Coming to Your House Luke 18:9-14

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Coming to Your House Luke 18:9-14"

Silvia Hubbard
5 years ago
Views:

1 Brent Newberry All Saints Day Wilshire Baptist Church 3 November :00 service Dallas, Texas Luke 18:9-14 When I was a teenager I was very active in the youth group. I did all the usual things: mission trips, Wednesday night bible study, youth choir, breakfast clubs. We had something called a lock-in that I hear Darren wisely avoids. Essentially, it s a giant sleepover where no one is allowed to leave hence the lock-in part. It ends up turning into an all-night youth party that could be directly linked to the high turnover rate among youth ministers. Yeah, I loved being in the youth group. But I remember it was like pulling teeth to get me to help with Vacation Bible School. Teenagers never want to wake up early, but especially not during their summer break. Even still, I remember many of the songs we sang with the kids: I ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in My Heart; Jesus Loves the Little Children; Pharaoh, Pharaoh. Of course who could forget: 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 as the savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree. And he said, Zacchaeus you come down. I remember thinking that it was a horrible climax to the story. In my legalistic mind, I wanted to see Zacchaeus saved from the fires of hell, walking down the aisle to Just As I Am, reciting the sinner s prayer. I wanted to see him join the church and sign up to play on the church basketball team so that there d be someone my height that I could guard. That s not the gospel; it couldn t be, could it? To remember Zacchaeus as a beloved character is to forget where he came from in the story. He was a bad-guy. He was a chief tax collector, rich and reviled and dishonest. Tax collectors were villains, traitors, cheaters. They were corporate thieves. They were the banking chief executives who took lavish business trips to Las Vegas during economic meltdowns. Tax collectors weren t just Roman IRS agents; they sold out their countrymen. They charged higher margins so they could keep more for themselves. Imagine the cashiers at the grocery store charging you extra just so they

2 could take a little commission, and then give it to North Korea. Zacchaeus was a bad-guy. If Veggie Tales made him into a vegetable he d be a brussel sprout: squatty, bad, and hated by everyone. If we look at this text in the context of the whole book of Luke, it would seem that something dramatic is going to happen to Zacchaeus something bad. Luke spends considerable time detailing the plight of the rich. For all their material wealth, they are spiritually poor. Maybe it s the rich man and Lazarus; we see the rich man tormented in the fire, begging for water because he never gave to the beggar, Lazarus. Maybe it s the rich man who wants to build bigger barns to house the increased abundance of his crops. We see him die in the midst of the remodeling. Maybe it s the Rich Young Ruler, who seemingly has it all but is unwilling to give it away. He s looking for an eternal life that is a sort of post retirement, retirement plan. He never wanted to part with his wealth; he wanted to insure it for the next life. When we get to the story of Zacchaeus, it makes sense, then, for us to expect the worst for him. He s right in the thick of a narrative that says the rich will have an easier time finding a 2 parking place for their Lexus at the symphony than joining in the kingdom of God. We re expecting another bad ending for another rich person. We zoom back into our story and we see a big fuss in the town. Crowds are gathering, Jericho is buzzing, and word spreads that Jesus is coming to town. We don t know the motive for why Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus; the text simply says he was trying to see who Jesus was. Maybe he is only curious, or maybe he finally got bored with doing back flips into his pools of gold coins. Or maybe, for all his wealth, Zacchaeus still finds himself coming up short hated, outcast, and alone. Maybe Zacchaeus is desperate to be known and loved. When he gets to the crowd he can t see. Maybe it s because he was short or maybe it was because the people so hated him that they barricaded him from the action. 1 Yet Zacchaeus doesn t care: about the crowd, about the hatred, about his height. He just wants to see Jesus. Zacchaeus stands on his tippy toes, jumps on people s shoulders, climbs a tree, straining to catch a glimpse of Jesus passing by. And then, for all that effort, against the odds, he not only sees Jesus, but is seen by him. And he is changed. 1 Luke 19:1-10, Robert Leach. Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, 262.

3 Without direction from Jesus, Zacchaeus offers half of his possessions to the poor on the spot, and promises to pay back four times what he owed to those he defrauded. Change happens, salvation comes. Nothing else mattered anymore to Zacchaeus. He had real life, real wealth, real hope. You can almost see Zacchaeus leaving behind mother and father, sister and brother, vocation and wealth and admiration for the richness of the kingdom of God. Jesus stepped into the city; he interrupted Zacchaeus life. He sees Zacchaeus; he calls him. Come down from that tree. My dog s full name is Zooey Deschanel Newberry. For those of you who don t understand why that s humorous to the others, Zooey Deschanel is a semifamous actress. I liked her in a movie, and when I got Zooey, I decided to name my dog after her. I think I was thinking it was cute, and might get me a couple of extra dates, but as you can see, that didn t really get me anywhere. Now, I m not the only one in this sanctuary who cares about celebrities. Our culture is obsessed with them. Magazines, articles online, television programs, Twitter feeds they re all focused on the lives of these celebrities. 3 Inexplicably, we care what they say, what they re doing; we re fascinated by any glimpse into their way of life. But ultimately what they say on Twitter or in interviews or in the movies doesn t change a thing about our own lives. They can tell a joke and we ll laugh and go on with our day or plagiarize it and retell it as if it was our own joke. Celebrities can complain about the government and we might find solidarity with them, but in the end nothing about how we live our lives changes. And I think out loud with you, and wonder if this is how we see God. God is distant and removed, unattainable, a celebrity, if you will, who we care to know about and read about and follow, but who doesn t really effect a change in our lives. I wonder if Zacchaeus didn t see Jesus much the same way, at first. The crowds were gathering, the entourage was approaching, the paparazzi was in place. Climbing a tree was as close as he could get. Except this God wasn t like the idols of Hollywood. This God didn t stroll down the red carpet or show off for the cameras. This God pushed through the crowd of adoring fans and found a wee little man in a tree. Jesus saw Zacchaeus in that tree and went to him. Jesus didn t care about Zacchaeus past or his height or his job; he cared about Zacchaeus. He saw Zacchaeus as he

4 was, not as the crowd made him out to be. And it changed Zacchaeus life. We live in a culture where everyone is consumed with comparing themselves to everybody else. We re always looking and watching what other people do and say and wear and buy. And we re keenly aware that others are also looking at us. It s why we buy specific brands of clothes and drive specific brands of cars and live in specific neighborhoods. It s why we spruce up our Facebook profiles and Instagram all the amazing things we do in our spare time because we want people to see a version of ourselves that they ll like. Our vanity is a symptom of a greater pain. We ache to be known. For all the looking and watching and comparing and judging, so many of us are so very lonely. I think it s a big reason why social media has become a phenomenon. We want to be seen, not in the casual way or the judgmental way. We want to be seen to be known. We want to be accepted and valued and loved. We are just like Zacchaeus, always being seen by others, often being judged, but rarely being known. Some 4 of us feel like outsiders, ridiculed, and judged and made into caricatures of ourselves. We begin to believe what they re saying about us. We begin to forget who we are and what we re worth. We begin to define ourselves on other people s terms. Others of us feel like we re the classic insiders, that we ve chased the American dream, drunk enjoyment until our taste buds have gone numb. We ve tried everything, impressed everyone, but we re still coming up short. We re known for our looks or our intelligence or our accomplishments or our careers, but few people really know us. And then and then, in our moment of desperation, we climb out on a limb and see this God on the move. We see God. Not a distant and removed god, not a celebrity we are intrigued by, but the God who moves toward us, who is looking for us, at us. And finds us. And we re seen by God. Not as a tax collector, not as a thief on a cross, not as an adulterer or a bad parent or worse friend or a slow learner or a social outcast or a successful lawyer or giving doctor or underpaid teacher or ordained clergy; we are seen as the person Jesus wants to have dinner with. As the one Jesus was on his way to see. We are seen as who we are: deeply loved.

5 Zacchaeus, come down from that tree. We don t have to stay in the tree and watch Jesus from afar. God has come near. Wilshire, climb down from that balcony. God is on the move, seeking and seeing and saving the lost. Wilshire, climb up from those pews. God is on the move to your city, to your neighborhood, to your house. Wilshire, climb out of this sanctuary. God is on the move in your life, daring you to be seen, to be known for who you really are by the one who made you who you are. Be seen, Wilshire. And be changed. 5

Sinner Meets Savior Message by DD Adams Providence United Methodist Church October 25, 2015

Sinner Meets Savior Message by DD Adams Providence United Methodist Church October 25, 2015 Today s gospel lesson comes from the book of Luke, chapter 19, verses 1 through 10. I ll be reading from the