Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

Ok folks, here it is--my first sermon! And it wasn't as painful as I was expecting. This first sermon is only 5 minutes long, and I wrote it with the Candler community in mind with their (wonderful) social activism and social justice mindset. Perhaps more than anything, I am preaching to myself. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is what it is. Thoughts welcome!

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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.”

I want to begin with a story; the story of a blind beggar. The story of a man who forsakes all civility and cries out to Jesus for mercy and healing, ignoring the crowd’s urgent pleas for quiet and their ‘shushes’ betraying their embarrassment at the sight of their prophet stooping to heal a disabled beggar. This is the story of a man whose faith led to not only the restoration of his sight, but to his salvation. This story contains the heart of the truth we know about Jesus: In Christ’s reign the blind beggars are valued and the scoffers are brought low. Jesus makes time for the poor and needy, silencing those who would turn them away. It’s not hard to imagine this man with faith beyond measure sitting at the table in Christ’s upside-down Kingdom. We’re familiar with the way God works through Christ: shaking up societal norms, welcoming strangers and shaming the corrupt systems that stand in opposition to God’s kingdom of sacrificial service and love. The story of the blind beggar is the story we love to hear, it’s a story where the lowly are made high and the scoffers are shamed.

But that’s not our text for today. Our text for today is the story directly after the miraculous, scandalous healing of the poor, blind, beggar. In today’s story, the blind beggar is nowhere to be found. Quite the opposite, in fact. Today’s story revolves around Jesus’ encounter with Zaccheaus, a chief tax collector. And we all know what happens to tax collectors. Because of their corruption and greed, the gospels portray their fate as no different from the Pharisees and sinners accused of missing the mark. Surely the kingdom does not belong to them. Surely this story has the familiar ending of the parable of the rich young ruler who goes away sad, unable to fulfill Jesus’ final commandment for him—“sell all you have and give it to the poor.”

Or maybe the lives of the blind beggar and Zaccheaus are not so different as they seem. Imagine with me for a minute, what it might be like to see one of society’s most respected members—a lawyer or perhaps one of our beloved professors—dashing down the street in their nicest suit and scampering up a tree to catch a glimpse of some famed celebrity. Such desperation might seem silly, or it might be analogous to the embarrassment we feel watching panhandlers ask for money, or thinking about a blind beggar neglecting self-dignity in a cry for healing. Perhaps the crowd’s dismay when Jesus wants to stay with the equivalent of a slimy politician depicts Zacchaeus as more of an outsider than we think. Ridiculed by others, condemned by those who cannot see beyond his association with the epitome of societal corruption, Zacchaeus is not a welcome Jesus-follower. Despite his defense of his innocence (after all his name, translated means ‘innocent’), the crowd is incapable of seeing beyond the categories they know: tax collectors are sinners. Both Zaccheaus and the beggar are outsiders for opposite reasons. And both receive more than just an opportunity to see Jesus--they receive nothing less than salvation.

In the story I want to tell, there is not room enough for both these men in Christ’s kingdom. My version of Christ’s reign elevates the lowly and brings down the powerful and wealthy. And it is that kingdom, my kingdom, in which I am willing to participate. In this version, I can feel good about bringing good news, healing and restoration to those society unjustly condemns. But what about Zacchaeus? How can I tell this story? Wasn’t it just two stories ago when Jesus explained that it would be harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? And then, just like that that, Zaccheaus welcomes Jesus for lunch and so moved by the miniscule encounter, gives away half his possessions to the poor he has wronged and bam, he too is a Son of Abraham? One of us?

But nothing is impossible with God.

Zacchaeus' story collapses my image of Christ and tells me that God is not just on ‘the side’ of the poor, Jesus of the gospel is beyond all sides. If that’s true, Zaccheaus’ salvation is the scandalous one. Through it we learn that Christ’s kingdom is not only upside down in its acceptance of the people society condemns, it defies all boundaries by embracing the condemners themselves, placing Zaccheaus and a blind beggar side by side at Christ’s table. Would that we, the church, the hands and feet of Jesus called to live into this radical, wide reign of God would welcome everyone who is looking for Jesus.