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The Eve of All Saints’ Day
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The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Luke 19:1-10
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Luke 19:1-10
✛
Up in the Tree with Zacchaeus
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Today salvation has come to this house.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Saint Luke tells stories about two rich men and how appearances can deceive concerning what is in the heart. Today’s Gospel is the story of the rich tax collector, Zacchaeus, how he sought Jesus and received a visit from him. A chapter earlier Luke tells the story of the rich young ruler, very observant of the Law, who declined Jesus’ invitation to follow him when he discovered this meant letting go of his possessions. In that earlier story, Jesus famously concludes that it is hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, harder than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.¹
Well, today the camel goes through the eye of the needle. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. The Roman Empire outsourced tax collecting to local agents (Zacchaeus was the chief one in Jericho). The agents made their living by collecting more money than they contracted to pay the government. We don’t know, but everyone assumed that Zacchaeus was a sinner, by which was meant an extortioner of his people by collaboration with a resented foreign occupier. He was also short, but his stature led him to provide a clue to what was in his heart: he wanted to see Jesus but couldn’t see over the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed into a sycamore tree. Jesus somehow knew his name; and more deeply, Jesus knew his desire, meeting it with a greeting, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus hurried down, glad to welcome Jesus.
Everyone, not just scribes and Pharisees but probably also Jesus’ own disciples, murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a sinner.” But surprise! Zacchaeus, perhaps walking with Jesus on the way to his house, declared that he would give half his goods to the poor and, if he had defrauded anyone, he would restore it fourfold, the maximum required by the Law. Without condemning Zacchaeus’ occupation, without denouncing the Roman occupation of Judea, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.” – in this case the little rich tax collector up in the sycamore tree.
Salvation did not come to Zacchaeus as a deal in exchange for his generosity and willingness to make restitution. The generosity and justice were signs of something at work in him. Salvation was already on the way, because Zacchaeus was clearly a seeker of the kingdom of God. It was why he struggled to see Jesus. In this seeking, in this generosity and doing of justice, not because he was a Jew by birth, Zacchaeus showed he was a true child of Abraham. Jesus perceived all this and said so. The rich, outwardly devout, commandment-keeping young ruler in the earlier story turned away from Jesus as he clutched hard to his money. Zacchaeus, the rich chief tax collector whose reputation fairly or not was necessarily one of corruption (at least that is what everybody believed about him), was open to salvation as his heart was open to generosity and justice. He sought after God first, and he sat more lightly to his money – it was not his god.
Zacchaeus could be at home in New York as well as Jericho. He has many sons and daughters in our world of business, money and investing, not just the rich per se, but those with open and generous hearts. They help build and maintain churches, hospitals, schools; they endow the arts too. And in their seeking, their giving, and their joy at the presence of Christ, they show that salvation has entered their house. I need to find a Zacchaeus or three to build our Chancel Organ.
Jesus said it was hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom; but it turns out that this is only true as the person clings to his possessions rather than reach out for the Lord. Let go and let God, and the camel slips right through the needle’s eye; salvation comes to a rich man’s house.
The other day, a member of our congregation told me, “I have finally become a tither.” The biblical tithe is 10 percent, off the top, serious business. The tithe is more like a line item in your budgeted finances for the paying off of a loan for a car or a college payment than for a cab ride or a glass of wine at a restaurant. “How did you do that?” I asked. “I took a pay cut and kept my pledge where it was,” she answered with a smile. “Can you afford it, are you all right, I asked?” “Of course I can; I’m fine,” she said. That is the spirit of Zacchaeus, the spirit of the cheerful giver who seeks the Lord and rejoices at his coming.
Our church will grow both in strength and in numbers if the spirit of Zacchaeus fills this house, and if we take in more people like him. Now bear with me. We have a reputation to overcome, but it is not the reputation that was imputed to Zacchaeus by the crowd as Jericho’s chief tax collector. Our reputation is the opposite, that we are not very generous, warm or welcoming; it is more like the crowd murmuring about Jesus and Zacchaeus. We are improving, but we still have some things to overcome. Stories on this score persist. About ten years ago, someone here leaned back complacently in his pew and told a newcomer behind him that he loved Saint Thomas because it was rich, “and you don’t have to give a thing.” Well, we’ve made progress on that one. But I still get reports of parishioners who ask visitors to get out of their accustomed pews “because I always sit there.” We also have reports that getting through our narthex, our front porch, can intimidate, can be an obstacle course for the newcomer or visitor, because they encounter as many solemn looks, sometimes frowns, as they receive smiles and greetings. These reports may seem unfair (they hurt me to hear), but we are all responsible for the impressions we make. In other words, Zacchaeus, the very person who may be the answer to our prayers for the organ and stained glass windows, has a good chance of being frightened off or frozen out. I know we want to grow; but we all need to act like it, because one sour look can make someone forget nine smiles.
When we truly seek God we find him. Or should we say when God, who has put the desire for him in us, finds us, as Christ found Zacchaeus, we smile, we rejoice, we give, we welcome. Saint Thomas is a natural place for the Lord and Zacchaeus to meet. Let’s do all we can to make that happen: “Today salvation has come to this house.”
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹St. Luke 18:18-25
