Sermons

Zacchaeus Reformed

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  October 31, 2004                                  Luke 19:1-10

Happy Halloween. Happy Reformation Day. I overheard a child earlier this morning who posited that Reformation Day is the day when we set our clocks back one hour! Also, the sixth grade Sunday school class sent an emissary to me last Sunday. Very strategic. The emissary shares my last name, and in fact, lives under the same roof as I do. How could I say no? So please, as you visit coffee hour after worship, visit the sixth grade bake sale and buy a little something to support the Heifer Project.

In the next several days you will receive an important mailing from the Stewardship Committee. Please read it seriously and prayerfully, and thankfully. This report carries good news of many good things that are happening around this place these days.

If you have not yet seen the Stewardship presentation, you may do so following the 10:45 a.m. worship service next Sunday. Stewardship Sunday is November 14 – pledge cards will be received then. In the meantime, you are invited to consider, to dream and imagine, the kind of church we are and the kind of church we are called to be, and to determine the ways that you, and all of us together, can support that vision.

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I preached my first sermon as a seminary student in Chicago. What I didn’t know then could have filled a book. The church was called Lakeview Presbyterian Church on Addison Street in Chicago. The church was located about three blocks from the corner of Clark, Addison and Waveland, what any true believer will know as the address of Wrigley Field, which is, after the unlikely events of this past week, the saddest placed in all of sports. On an occasional sunny afternoon, the pastor of Lakeview Church and I would hold our field education supervisory meetings in the bleachers of Wrigley Field, and dispense a little pastoral care to downtrodden Cubs fan.

Lakeview Church itself was small and struggling, caught up in the bigger urban changes over which it had no control. It is growing now, thanks in part to a neighborhood that is changing again, thanks in part to great pastoral leadership, a dear friend of ours named Joy Douglas Strome, and thanks primarily to a vision of transformation that would inspire any and all of us. Our own Lindsay Lewis is serving as a field education student at Lakeview Church now, and having a fine, fine experience, I am very glad to report.

I don’t remember much about that first sermon. I am probably not alone. I remember that one of my mentors, a seminary professor who attended that church along with his spouse, told me to slow down. Since that day, I’ve written the word “slow” in big red letters on every sermon manuscript I’ve ever produced.

I don’t remember much about that sermon except for the fact that it was about today’s appointed lectionary text, from the gospel of Luke, Jesus’ encounter with a man named Zacchaeus. And what I do remember was that though the effort might have been feeble, I attempted to say something to the effect that Zacchaeus served as a surrogate for all of us, and that when we encounter his story, we encounter our own story. And though in fact youth may be wasted on the young and that I would benefit so much more greatly now from that seminary education, that basic message would remain the same.

Tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. in the Chapel, we will gather for our monthly First Monday evening prayer. At that service, at least two things will happen. We will read aloud the names of each Third Church member who has died in the past year. At the same time, we will have the opportunity to share the names of all those whom we would remember to God in prayer, all the saints. It is a profound and poignant moment, to be sure. A touch of sadness is always present. These are dear people we are missing, and we do miss them dearly.

But even more so than that, this experience uplifts us. The saints have made our lives better, have made the world a better place. They were given gifts by God and they used them, on the grand stages of life and in the less noticeable, day-by-day corners, where life really happens. We miss them, and we will miss them. But we are so grateful, so thankful, because they have shown us how to live, and we express our gratitude to God for their lives by the manner that we shall live our lives.

That is why this Zacchaeus story compels us so. The biblical landscape is dotted with stories of people, every day men and women, who simply show up. That’s what they do. They show up. They show up as devices in this extraordinary biblical narrative to move the story along. And then they disappear. On the stage, in the spotlight, for an instant, and then the story moves on to the next episode. Think about all the unnamed women and men in the bible who play such an integral role in the story of the people of God.

Zacchaeus is such a one. There is no back story, as the Hollywood people would say. Jesus passes through Jericho on a preaching tour. In Jericho there was a man named Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector. Now set aside your favorite IRS joke for a moment, or your opinion on tax policy. Zacchaeus was persona non grata even more than that. He was a Jew doing the dirty work of the occupation Roman government. He had sold out his people for money, and in a highly public way. That was one strike against him.

Another strike was his stature. You remember, of course, the Sunday school song: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree to see what he could see.” It sounds so cute, but my guess is that is was not, a physical limitation significant enough to be mentioned in the Bible. Those are at least two strikes. Who knows what other things he was carrying around with him. Who knows what other things we carry around with us. And yet he shows up, and he shows up in the story.

Something about Jesus so intrigued him, so compelled him, that he showed up. He risked scorn and public ridicule, this unlikable turncoat, awkwardly climbing up a tree for a better look – like a child on a parent’s shoulders to watch the parade go by without all the cute connotations. Something about this Jesus so intrigued him, so compelled him, that he showed up. And it makes the story.

Just like the names we will read tomorrow night will make the story. They showed up, despite every limitation. We show up despite every limitation, perhaps more truthfully because of every limitation. We show up and make a difference.

That is at least one message we carry away with us at this remarkable confluence. Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1531 because the next day was All Saints’ Day.

And so we carry away with us at least one important message today: We show up and we make a difference. We show up, not because of degree or credential or competency or portfolio. If that were the case, our friend Zacchaeus would never have made the story.

One of the benchmarks of the Protestant Reformation was just this: grace. Grace means at least that we show up not because of our own merits, but because of the central figure in the parade.

We show up because Jesus draws us in. Something about him, his manner, his message, his activity, is so transforming, that we show up and are drawn in. In the face of doubts. In the face of discouragements. In the face of disappointments and disillusions. We show up. We climb the tree, overcome whatever barrier we ourselves or the world around us have set in our way. And we show up. That‘s the grace of this Reformation Sunday.

And we make a difference. That’s the gift of All Saints. For the story would let us know that Zacchaeus, and therefore the rest of us, are not passive bystanders to the story, but active participants.
Jesus looks up and notices this wee little man. We do not know if Jesus knows his full biography, if the advance people have scouted things out. But we have an inkling that something is up—though perhaps not this. Zaccaeus is watching the parade go by. He simply wants a glimpse of this Galilean celebrity. But what he gets is full eye contact. “Zacchaeus, come down!” Did we see that coming? One thinks for a moment that Zacchaeus might have thought something like,” That’s OK, I am fine where I am.” But Jesus and the story will have none of it. “Come down from that tree, for I am inviting myself to your house.” You can imagine Zacchaeus making every kind of excuse: “How about a rain check? My house isn’t clean…”

But no. Down the tree he comes. The one who was so clearly limited, so clearly outside the circle, has been welcomed in. People watching are not so sure they like what they are seeing. They grumble. “He is spending time with, going to the house of, breaking bread with, one who is so clearly a sinner.” Yes. That’s the point. Grace.

And once welcomed in, Zaccaheus’ life is reformed and transformed. His life will never be lived in the same way again. Not only will he give money to the poor, and return money to those he has defrauded, but he will live his life in a transformed way because he has encountered the grace of Jesus, which has made all the difference so that he can make a difference.

What we don’t know is the rest of the story, Zacchaeus from now on. But what we must believe is that this first grace-filled day was not the last, but only the beginning. That good works continued to pour faith from this wee little, socially ostracized man, so that he lived his life in joy and gratitude and impacted for the good the life of his community and the lives of those around him.

That is what we will celebrate tomorrow evening in the chapel. A coming together of grace, of vocation, of the stewardship of gifts. To hear that list of names named aloud tells us what we already know. That by grace we do make a difference, in the ways we love, in the ways we agitate, in the ways we overcome, in the ways we witness. They did, these saints, this great cloud of witnesses. They did. We do. Not because of who we are, but because of whose we are, the very one who makes eye contact with us and calls us down and invites us in and transforms us from outsider to stranger to guest to friend to host.

He is Zaccaeus, and he would have approved this message, because his story is our story, the story of a life-changing transformative encounter, and a life journey that would never, ever be the same.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee, by faith, before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia. Alleluia. All the saints. You. Me. Zacchaeus. All of us. Formed. Reformed. Transformed. All of us. Amen.