Maybe the Muttering Helped - Bill White

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” - Luke 19:5-7

I’ve always thought poorly of the crowd in this passage for muttering. They were the ‘judgy’ people when Jesus was hanging out with the sinners. But as Jenny Yang pointed out yesterday, no doubt there were people in the crowed whom Zacchaeus had exploited. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing for them to mutter a bit.

I wonder if the muttering might have helped the crowd get in touch with their sense of betrayal. Zac had certainly turned against them - he was a pawn of the Romans, after all. I also wonder if their muttering might have helped them get a more accurate picture of the kind of table Jesus was creating. Jesus’s table was not either-or. It wasn’t good people vs. bad people. It was for people. That must have been a hard pill to swallow. But I bet it went down better having an honest assessment of who you’d have to sit with as opposed to pretending it was going to be easy.

I also wonder if the muttering might have been good for Zac. Perhaps it helped bring to mind the wrongs he had done and allowed him to realize how much he needed grace. And eventually, that muttering might have been part of what led him to make his big pronouncement about giving money to the poor and even paying reparations.

In general, ‘muttering’ in scripture is not a virtue. But there’s something about paying attention to our muttering that can actually help us move forward on the road towards Jesus. Our muttering can explode real issues that need to be dealt with.

Where is there muttering in your life these days?