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Welcoming Jesus With Joy
August 14 , 2005
Sermon Series on the Gospel of Luke
Rev. Lynne Faris Blessing
Luke
19: 1-10
This passage is well-known to many–the
story of Zacchaeus (a wee little man, a wee little man was
he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted
to see...I promised my husband that I wouldn’t sing
it.) It’s a favorite with children – I think
because they can relate to climbing trees–and being
told to come down!
This story is such a great picture of the sweet encounter
between Zaccheus and Jesus. The image in the passage that
I found myself coming back to over and over again is that
of a warm “welcome” – Jesus welcoming
Zacchaeus into his presence and Zaccheus in return welcoming Jesus to his home.
We love being welcomed – feeling like
we’re valued, wanted... We long for it.
I think that’s why so many people have
dogs. Every single day when I come home from work or wherever,
my dog greets me like I’m the greatest person in the
entire world. (It reminds me of a prayer that I bet many
of you have heard, but that I think is worth repeating...
It goes... “Lord, please make me into the person my dog thinks I
am.”)
Seriously though, when I think of some of the best memories from my life–many
involve some form of welcome:
I can remember when I was very little...
coming home from school to my mom’s hugs and her
questions about how my day had gone.
And then later in the day the excitement
of welcoming my dad home from work (unless... we were watching
TV).
And then there are memories being welcomed
by strangers, which is a powerful thing. Probably my most
profound memory of being welcomed was in 2001:
I was with a group of pastors, and we were
on our way back from Jordan and got stuck in Shannon, Ireland
where our plane stopped to refuel. It was September 11.
I remember being numb for days while watching
the horrible scenes on TV.
Then Friday after the huge tragedy when
we went to a memorial service. When the leaders of the
overflowing service heard that a group of Americans were
there, they, set up chairs on the chancel, lead us to the
front of the church.
Then afterwards, they had us stand in a
receiving line where one person after another came up to
us and said, “we’re so sorry...”
In that “receiving line” we
experienced the most incredible empathy I’ve ever
felt. It was such an incredibly powerful sense of embrace
from total strangers. That when the big tears started for
me – and my healing process began that afternoon...
A warm welcome goes so far.
Conversely, some of my hardest memories are
from times of not feeling welcome--when I felt left out,
alone, or the door closed on a relationship... Oh my goodness,
that can be excruciatingly painful.
Zacchaeus was all too familiar with being
left outside. I think it’s safe to say that Zacchaeus
never forgot that life-changing day when he met Jesus–when
Jesus called out to him– when Zacchaeus experienced
the amazing intimacy and joy of receiving an eternal welcome
from his savior.
This great story is the final event in Luke’s
long section about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. It
sums up a number of the themes that Luke has developed, including
who may become disciples and how to live as Christ’s
disciples.
We’re told that Jesus has entered Jericho
and is passing through.
As is often the case, a crowd surrounds him as he’s
walking along.
Then we’re introduced to Zacchaeus–we
learn that he’s a chief tax collector and was rich.
We don’t know exactly what going through Zacchaeus’ mind–why
he wants to see Jesus.
Last Sunday, Steve preached on the parable
Jesus told which affirmed a tax collector’s prayers
and humility. Maybe Zacchaeus had heard that teaching/parable
and wanted to put it to the test with a real live chief tax
collector. We don’t know... What we do know is that
Zacchaeus wanted to at least get a glimpse of Jesus.
But the people were crowding him out. So he
runs ahead of them
and–being vertically challenged–climbs a sycamore
tree to be able to see Jesus.
There are so many things to draw from this
story:
The first thing I noticed about Zacchaeus – he
risks being ridiculed, being embarrassed from people seeing
him in the tree. (It’s not a very dignified place
to be.) He makes a big effort to be in Jesus’s presence.
He doesn’t let his shortcomings (so to speak) get in the way, and really
goes out on a limb. He doesn’t let the crowd keep him from seeing Jesus.
It makes me wonder how hard I try to be with
Jesus – to what lengths do I go?
Are we willing to risk being ridiculed?
How consistent am I in spending time reading
the Bible
and spending quiet, relaxed time in prayer?
Sometimes I really envy Zacchaeus because
he had the opportunity to be with Jesus in person. (Sometimes
I wish so badly that I could see Jesus face to face.)
Other times I find myself wondering where
the longing to see Jesus has gone.
The effort that Zacchaeus made to be with
Jesus reminds me of something Pastor Dan mentioned in a sermon
months ago, about a candle that was advertised to be the
fragrance of Jesus, that was in huge demand. Thousands had
been sold.
At first I chuckled. Then I found myself admiring
their desire to be with Jesus (although I myself haven’t
tried one of the candles, so I can’t speak to it with
any credibility).
As I studied this text, I found myself asking:
what am I doing these days to seek out Jesus-to be in Jesus’ presence?
The most comforting part of this text to me
is that Jesus seeks out Zacchaeus. It’s an encounter
of mutual initiative. They both desire to be with each other.
Jesus is on a mission which (as we read in v.10) is to seek
out and save the lost.
Zacchaeus certainly falls into the “lost” category.
He is a chief tax collector, a wealthy man. Zacchaeus had
become wealthy at the expense of the community. Not only
that, but he worked for the Romans. He was a traitor. So
he was definitely on the “outside” of society.
And it seemed he was lost amidst his wealth.
His desire to be rich had cost him the love, or respect,
of the community. It very well could be that Zacchaeus didn’t
realize just how lost he had become.
It’s so easy to get caught up in trying
to earn our welcome through working hard, looking good, serving
on a lot of church committees,
that we don’t even realize how we’ve alienated
ourselves from intimacy with God and with others.
Or sometimes it’s not about trying to
earn anything – but the lostness comes from simply
not knowing or understanding that Jesus is pursuing us.
I remember a dull sense of feeling lost, particularly
in the year before someone explained the Gospel message to
me–laid it out in a way that communicated God’s
desire to take care of me, to be in conversation with me,
to be an active part of my life. It was during my first year
in high school, and the image I associate with the lost feeling
is of sitting at a cafeteria table–surrounded by people
I didn’t know very well.
Many of my best friends from junior high had
gone to a different high school, and I ended up sitting at
lunch with a group of people that I liked but who didn’t
know me very well (and vice versa). I was going through the
motions of life, and not particularly excited about it.
Then when I was invited to go on a retreat.
Our small group leader (who was so loving and welcoming)
presented the message of God’s love for me, for us–and
all the pieces started coming together. It was as though
I was able to see Jesus in a new way. I distinctly remember
coming back from that retreat with a new sense of excitement
about having Jesus in my life – and a new sense of
security.
Looking back, I believe Jesus had been pursuing
me all along,
and he was just waiting for me to be in a place where I was
ready to receive him-when I could really see him and respond
to his reaching out to me.
Zacchaeus’ heart was ready. Zacchaeus
was ready to receive Jesus into his life. Jesus knew that,
and he called Zacchaeus by name and welcomed him into his
life.
Being called by name means so much. Marketing
has caught onto this. We receive so much mail from strangers
which is personalized to make us feel like we’re known.
And even when I log on to MSN, I hear “Good morning,
Lynne!” (She’s always so cheerful. .. I’m
not always as consistently cheerful with my response.)
Jesus knew Zacchaeus’s name and, as
a caring shepherd of people, he wants Zacchaeus to come safely
back into the flock. John 10:3 says:
To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep
hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and
leads them out.
And the passage in Ezekiel 34 talks about
the Lord wanting to rescue the scattered sheep of Israel.
And Zacchaeus responds to Jesus’ call
to be with him with such great excitement. Finally, he’s
not an outsider!
The text says,
“So he hurried down and was happy
to welcome him.”
This leads me to another thing that strikes
me about Zaccheus –
he is ready to welcome Jesus into his home. I wonder, had
I been in Zacchaeus’ sandals, if I would be ready for
Jesus to come over.
There are so many potential obstacles to having
our hearts/homes ready to welcome Jesus:
- Busyness
- Lack of belief that Jesus wants to be with
us – that we’re not worthy
- Depression/lack of hope or interest
- Finding it hard to trust God. It makes me
think of the little boy (Boy Scout) who got lost in the
mountains of Utah – and it turned out that he had
heard people calling his name, but he was afraid to respond.
It’s hard to know who we can trust.
- Pride: wanting to make life work our way,
on our terms
Which leads us to the sour side of today’s
passage- the grumbling crowd.
Once again, in his usual unconventional way,
Jesus surprises/shocks those around him by reaching out to
a “sinner”. The crowd don’t seem to get
it yet that Jesus’ mission is to rescue the lost. The
crowd’s murmuring is quite the contrast to Zacchaeus’ excitement
about being w/ Jesus. But you know, it’s not too hard
to empathize with the crowd.
Here was a chief tax collector getting special
attention from Jesus.
Not only was he working for the Romans, taking money from
them to support the “enemy”,
but he had gotten rich doing it.
In trying to think of an analogy/parallel
for us today–something that would stir up a similar
emotional/tumultuous reaction to what the crowd was feeling,
my experiences in Palestine came to mind. (And especially
with how much Gaza has been in the news today...)
At the risk of oversimplifying the situation...
The stories from Palestinian friends about
living under occupation are heart-breaking.
The worst sin in their eyes is for someone
from their community to work for the occupying force (which
usually brings in a nice salary). People have been killed
for being traitors.
The crowd doesn’t think Zacchaeus deserves
to be with Jesus. He’s not worthy. They want justice-not
salvation–for Zacchaeus. Jesus not only goes to eat
with a “sinner”– but proclaims him forgiven.
In verse 9:
Today salvation has come to this house because
he too is a son of Abraham.
Forgiven? That’s not how it’s
done in their tradition. Zacchaeus needs to go make some
sacrifices at the Temple.
Why does he get Jesus’ attention?
Being jealous seems to be in our nature. The
cover of the latest Newsweek magazine is titled “From
Jealousy to Joy." In this article they tell of an experiment
done with a number of babies who are about 6 months old.
A mother is handed a children’s book
and is instructed to engross herself in the story and to
talk to the researcher about the book. The woman’s
baby acts a little bored but that’s about it.
Then the researcher leaves the room and
returns cradling a life-like baby doll. She hands the doll
to the mother, and the mother starts cooing and cuddling
the doll.
Now the baby’s not so bored and tries
to get the mother’s attention. When the mother ignores
the baby, the baby starts kicking and then loses it and
starts wailing. (And thankfully at that point they stop
the experiment!) In experiment after experiment there were
tiny babies overwhelmed with jealousy.
It can be hard to share the welcome with others...
But the article also reports that very early
on babies also develop empathy for others. The article says:
One of the earliest emotions that even tiny
babies display is empathy. In fact, concern for others
may be hard-wired into babies’ brains. Plop a newborn
down next to another crying infant, and chance are, both
babies will soon be wailing away.
When babies heard tapes of others crying,
the tears would begin to flow. But interestingly, when they
heard a tape of their own crying,
they rarely began crying themselves.
So, according to this research, it appears
that from a very early age we have the capacity to be jealous-and
to be empathetic. The question from today’s text is
how will we deal with our jealousy:
Will we be like Zacchaeus, seeking the Lord,
or like the crowd–sulking?
Do we get excited to see the lost become
found, or are we more concerned about what’s in it
for us?
So the crowd complains, and Zacchaeus responds
by talking about his new way of life. He will give half his
possessions to the poor.
And if he cheated anyone, he’ll repay them 4 times
the amount.
In that day the law required that those who steals restore
the amount –plus
give another 20%. Zacchaeus says he will give much more than that.
This is the third thing that struck me about
Zacchaeus: he repents. He turns away from his sin and towards
Jesus. He is transformed by his encounter with Christ and
right away shows his gratitude for the grace that God has
extended to him.
To recap what we can learn from Zacchaeus:
- Zacchaeus risks ridicule in order to see
Jesus.
- He was ready to respond to Jesus and receive
Jesus into his life.
- He repented and started living as a new
man.
We’re like Zacchaeus (and the crowd)
in many ways:
- We long to be welcomed into others’ lives.
- We don’t want to be on the outside
looking in.
- And even if we have already received
Jesus into our lives as our Savior, we most likely will
still struggle from time to time with being jealous of
what others have.
It’s when we realize that only Jesus
can provide a truly safe welcome that we will feel the joy
that Zacchaeus felt.Then our hearts will be so full of gratitude
that there won’t be any room for jealousy. We’ll
rejoice when the lost are found (or saved), and we’ll
be excited about the transformation happening in their lives.
We’ll find ourselves seeking out the lost, the outsiders–like
Jesus does. We can be Jesus to each other, remembering that
Jesus said,
When you (reach out) to the least of
these, you do that to me.
The church has so many opportunities to extend
Jesus’ welcome to others. The sacrament of baptism
is a beautiful and powerful example of welcoming someone
into the covenant family. In baptism, we recognize that God’s
grace has reached out to us long before we realize it. And
with infant baptism, we look forward to when the child
will respond to this grace and seek out Jesus.
Wouldn’t you love to be in someone’s
list of good memories as one of those people who welcomed
them into your life and provided a safe place for God to
minister to them?
Wouldn’t you love to be remembered
as someone who risked looking ridiculous to the rest of
society in order to be with Jesus? Someone who truly knew
the joy of being with Jesus?
The good news is that Jesus wants to welcome
us into his presence. Jesus wants to embrace us – to
save us from being lost. We just need to ready our hearts
to be in Jesus’ presence and receive whatever surprises
(of joy) he has in store. .... being excited to see both ourselves and ourselves
transformed.
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