October 30 2016 Sermon
Pistis-Living Your Faith Story
Luke 19:1-10
He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’
Let us pray: Holy and Everlasting God, pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here that we might hear your invitation to make amends with you and our neighbors as a sign of your kingdom among us. May the meditations of our hearts and minds be pleasing to you O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This week we are concluding our preaching series ‘Living Your Faith Story’ with a lectionary text from the gospel of Luke in which Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector in Jericho, has a transformative encounter with Jesus. A reminder that next week we will celebrate All Saints Sunday and give thanks for the lives of those who have nurtured us in love and faith and passed into everlasting life with God. It is a service you do not want to miss.
In our journey into faith thus far, we have each covered a tremendous amount of ground, sometimes walking in the good company of others and at other times walking alone, slowly, with our heads held low. Some of our stories are defined by self righteousness, others in seeing themselves or neighbors far less valuable and beautiful than God does. I want you to own your story, in all of its twists, turns, detours, and surprises. Certainly there are portions of your story that you want to edit out, cut from the final version, or erase completely as if they never happened. Even so, each of you has a unique story with God that you can tell and share with authenticity of how the grace of God has brought you thus far and will lead you forward.
There are folks all around looking for walking partners because their life seems wayward, lost, out of control, or not worth living at all. That is our invitation-to be walking partners and story tellers so that all might know and experience the transformative grace of God.
This morning we will look at Zacchaeus’ story for he as the most despised public official and individual in town receives Jesus’ pronouncement that today salvation came to Zacchaeus’ house. Surprising! Not only does Zacchaeus receive this divine blessing and promise, his actions are indicative of someone who has encountered the transformative grace of God.
For those that grew up in Children’s Church or Sunday school, you might know this song about Zacchaeus.
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man ,
and a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see.
And when the Savior passed that way
He looked up and said, ‘Zacchaeus,
You come down, For I’m going to your house today! For I’m going to your house today!
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, But a happy man was he,
For he had seen the Lord that day And a happy man was he;
And a very happy man was he.”
I imagine it would have been difficult to include a stanza about how Zacchaeus’ line of employment led him to extort and bleed dry his neighbors on behalf of the government. Probably not a helpful lesson for elementary school students anyway. I’ve mentioned it times before that tax collectors were not held in very high esteem by the communities in which they worked. As chief tax collector in charge of operations in Jericho, Zacchaeus would have negotiated a contract with Rome guaranteeing the payment of a certain amount of money which would be levied from members in the community. They would pay taxes on property and possessions. In order to fulfill the contract with Rome, Zacchaeus oversaw others who would go into the village and marketplace and demand payment from vendors or travelers for whatever they currently held in their possession.
Since ancient Jericho sat on the crossroads of well traveled trade routes, you can imagine that anyone passing through town was a prime target for tax payments. Once Zacchaeus fulfilled his payment to Rome, a portion of the top went to line Zacchaeus’ pockets and those working on his behalf. I can’t imagine many people liked this guy but as Jesus passes through town something stirs in his heart. He must see Jesus and he throws aside all self respect and honor as a grown man running to perch himself up in a tree. I imagine he had heard that Jesus, the one promised as the Messiah was spending time with folks just like him, much to the chagrin of the community. There is hope yet!
When Jesus takes notice of Zacchaeus, he calls him down and urgently insists upon dining in his home. A textual detail is important here because so much hangs on it. Even in the translation I read this morning, Zacchaeus’ words are future tense. I will give to the poor. I will pay back those who I have defrauded. In the Greek, Zacchaeus’ words are present tense and scholarly wisdom suggests this is the better way to read this text. I give half of my possessions to the poor. I repay those I have defrauded.
A few weeks ago in Wednesday bible study, when we worked with this story, I asked what difference does it make if Zacchaeus is already repaying before he meets Jesus or as a result of meeting Jesus? Perhaps Jesus’ pronouncement of salvation on Zacchaeus is because he is already fulfilling the justice expected of God’s kingdom come on Earth. Perhaps making amends is at the heart of the gospel and Zacchaeus, the despised one, is showing everyone else how to do it: repentance, forgiveness, restoration, transformation.
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Friar, ordained in the Roman Catholic Church is one of the leading contemporary teachers on spirituality, Christianity, and life with God. I commend all of his writing and lectures to you, especially his book Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. I think you will find his work like drinking cold well water on a scorching summer day for your soul-refreshing and life giving.
Rohr frames life with God (acknowledgment of who we are, our need for grace, forgiveness, and transformation) in terms of the 12 steps used notably in Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups. The gospel is the story of Jesus helping us recover the fullness and goodness of the divine image.
“We are all spiritually powerless, however, and not just those physically addicted to a substance…Alcoholics just have their powerlessness for all to see. The rest of us
disguise it in different ways, and overcompensate for our more hidden and subtle addictions and attachments, especially our addiction to our way of thinking.
All societies are addicted to themselves and create deep codependency on them. There are shared and agreed upon addictions in every culture and institution. These are often the hardest to heal because they do not look like addictions because we have all agreed to be compulsive about the same things and blind to the same problems. The Gospel exposes lies in every culture: The american addiction to oil, war, and empire; the church’s addiction to its own absolute exceptionalism; the poor person’s addiction to powerlessness and victimhood; the white person’s addiction to superiority; the wealthy person’s addiction to entitlement.”1
There is plenty to say and illuminate about the 12 steps and the way in which the gospel introduces grace into the pain and suffering of our lives that we might be healed. But I want to draw attention to steps 8 and 9 for I think they shed light on Zacchaeus’ transformative encounter with Jesus.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
This is the far more excellent way of love and the restoration and transformation of relationships but a road less traveled. Doesn’t it seem much easier to hold a grudge, cut off a relationship, or deny forgiveness than wade through encounters with honesty, feelings of resentment and distrust, or make amends so that relationships can heal? While seemingly easier to let these past relational harms and fractures stay there, there is not much freedom to live in God’s presence with a hardened heart.
Anna David gives us a look at what making amends and healed relationships look like at ground level.
“There was the time I met up with a friend I’d known since I was 12 but had fallen out with in my twenties. We went on a hike and I told her how sorry I was for the way I’d behaved the last time we’d spoken, five or so years earlier. It turned out she was in a 12-step program too—so she actually made amends to me right after I made them to her. By the time we got to the bottom of the canyon, we’d re-launched our friendship—on new, healthier terms. Over a decade later, we talk nearly every day.
I was promised miracles and they came—but never how or when I expected them.
Take my financial amends. The first debt that I owed was to my college roommate, for the time I’d borrowed her car in sophomore year and then acted surprised when I saw the dent. I explained to her that I’d actually crashed into something when drunk and lied to her, and that I wanted to reimburse her for the damages. But she wouldn’t hear of it.
For my next financial amends, I decided to just go ahead and send a check. It was to a girl I’d lived with when I first moved to New York after college, a girl who’d moved out of our crappy, railroad-style place without notice one Thanksgiving weekend when I was out of town. It was a nasty thing to do, of course. But it didn’t make it right for me to charge up the phone bill in her name as high as I could, and then not respond when she asked me to reimburse her. So I tracked down her address and mailed a check and a card, apologizing for the phone bill as well as for being—well, the kind of roommate who would inspire someone to move out over Thanksgiving weekend without notice.
She sent the check back, along with a note that said, essentially, that she was doing very well, that she had a husband, five kids and a thriving career as a chiropractor, and that if I felt so bad about my behavior, then I should donate the money to a good cause since she didn’t need my charity.
Like I said, not what I expected. But even that one allowed me to live with a little more freedom.” (2 https://www.thefix.com/content/making-amends-alcoholics-anonymous91408?page=all)
These are signs of the presence of God’s grace at work restoring us to life, healing wounds that have festered for years, and pointing to the nearness of God’s kingdom. It is telling that the story of Zacchaeus in which he is named a son of Abraham, an heir to God’s promises, is told as Jesus is on the cusp of going to Jerusalem to demonstrate his kingship by giving of himself freely. The nearness of God’s kingdom that we see in Zacchaeus’ making of amends is a demonstration that anyone can enter God’s fold. This is the fullness of Jesus’ ministry!
We don’t earn our way into God’s fold but when we know that Jesus’ work is for each of us to be transformed, no matter how lost, how could we not go forth and make amends with one another?
God’s grace is so near to us, as close as our breath, and there is still work of making amends to do in the community and in our families. Let us be like Zacchaeus who yearns for nearness to Jesus Christ and is already at work with neighbors for the sake of healing old wounds, demonstrating mercy, and offering forgiveness for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Bless you in the name of the Everlasting God. Amen.