First Presbyterian Church

 

First Presbyterian Church

Rev. Sam Pendergrast

November 4, 2007

Luke 19:1-10

 

“The Church & Outsiders”

 

When I was young I used to dream that I was flying. I would walk off the top of the steps at the back of our garage and float out over the clothesline and the back yard, kicking my legs to stay airborne. I don't remember waking up to tangled sheets and blankets from all that kicking, but apparently that was the way I flew in my dreams. Nowadays I don't remember my dreams as often. The dreams I do have are more garden variety daydreams about what I hope to accomplish with my life and work, the careers my children may have, and what I would like to do on vacation.

 

We all have dreams. Often those dreams focus on our vision of our preferred future. One part of interim ministry that is almost too obvious to name is that you and I are here to work on what's next. We may not start the next big thing, but at least we hope to prepare the way. Your pastor has left. Your interim pastor is here. What does the future of the church look like?

 

All of you, I imagine, have an image in your mind of what you would like to see happen here. Each of  you has a vision for what the church might look like, could look like, should look like. You see the activities and programs that your children or grandchildren will take part in and what kind of mission outreach you hope for. You know how you'd like to see the building cared for or remodeled. You have an idea about worship styles and music. You know how many people will be part of the church and what they will look like. You know who belongs and who does not belong.

 

I say that you know “who does not belong” because, although most of us, if not all of us, have heard the Gospel vision preached enough times to know that “in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek,” we still resist accepting the implications. In our vision of the ideal church, we may be aware that the gift of salvation is for everyone whom God calls and that God's desire is for all to be saved. The trouble is that there are people we just don't want to share the same worship space or Sunday School class with.

 

The neighbors of Zacchaeus no doubt felt that way about him. He was a scum-bag. There's just no other way to put it. He was a chief tax collector. That meant that he was rich and corrupt, and that he had enriched himself at the expense of his fellow Jews. Chief tax collectors were Jews who collaborated with their Roman occupiers. They made a profit by gaming the system, skimming from the till and collecting more than was due them. In addition, they were perpetually unclean from handling unholy items on which the Romans levied taxes. People like Zacchaeus were hated by their neighbors.

 

In the realm of the spiritual life Zacchaeus had several strikes against him. There was no way he could ever be anything but religiously unclean, simply by virtue of his profession. He must have long ago given up the idea of entering the Temple or of offering any sacrifices to God. He had become rich by stealing repeatedly from his neighbors. Finally, if we look at what the Gospel of Luke has said about rich people to this point, someone like Zacchaeus appears to be the object of God's judgment. Jesus told a story about a rich man who built bigger barns to hold his bountiful crops and said that God judged him as a fool. In the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus, it is the rich man who ends up in torment in Hades, begging for water to cool his tongue. Luke's version of the Beatitudes includes the statement, “Woe to you who are rich...,” and we hear Jesus tell us that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. What chance does Zacchaeus have for peace with God? What must he think about himself? One would imagine that he has long ago given up worrying about his outcast state, hardened his heart and taken comfort in his wealth and position of power.

 

How surprised we are, and how surprised the people of Jericho must have been, to see him run ahead of the crowd and climb a tree so he could get a look at Jesus as he passed by. Men of standing did not run. Nor did they climb trees if they cared a bit about their dignity. Luke does not explain Zacchaeus' motivation. Nor does it seem important. What is important is what happened next. Jesus stopped, looked up into the tree, and told Zacchaeus to come down because “I must stay at  your house today.”

 

Please understand. Jesus does not mean that the manners your mother taught you were wrong. Don't take this as license to start inviting yourself out for supper at your friends' houses or to start asking them to pay your check next time you have lunch. In Jesus' time it was considered a great privilege to be able to provide hospitality for travelers, especially for a prominent teacher and healer. For Jesus to come to Zacchaeus' home for supper was to confer upon this tax collector a dignity that he long ago had lost. The presence of crowds following Jesus to Zacchaeus' home would have been a great honor – and a great scandal.

 

It is at this point that the crowd begins to grumble and to show its disapproval. How dare Jesus treat him as if he belongs!? How dare Jesus accept this sinner's hospitality!? That's how we think, for that is who we are, after all – the religious people, the proper people who know what sort of folk to avoid keeping company with. Salvation, in the person of Jesus, has come to Zacchaeus' house this day. Zacchaeus repents and vows to observe a very strict law of repayment to those he had cheated. It seems that he has borne fruit worthy of repentance, to use the words of John the Baptist. Then Jesus calls Zacchaeus a “son of Abraham” as if he belonged to the community. It appears that God can lead even rich men into the Kingdom. The implication seems to be that the Kingdom is incomplete, the religious community is unfinished, the church is still partly empty until everyone is brought in.

 

Our ideas about who belongs and who does not belong in the church will have to take a back seat to the passionate desire of God to bring in the Kingdom and to redeem the whole creation, even you and me. Our vision of the church may need some rethinking. How can God's vision and Jesus' all-inclusive love become our vision so much that we begin to live it out as we shape the ministry of the church?

 

William Willimon tells a story from when he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University.

 

One of my students came under the influence of a sect which was working on campus. His parents called me, frantic to rescue him from the dominance of this demanding, separatist group. The group was completely monopolizing the young man's life.

 

When I finally met with him, he talked of his experience with the group. When I asked, he told me he had grown up in a Lutheran church in the Midwest, that his parents had been active in the church all their lives.

 

“Then why on earth could you become involved in this fringe group?” I asked.

 

“Well, it all started on the first Sunday I visited them. When I walked into their church, I saw black people, white people, people of every shade of the rainbow. You could feel the love. Our church had always preached this sort of loving fellowship to me. But I had never seen it until I walked into that group. I said to myself, 'This is the church I've always heard about but have never seen until now.'”

 

What would you do if you saw the church you had always heard about, the church you had always dreamed of? Would it scare you? Would you run away? What changes would it ask of you? What needs to die in you, in me, in this imperfect church in order for the church to be closer to the church that makes a home for everyone, even corrupt old sinners like Zacchaeus? This story challenges us to think about who is welcome and who is not, and about how we welcome strangers and those we may call “sinners” into the church. Preaching on this story in a congregation that is wealthy is an opportunity to think about a central theme of the Gospel. More than any other topic, Scripture addresses the matter of wealth. I am reminded of a story Robert Coles, the child psychologist, told from his interviews on the spiritual lives of children.

 

Coles was talking with a young girl whose parents were migrant laborers harvesting crops in California. He asked her about how hard their life was, the long, grueling work, the poor living conditions and moving from place to place all the time. He asked, “What about the rich people who own these fields? What do you think about them?” “I pray for them all the time,” was the girl's answer. “Pray for them? How can you do that, with the way they treat you?” “Oh, I can't hate them. They need Jesus worst of all – the Bible tells us.”

 

Maybe the reason those who have great resources are a subject for constant prayer is because they have so much potential to do good and so much potential to cause harm. After all, the Bible also says that from those to whom much has been given much will be required. This is one of the few stories in Scripture where Jesus embraces a wealthy person. Most of the time we see him reaching out to the poor and rejected, the more ordinary outcasts of the community. But this corrupt old tax collector is just as in need of compassion as the harlot or the beggar. His heart is just as lonely and his need for salvation and a place at the great banquet is no different. The fact that Jesus did not let prejudice and judgment, Zacchaeus' hard heart or his neighbors resentment stop him from reaching out is a challenge to us. What barriers do we allow to stand in the way of a more inclusive church? Who would we rather not welcome to our church? Remember that the qualification to be embraced by Jesus is not whether one is good or poor. The one qualification to be found by Jesus is to be lost.

 

That's the only reason for us to invite and welcome and include anyone in the fellowship of this church – that they hunger for forgiveness, fellowship, a connection with the power of God's Spirit and a place to belong and make a difference. When you are worried about the survival of your church it's easy to circle the wagons and think about what you don't have and what you want to get, rather than what God has given you to share with the world. When you are fearful about the future it is easier to forget that God gave the church to the world for the sake of the world, not for the sake of the church. We are here to continue the work that Jesus began. Hard as it may be to hear, we are here to give ourselves away, not to focus on our own survival. One of my favorite quotations from a book of meditations for pastors is this: “Your life and the life of your church will one day come to an end. What will you do in the meantime?”

 

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” That's what it's about. In the story of Zacchaeus, we see Jesus enlarging the boundaries and bringing in the lost. As you dream about the future of the church, remember that the reason we are here is to give life to the world, to open our doors and welcome the stranger and to share the good news of Jesus. If we are going to stay close to Jesus, we will have to be willing to stay close to the people he loves. If we're going to stay close to him, we'll have to be willing to share him. By that kind of sharing, salvation comes to all our houses. Thanks be to God.