zacchaeus who was treated as an outcast by his own people.
The Tax Collector
Bravo! This narrative is superb. Once again, the author helps us imagine the plight, the feelings, the possible experiences of those in scripture that we never knew. And yet, while reading, we do know them. I couldn't help but wonder what other tax collectors' stories were. Why did they agree to make so much money at the cost of being hated by their own? Thanks to this author for another heartwarming springboard into scripture.