Luke 19:1-10
July 6, 2020
Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Last weekend our family prepared to have a couple of friends over to visit. We put lawn chairs in our yard about 15 feet apart and got our masks ready. Instead of putting a yummy beverage on the table near their chairs, we lovingly placed a bottle of hand sanitizer.
One of our kids said, “Remember when we used to have people over for dinner?” We all laughed at how strange that idea seems right now. We miss easy and casual conversation around a table piled high with good things to eat. Board games played late and laughter flowing.
We miss those gatherings AND we trust they will happen again. Just like I miss being in the same room with all of you on Sunday morning AND I trust that physically gathering for worship will happen again. We are in a different season right now and it is my hope and prayer that in this season we will continue to make space for the Spirit to move in our individual and collective lives - to shape and re-form us for a more faithful, just, and loving future.
For now, as we live and move and have our being in this liminal time, we gather in other ways. We do this because Christ calls us to care for others and to care about the wholeness and health of the whole community.
We continue to worship online so that the essential worker and others who have to go out to their jobs each day are at less risk. We continue to worship online in hopes that our kids might be able to return to their classrooms this fall. We continue to worship online so our loved ones who live in care facilities might be able to have visitors someday soon. We continue to worship online so those who are high risk can go to the grocery store with less fear.
Thank you for the ways you are caring for others by continuing to worship online, wearing your mask in public, and taking other precautions that protect the health of our whole community. We are all making sacrifices right now for the good of the whole. I know it’s not always easy, but it is important. And I want to thank you.
Okay, but so what does this have to do with Zacchaeus? Well, I was thinking about that funny-sounding idea of having friends over for dinner when I heard the story from Luke’s gospel this week. Because we are told that Jesus goes to Zacchaeus’s house. And when I tried to envision that in my mind, my brain did the thing that it does when I’m watching a TV show and people are standing less than six feet apart. “No, Jesus! Don’t go in!” Does anyone else do that when you’re watching TV these days?
I digress. Because Jesus going into Zacchaeus’s house has nothing to do with our pandemic in 2020, of course. Jesus goes into Zacchaeus’s house because Jesus is Love Incarnate. When we say our mission is to Love Unconditionally? We do that because Jesus is our model and teacher. And Jesus goes into Zacchaeus’s house just as surely as he comes to each of our homes….he meets us at the communion table, he meets us in our times of private meditation and contemplation, he meets us on Zoom when we gather for prayers on Thursday night or class and laughter on Tuesday afternoons.
Jesus meets Zacchaeus as surely as he meets each of us. And when Jesus meets Zacchaeus, there is an unraveling. An unraveling of Zacchaeus’s own life as he is transformed by Christ’s love. An unraveling of everyone’s expectations as Jesus warmly meets a man who would have been looked down upon by so many gathered there that day.
That’s one of the most difficult and wonderful things about Jesus, isn’t it? The way he insists on loving EVERYONE. When he entered Jericho that day there were large crowds gathered to see him and hear him teach. If you had wandered through the crowd and asked people what type of person Jesus would choose to spend his precious time with, they probably wouldn’t have guessed it would be someone like Zacchaeus.
Not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. A person who was not only complicit in economic systems that harm, but actively made his living off of those systems. We have to remember that people like Jesus and his closest friends were living under Roman occupation. They lived in a society where they were routinely taken advantage of and the economic deck was stacked against them. No matter how hard they worked, there was no pulling themselves up by their bootstraps because the system ensured they didn’t have bootstraps to begin with. Roman tax collectors were a crucial part of maintaining the status quo - making sure the rich stayed rich and the poor stayed poor.
Jesus knew all of this, of course.
But when he came into Jericho, he went right up to Zacchaeus and greeted him by name. “Zacchaeus, I am going to your house today.”
I have to wonder what Zacchaeus thought at that moment. Was he feeling uncomfortable about the four-car garage awaiting them? Did he try to figure out what meal would be nice enough for Jesus but not so nice that it would reek of conspicuous consumption? Did he wonder if his family or servants would give him a funny look for showing up with this radical itinerant Jewish teacher?
Or maybe he was just thinking about his life. And how he felt like it was all unraveling. What worked before wasn’t working anymore. The old way of doing things seemed...broken. But he couldn’t quite see a way forward. He didn’t know the next step to take.
I think it was probably that last part that carried Zacchaeus’s feet to the top of that tree in Jericho that day. Not knowing exactly what he needed to do next but knowing he had to take a step towards this teacher, Jesus.
I wonder if he was nervous about being seen by Jesus. Lord knows Zacchaeus wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. What if Jesus ridiculed him publicly? Or did that thing that he was known for - telling a story that was hard to decipher? Or worse….what if he told a story that was easy to decipher and made it clear that Zacchaeus was a horrible, terrible, awful, sinful person outside of the realm of salvation?
What ifs swirling, Zacchaeus took a step towards Jesus. And Jesus responded by taking a step towards Zacchaeus. He greeted him. Went to his home. Those who saw it grumbled, “Why is Jesus wasting his time with a sinner? There are plenty of ‘good people’ here for him to talk to.”
Of course, if they had been paying attention to Jesus at all, they wouldn’t have been surprised. Spending time with those we might think of as “unworthy” is kind of Jesus’s thing. Just when we think we have some kind of hold on him and understand who’s in and who’s out, Jesus shakes his head and reminds us, “everyone’s in.” Just when we think we’ve drawn the circle in the sand big enough to include everyone who needs to be included, Jesus bends down and erases the circle completely.
There is no in, there is no out. There’s just love. And a continual movement towards one another in a steady dance of unraveling expectations.
Zacchaeus steps towards Jesus when he climbs that tree.
Jesus steps towards Zacchaeus when he greets him warmly.
Zacchaeus takes another step when he tells Jesus of his plans to radically alter his life.
His conversion is concrete and specific. He’s not just saying the words, he’s changing his actions. And his decision to give away half of what he has and try to make financial amends to those he has hurt in the past is a direct response to the grace and love Christ gives to him. Hearing these actions, Jesus pronounces that he is saved. But it’s not a private, individual salvation. And it’s not a salvation that’s relegated to the afterlife. Remember that salvation has the same root as salve - a healing balm.
Zacchaeus’s salvation brings healing not only to himself but also to his household and everyone who makes financial transactions with him. It’s concrete, specific, communal. And it’s salvation - healing - that happens here and now.
When we show up in faith - when we gather at Christ’s table - when we wake up each day and ask ourselves really and truly, “how can I love God and love my neighbor as myself today?”...
When we welcome Christ into our hearts and homes…. When we make difficult choices because they are what will bring healing to the whole community... When we take a single step towards Jesus, trusting he will meet us there again and again….
We do these things because we are willing - on at least some level - to allow this wild and wondrous faith of ours unravel us. Unravel our ways of being. Unravel our lives. Unravel our expectations.
We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t even have to be “good.” Christ meets us nevertheless.
And calls us by name. And wants to join us in our homes and hearts. And unravels our expectations about who belongs….again and again and again.
Thanks be to God.
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