Lectionary Commentaries for November 2, 2025
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

The story of Zacchaeus is a natural favorite for preachers and Sunday school teachers alike. When I teach the text, I ask students or congregants if they grew up singing about Zacchaeus. Sure enough, a few folks will begin singing, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man…” And others will join in as the song continues with Jesus’ words: “‘Zacchaeus, come down, for I’m going to your house today!’”

The little narrative details make the story particularly memorable, relatable, retellable: Short Zacchaeus. The sycamore tree he climbed. The surprise of the change of his ways. Here we have a character who enters the narrative as a villain and ends as a new man, a loving neighbor to those he previously mistreated.

Luke’s initial description of Zacchaeus prepares the reader to encounter precisely such a villain in need of conversion. With three initial descriptors, the dynamics of his character are told. First, he is not just a tax collector but a chief tax collector (the Greek here is arkitelõnēs). He is part of the imperial administrative chain that represents the power of Rome to control the livelihoods of the locals of Jericho. Second, he is rich. Luke’s narrative has already cast doubt on the faithfulness of the wealthy. Think, for instance, of Mary’s song prophesying that God “sent the rich away empty” (1:53). Moreover, the assumption nurtured here is that tax collectors only attain wealth by abusing their neighbors.

The last designation is about Zacchaeus’s diminutive stature. According to Mikeal Parsons, ancient ideas about various kinds of embodiment and the way they reflect the value of people would have nurtured in the reader an assumption that a short Zacchaeus was worthy of ridicule and exclusion: “What is the rhetorical effect on the authorial audience? Luke has spared no insulting image to paint Zacchaeus as a pathetic, even despicable character. The image of a traitorous, small-minded, greedy, physically diminutive tax collector is derisive and mocking.”^[1]

If such is the image of Zacchaeus as we begin, his transformation is dramatic. At the end, he gives away half of his possessions and pays back those he has wronged. In so changing, he becomes “a son of Abraham” at long last, rather than a slave to empire and greed. He was once lost but has now been found. For preachers, then, this is a story meant to be imitated by all who have strayed far from the path of righteousness. Jesus has called him and us to repentance and the walk of repair.

This powerful narrative, however, contains other, perhaps even more powerful exegetical and homiletical possibilities.

First, as Isaac Soon has recently argued, the grammar of the Greek text leaves some ambiguity as to who exactly is the short person in the narrative.^[2] Is the “he” who was “short in stature” Zacchaeus or Jesus? While I think the grammatical and narrative context points to Zacchaeus, Soon entertains the real possibility that Luke imagines a short savior. No matter what conclusion the preacher might reach, Soon’s argument is a vivid reminder that these stories, as familiar as they may seem, still contain exegetical possibilities we do not entertain often enough. Moreover, there is an opportunity to invite congregations to test their assumptions about Jesus, even what he looked like. We can test our assumptions about what it takes for Jesus to deliver us.

Second, as Joel Green has argued in his commentary, Zacchaeus may not be the villain so many have assumed he is.^[3] When Zacchaeus speaks in verse 8, he may not be naming his future plans but his regular practice. Green notes that the tenses of the Greek verbs translated “I will give” and “I will pay back” are present-tense verbs. Greek tenses are flexible, so the typical translation is not incorrect, but an alternative translation is quite possible. Zacchaeus may be reporting his regular practice: I give to the poor, and I pay back when I have fallen short of my duties.

Thus, the ending of the story is not about a conversion of an individual but a shift in how he is perceived by his neighbors and the reader alike. He is not the rich chief tax collector we all assumed he was. He, too, is a son of Abraham. Even the tax collector belongs. Even Zacchaeus has a place.

And thus, the “lost” whom Jesus has come to save is not just a Zacchaeus excluded and marginalized because of communal perceptions of his wealth and profession, but a whole community fractured by his absence. That is, it is not just Zacchaeus who is delivered, but his household and the whole of Jericho as well.

So, the homiletical opportunities to help a congregation think broadly about the shape of salvation are rich with this passage. Rather than individualizing God’s deliverance, we can imagine its communal dimensions. Rather than pointing the finger at those “sinners” who do not belong, we might imagine the transformation to which God is calling us, the supposed insiders. Rather than boiling down salvation to a deferred gift of eternal life, we might imagine resurrection as a daily, tangible, communal transformation that can reshape our sense of who belongs, that will teach us anew that God’s grace is always more expansive than we have previously imagined.

Notes

1. Mikeal C. Parsons, “‘Short in Stature’: Luke’s Physical Description of Zacchaeus,” NTS 47 (2001): 55.
2. Isaac T. Soon, “The Little Messiah: Jesus as τῇ ἡλικίᾳ μικρός in Luke 19:3,” JBL 142 (2023): 151–70.
3. See Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1997), 666–73.

Isaiah 1 is—and is not—a beginning. Rashi, the great 11th-century CE French sage, points out that Isaiah’s call in chapter 6 is properly regarded as the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry. Everything that comes before that is prologue. And the first chapter is probably best understood as a sort of academic abstract; that is, this is a summation of the work at the beginning so that we know what we are getting into with Isaiah.  

Immediately, verse 2 shapes the theology and anthropology of the rest of the book: God is a loving but betrayed father, who seeks reconciliation with rebellious children. Natural consequences flow from national faithlessness, and Isaiah forecasts destruction and exile such that Jerusalem will be like a hut for harvesters that is abandoned after the fields are picked clean (verse 8). If God would not have left an exiled remnant, the people of Judah would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah (verse 9). 

After the prolepsis of destruction, exile, and return, our reading picks up with Judahite kings over 150 years before the exile. The rulers of the Southern Kingdom are compared to the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah. In a way, they are worse. They know to whom they need to offer worship. And it seems like at least in their religious punctiliousness God finds no fault. All sacrifices are offered correctly and on time. 

Nevertheless, God cannot stand the rites because of iniquity and bloodshed within the assembled congregation (verses 13, 15). God cannot tolerate even correctly offered worship because of the hypocrisy of worshiping a God whose commandments on neighbor-love are ignored. This concern of prioritizing obedience and inter-human peace over sacrificial worship is widespread in scripture (1 Samuel 15:22; Hosea 6:6–8; Jeremiah 7:1–15; Matthew 5:23–24). God would prefer, if it were indeed a zero-sum game between worship and obedience—though it must not be!—that the people would first practice righteousness and only then attend to worship.

In a summation for the rest of Isaiah, and perhaps the rest of scripture, Isaiah famously enumerates what Rashi calls the “10 exhortations of repentance” in verses 16–18. This reading offers an overview of what Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets, will offer to rebellious people as a pathway back to their Heavenly Parent, who longs for reconciliation. 

The first verb is “to wash.” The prophet understands the bloodshed of the preceding verse as literal. God cannot hear anything over the blood that cries out for vengeance (Genesis 4:10). The human who has shed blood cannot begin a path to repentance until they have, at the very least, recognized that hands should not be bloody. At the beginning of the 12 steps, one must admit that there is a problem. Removing the physical blood from hands represents acknowledgment that bloodshed is wrong. 

Second, after the physical blood has been removed, the guilt of bloodshed must be removed by the process of cleansing the moral stain of violence. Cleansing is more than simply washing; it is removing the infecting power of sinful action from the human soul. 

Third, after the evidence of sinful violence has been removed from the individual, it must also be removed from God’s notice. This is repentance proper—to make restitution and repay for good the penalties for violence (Exodus 21:12–27). Central to this moral calculus is the notion that unpaid blood-debt nags at God’s attention and is in front of God’s eyes until removed (verse 16). 

Fourth, after removing evidence of bloodshed from the human person, and then from God’s notice, the offenders are to intentionally cease causing bloodshed. God’s people are called to remove interpersonal violence as an option from the behavioral repertoire. I can hear Bob Newhart here shouting, “Stop it!”

Fifth, of course, bad habits of violence need to be replaced with good habits. As any parent will verify, children need to be taught to do what is good, not just to stop doing the wrong thing. Performing righteousness is a learned behavior and is not to be confused with simply ceasing to practice evil. It involves an active educational process where righteousness is taught. Christians will naturally identify this process as discipleship. Just as the early Christians had to cease practices of debauchery and participation in the empire’s violence and replace those habits with love feasts and sharing resources, so too were Isaiah’s hearers to cease participation in violence and replace it with neighbor-love and care for strangers. 

Sixth, one of the key areas for the repentant sinner to focus attention, according to Isaiah’s schema, was in the pursuit of righteous authorities to pronounce what is just and unjust. Just as someone going through repentance does not naturally know how to do what is right until taught, so a person does not know how to decide between parties in cases of justice without seeking to study with righteous judges. There are multiple layers of learning and apprenticeship in Isaiah’s vision of repentance.  

Seventh, while attending the judgments of the elders at gates or in law courts, the repentant person will have opportunities to meet many who were victims of robbery or abuse. Upon learning that another person has been harmed, the repentant is to strengthen those who have been robbed. Just as they once made restitution for their own crimes, now the repentant person works to undo the harm caused by another individual. 

Eighth, the repentant person moves from helping correct the wrongs done to a victim of individual crime, and attends to victims of structural inequities. They now turn to working for justice for the orphans, who do not have fathers to seek justice for them. 

Ninth, the repentant person is to plead the case of the widow, who has no husband to intercede for her with the judges. The repentant person becomes a sort of ombudsperson who repays a blood-debt to God and society by seeking justice denied to someone else. 

Tenth and last, after spending time in the earthly court, learning and practicing justice, the repentant person is to come and reason with God and to learn about God’s mercy and forgiveness. At the end of the process, the bloodstained hands are no longer crimson, but white as snow. 

Isaiah 1 offers an overview of the rest of the book. God is an aggrieved parent. But God calls out to rebellious children, offering an intentional, systematic pathway back into right relationship with God that creates a healthy society in the process. 

Commentary for this text is forthcoming.

Although Psalm 32¹ is one of seven identified by the early church as penitential psalms (also Psalms 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143), it is actually a psalm of individual thanksgiving.²

The psalmist looks back on a time of distress, precipitated by his sin, and recounts how the Lord’s forgiveness restored him not only to a right relationship with God but also to his faith community.

The psalm begins with two beatitudes describing people who are happy/blessed (’asrey) because the Lord has forgiven them and judged them innocent. The New Revised Standard Version’s translation of verse 1, “whose transgression is forgiven,” is certainly correct. The phrasing, however, conceals the passive participle derived from ns’, “to lift, carry, or take.” A person is indeed blessed when the burden of transgression is lifted and when sin is “covered” (kasah). In this context, the latter verb means that God covers over sin or puts it out of God’s own sight.³

That sort of concealment is quite different from the drive to hide one’s sin in silence and secrecy. “While I kept silence,” the psalmist admits, “my body wasted away.” The suffering itself was not quiet; his sickness was punctuated by loud, groaning cries of distress (s’anah; see Psalm 22:2; Job 3:24). No, the silence of Psalm 32:3 refers to the isolation that sin produces. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described that deathly power:

Sin demands to have a man [sic] by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person.⁴

In the case of the psalmist, sin infected his whole being. “My body wasted away,” the psalmist reports, “my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” It may be that secret guilt sickened him. A more likely interpretation, however, is the ancient connection between guilt, sin, and sickness. For example, Isaiah said of Zion and its residents, “And no inhabitant will say, ‘I am sick’; the people who live there will be forgiven their iniquity” (Isaiah 33:24). New Testament examples of this thinking appear in Mark 2:8–9; John 9:2; James 5:15. The association of disease with iniquity is an assumption that, unfortunately, persists in some circles even today.

The psalm pivots in verse 5. The reappearance of the vocabulary of the beatitudes of verses 1 and 2 informs us that the psalmist’s own experience provides the foundation for the confident opening affirmations:⁵

Happy are those whose transgression (pesa‘) is forgiven (ns’), whose sin (?a?a’ah) is covered (kasah).
Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity (‘on) , and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1–2)

Then I acknowledged my sin (?a?a’ah) to you, and I did not hide (kasah) my iniquity (‘on);
I said, “I will confess my transgressions (pesa‘) to the LORD,” and you forgave (ns’) the guilt (‘on) of my sin (?a?a’ah). (Psalm 32:5)

The psalmist knows the blessings described in Psalm 32:1–2 precisely and only because God graciously forgave sin and guilt. No one can earn such happiness, of course. The preacher of this text should not suppose a causal relationship between the confession of verse 5 and the Lord’s forgiveness. Grace remains always grace, ever unearned even by devoted acts of piety. The apostle Paul makes that clear when he cites verses 1 and 2 of this psalm in Romans:

But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:
“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are   covered;
blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” (Romans 4:5–8)

God is not obliged to forgive, and yet God promises to do so for the sake of the crucified Christ. That is the promise upon which we rely whenever we hear the words of absolution in corporate or private confession. That is gospel.

Nevertheless, still more good news wells up.

In Psalm 32:6, the psalmist summons the faithful to pray not so that the Lord would deliver in times of distress but because acts of loving rescue are what this God does. From the first chapter of the Bible God controls the forces of chaos, represented as water. In the Psalms, the phrase “mighty waters” commonly signals dire, life-threatening distress (Psalms 42:7; 69:1–2, 14–15; 144:7). Christians affirm that even today, God directs water to God’s purposes. Water, together with God’s promise, buries believers in a death like Christ’s in order to make us alive and free (Romans 6:1–7). Those mighty waters do reach us—thanks be to God!—and they do so precisely so we might live in the promise of resurrection.

Finally, there is the astonishing gospel declaration at the end of Psalm 32:7. “You surround me with glad cries (ron) of deliverance.” Cries of deliverance replace groaning (verse 3). The isolation and silence of sin are broken. Community is restored. The Lord surrounds the forgiven person with a joyful, loud, shouting community voicing their glad cries. The psalmist experienced the very thing Bonhoeffer prescribed for the church: “In confession the break-through to community takes place. … In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.”⁶

Likewise, verse 11 affirms the joy present in the company of the broken, forgiven community of God who celebrate with shouts (ranan, the root of “cries,” ron, in verse 7). The Lord alone makes God’s people righteous. For that, we shout our joyful thanks.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for November 3, 2019.
2. A. A. Anderson, Psalms (1–72), The New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1995), 254. Anderson correctly notes the wisdom influences in the psalm, including the beatitudes of verses 1 and 2 as well as the sapiential instruction—delivered as a divine oracle—in verses 8 and 9.
3. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 491.
4. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. by John W. Doberstein (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1954), 112.
5. For clarity’s sake the author has omitted the object suffixes and provided the lexical form of the following nouns and verbs.
6. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 112.

Second Thessalonians has traditionally been understood as a short follow-up to 1 Thessalonians. Technically, the ordering of the books in the New Testament is not necessarily chronological, but more so by special groupings (like letters to the same church or person) and then length within that grouping. Thus, 2 Thessalonians comes after 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament because it is shorter. Nevertheless, most scholars do in fact believe that 2 Thessalonians was written later.

A quick take on the wider situation goes something like this: Some believers in the community had died suddenly and unexpectedly (1 Thessalonians 4:13), and this was interpreted as a bad omen or a sign of divine displeasure. The believers’ processing of this was affected by local persecution, and the church was feeling discouraged. Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians to reassure them that they were held lovingly in the care of a gracious God and death held no mastery over believers who had died—Christ would return and reclaim his own. Paul also wanted to comfort the Thessalonian Christians with the truth that God would make all wrongs and injustices right in the end. 

It appears Paul wrote the shorter letter we call 2 Thessalonians only a short while later to make some clarifications and reinforce key theological themes (like hope, holiness, and hard work) from the first letter. Apparently, the persecution in Thessalonica had worsened, and for one reason or another, the church believed Doomsday had already come (2 Thessalonians 2:2). Paul provides an extensive breakdown of certain events that must transpire before the end (2:1–12). This supplements Paul’s eschatological teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11. While Christ will return unexpectedly, the so-called “Man of Lawlessness” will come first and wreak havoc before he is vanquished by Christ. 

Paul was not concerned that the Thessalonians know all the details of how cosmic history would unfold; his primary concerns were that the Thessalonian believers (1) prove themselves capable of reading through the deceptive words and behavior of others, (2) trust that God would triumph over evil and death in the end, and (3) “keep calm and carry on,” as it were, with their daily life of good and honest work, caring for their community and walking in faith, hope, and love.

2 Thessalonians 1:1–4, 11–12

Second Thessalonians begins like Paul’s other letters, with a prescript naming the senders (Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy) and the recipients, and offering Paul’s grace-wish and thanksgiving to God for this beloved church (1:1–4). Often, the introductions of Paul’s letters do not launch right into corrections, criticisms, or theological clarifications. While most of Paul’s letters are “occasional,” Paul tends to begin with worship, blessing, and appreciation before getting into the matters at hand. This is a salutary reminder that problems and setbacks will always exist, but we don’t have to live our lives in a constant state of emergency. Paul sets an example for how to live with a posture of gratitude first and foremost.

When it comes to Paul’s thanksgiving, each letter has unique elements, so it is important not to skim over these parts to get to “the real stuff” later on—Paul often previews key themes and ideas in his thanksgiving statements. Here, in 2 Thessalonians 1:3–4, the emphasis falls on the overall healthy spirituality of the Thessalonian church and how they have been a model to others of how to endure and thrive amid persecution and suffering. 

The lectionary only includes verses 11–12 of the next section of the letter (1:5–12), but these two verses about Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians only make sense within the context of the whole paragraph. On the topic of the people’s suffering at the hands of persecutors, Paul encourages them that God is not blind to or helpless in their plight. 

First, God uses suffering to promote maturity and resilience, “to make you worthy of the kingdom of God” (1:5, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). Second, God will, in fact, bring wrongdoing to justice and vindicate and relieve the harmed (1:6–8). While Paul often presents the one living and true God as gracious and merciful, this does not mean God is not concerned with honesty, integrity, equality, justice, and fair judgment. Both can be true at the same time, and this is a crucial theological teaching because one-sided views of God fail to capture the complexity and “thickness” of God as a person. And people are many things at once. 

Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians (1:11–12), then, is that through these trials and tribulations God will strengthen their understanding of their calling and their personal faith and trust in God’s goodness and plan. Each believer, Paul reminds them, is a representative on earth of the Lord Jesus, and when we face pushback from the world with humility, grace, and hope (rather than with violence and unbridled anger), we bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we serve. 

It’s important to note here that Paul doesn’t simply pray that the suffering will end. It’s not a bad thing to pray that, and Paul expresses his longing for the people’s relief (1:6), but his main prayer is for their growth in the midst of suffering. God can use suffering for great gain in our lives; Paul knew that firsthand (see 2 Corinthians 11:16–33). Suffering clarifies what we are living for, as well as our goals, dreams, and hopes for the future. If we are dead set on living a life of leisure, plentitude, and wealth, then suffering will only lead to misery and despair. But if we live as servants of God, wanting to conform to the image of Christ and bring renown to Christ’s name (2 Thessalonians 1:12), then hardships can strengthen our resolve and clarify our hope.

Engaging 2 Thessalonians 1:1–12 with your church

Preaching on a text like this can be (and I think should be) more than teaching through the text, especially because this passage focuses so much on prayer and gratitude to God. This is the perfect opportunity to have your church spend time imitating Paul’s posture of reverence toward God. A corporate prayer time can be organized in many different ways, but in attempting to reflect this scripture passage, preachers, worship leaders, and liturgists are encouraged to emphasize the following: 

• Prayers of blessings toward others in our lives (2 Thessalonians 1:2)
• Prayers of thanksgiving for other believers and churches that model abundant faith and Christlike love, especially as they face hardships (1:3–4)
• Prayers for self, that Christ would make us worthy of the kingdom, by God’s grace (1:5, 11–12)
• Prayers of thanksgiving for the righteousness and justice of God, knowing and affirming that God will restore the afflicted, punish wrongdoers, and establish peace and equality once and for all (1:6–9)

Recommended Resources

Gupta, Nijay K. 1 & 2 Thessalonians. New Covenant Commentary Series. Cascade, 2016.

Gupta, Nijay K. 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Zondervan Critical Introductions to the New Testament. Zondervan, 2019.

Johnson, Andy. 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Two Horizons. Eerdmans, 2016.

Marshall, Molly T. 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Belief. Westminster John Knox, 2022.