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These days it’s hard for me to read this story of Zacchaeus, that wee little man, and not think about…billionaires. I have to admit I am very prejudiced against billionaires. There may be some of them out there that are really nice people. In the news, the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, weighing in at 3.9 billion, seems alright but that’s just on TV and by juxtaposition to a certain other billionaire. That other? According to Forbes, the current US president’s net worth has gone up 3 billion since being elected to his second term November 6, 2024. There are laws down there that require elected federal officials, especially presidents, to take a hiatus from amassing private wealth during office to keep from appearing to be using the power of the office for personal gain. I don’t care to know how much the net worth went up of the other top American billionaires who stood behind him at his inauguration. Since that change in the American presidency, my grocery bill along with the cost of everything else except for gasoline here in Canada has gone up because of his economic policies. It’s worse in the States.
I’m sorry but I’m going to rant. Considering that corruption is usually the result when wealth and political power intermingle…need I say more. I will. I guess the history of the Robber Barons from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s has been written out of the high school textbooks. Have people forgotten what Carnegie, the Vanderbilt’s, the Rockefeller’s, the Huntington’s, the Dixon’s, etc. did to the average worker particularly in Appalachia. They pillaged the region and that’s an understatement because I don’t want to use the “r” word. Anyone who would vote for a billionaire for public office is not a good student of human nature nor of the historical relationship between wealth and political power. It’s bad enough that billionaires buy off politicians for political and economic favours, but to put one in office. Moreover, shouldn’t we be concerned about people who own or run multinational corporations holding positions of power in national governments. I apologize for the rant and I hope I don’t lose any friends over this one, but seriously.
There are roughly 3,028 (according to Forbes) billionaires in the world today. 247 more than there were in 2024. That’s 8% growth in one year. 8 of the top 10 billionaires are American. There are 902 billionaires in the US. 89 more than last year; 10% growth since this president took office. (Oh, that Big, Beautiful Bill.) China has half as many coming in at 450, 44 more than last year; 10% again. Russia with its war economy is ranked fifth in the world with 140, up twenty from last year; 14%. Oligarchies are quite lucrative for the billionaires especially when there’s war involved. We have to wonder about Germany sitting at #4 with 171 of them, 20 more than last year, 12% more. Canada has 76, nine more than last year, also 12% more. The rich keep getting richer.
What about everybody else? Globally, there are roughly 3.63 billion people earning an income among the 8.23 billion global population. Only 3,028 of those workers are billionaires. 50% of those workers earn only 8% of global income averaging US$6.85/day(@$2,500/year) and own 0% of the world’s wealth. The top 10% (@360M people) earn 52% of global income. Realizing a difference between income and wealth, the wealthiest 1% inclusive of billionaires own 47.5% of the world’s wealth. That’s from The World Inequality Report 2022. I suspect it’s worse now. Moreover, a year and a half of a global Pandemic made for a sharp little spike in billionaire assets; i.e., they took advantage of us when we were sick.
Here in Canada by global standards we are doing pretty good; 24th overall in average gross individual income. The Canadian average gross individual income is around $54,000, but how many people do you know actually make that? Take the rich people and an equal number of poor out of the equation and you get somewhere in the low $20k range for mean individual income.
Realizing that I’m "numbering" you into dullness, here's a normal life picture. My income which is made public every year in our annual reports…it’s pretty good for someone working in the non-profit sector. But, it is not enough in today’s world to support a family of four without taking on considerable and likely unpayable debt. A second income in the household is necessary. For this reason, finding ministers to serve in rural Canada is near to impossible. It’s just enough for a single person with no dependents to be fed and housed and have a little extra once any education loans are paid…and the education is required for the job. For the average Jill and Joe with a couple of kids, they now need a third income. That third household income became necessary in the last 9 months in the midst of a shrinking jobs market…all the while them billionaires are giving each other jet planes.
I think I need to distract myself for a moment because my blood is beginning to boil, so let me talk about Zacchaeus for a minute. Zacchaeus was a Jew who collected taxes for the Romans who were militarily occupying what they called the Province of Judaea. The larger Jewish community would have viewed him as a traitor only partly because he was employed by and for the Roman occupiers. The real hatred for tax collectors stemmed from the hard cold fact that nearly all of them used their post to extort money from Jewish the people. They were notorious for corruption. There was the Roman tax which was difficult for the average working Jill and Joe to pay and then there was what the tax collector padded on for himself. If you were a Galilean fisherman living from catch to catch and had a bad catch or got skunked completely one day, to keep from falling behind on what you owe the taxman you had to go fishing on Friday night, the Sabbath, in the dark hoping not to get caught by the religious authorities who would fine you for working on the Sabbath. If you’re a typical farmer and have a bad season... welcome to debt slavery. The corruption of tax on top of tax had everybody hurting except for the tax collectors who were rolling in the dough.
But Zacchaeus, he was apparently different. He claims to have not extorted wealth (maybe, it's kind of vague) and…he’s inexplicably drawn to Jesus. A usual tax collector would have shamelessly extorted the people and wouldn’t have cared less about a wandering prophet who was a friend to the poor. A usual tax collector would have been looking for a way to extort Jesus too. But not Zacchaeus as far as we can tell. He was just a Jewish employee of the Romans…and inexplicably drawn to Jesus.
Well, Jesus came to town. Zacchaeus, being a wee little man, humiliated himself by climbing a tree to see Jesus. A usual tax collector would have had his thugs clear the crowd away. Then, to everybody’s surprise, Jesus for some reason sought Zacchaeus out and informed him that he would be eating at Zacchaeus’ house that day.
The crowds, sharing my sentiment for billionaires, were put out by this. Zacchaeus was a “sinner”, a man steeped in the ways of the world as opposed to being true to his Jewish lineage, a betrayer. The crowd let Jesus know it too. Like good Israelites they grumbled. Jesus belonged to them not to the likes of that tax collector, that “Sinner”. When you’ve got a crowd of “sinners” calling you a “sinner”, well that kind of makes you a “sinner’s sinner”, the walking damned. 2,000 years later we’re fairly accustomed to Jesus being a friend to tax collectors and sinners but rather hard on judgemental, hypocritical religious types. But, how surprised would we be if Jesus got himself invited to a feast at the White House ballroom?
Well, I wish Jesus would and I wish the billionaires would respond like Zacchaeus did in response to Jesus' befriending him. Zacchaeus came on down from the tree and was joyed to welcome Jesus. Joy! But then, Zacchaeus, that wee little man, hears the grumbling of the crowds at what he had become being a tax collector. The Truth at what he had been doing with the life God had given him. He didn’t do what billionaires do when people try to hold them accountable. He didn’t belittle them, call them stupid with low IQs, or seek retribution by suing them for defamation. No. He immediately gave a third of his personal wealth to the poor and promised to repay fourfold anyone he may have extorted. He made restitution rather than sought retribution. We have to wonder what it would be like if billionaires instead of hoarding wealth in extravagance, shared it with the rest of the world who don’t have a livable income and no means of generating wealth. Reality is that it takes millions of very poor people to make one very rich person. Whether we mean for that to happen or not, it does; but… it’s reversible, you know.
Notice what Jesus calls salvation here. It’s not that Zacchaeus made the right decision about Jesus and now he’s going to Heaven when he dies. That’s not mentioned anywhere here. Salvation is that Zacchaeus, the betrayer of God’s people, is restored to being a child of Abraham by climbing down out of that figurative tree of ultra-wealth and restoring to his people, God’s people, what he had taken. In Jesus’ Kingdom, salvation looks like wealth shared rather than this game of accruing more and more and more of it. There needs to be a point where enough is enough. There’s nothing wrong with having some wealth as long as everybody has the opportunity to acquire wealth. One person having more than enough wealth robs a multitude of others from it.
If there was a role for the church could play in this, it would be to be more specific on wealth. It is not enough to simply talk about greed and stewardship. The Christian Church should be saying things like it is immoral to have an annual individual income of more than $115,000 and unethical not to give the excess to create means to wealth for those who do not have it. That means doing things drastically different than how Capitalism does it. At the very least, we in the church need to be thinking about and addressing in practical ways what is enough and what we should do when we have more than enough. Just saying. Amen.
