Sadness or Joy

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Homily on Luke 19:1-10 (Zacchaeus)

Deacon Joseph MacDonald

Tuesday November 16, 2010

Luke’s gospel, tells the stories of two rich men and their encounters with Jesus. These stories occur within just a few short verses of each other. They are juxtaposed in that way, I’m sure, for our benefit.

The first story, the one we didn’t read tonight, is the story about a rich official who came to see Jesus and asked “what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus answered as the law would have prescribed, obey the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother.' The young man said that he had always obeyed the commandments. To every good Jew who knew the law this guy had made it. His wealth proved it.

Jesus said, “You’re “this” close. “All you have to do is one more thing. Sell everything you own and follow me. I’m what you need for eternal life. I am life.” And the poor rich man went away very sad, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t see that Christ was his salvation because his wealth got in the way. And his attitude was wrong.  It was as though he was looking for a pat on the back just for doing what was right, he wanted an “atta boy” from Jesus.

Tonight we read about another wealthy man. This one’s a tax collector. To the Jew, he was a traitor. Often, tax collectors extorted more from the citizens than was required and there was no recourse.  In Israel tax collectors were a scourge, they were outcast, they were thieves and collaborators, they prostituted themselves to a foreign government, selling their souls for silver.

But this guy’s attitude was different. This guy was “seeking” Jesus. In Greek, to seek, just doesn’t mean looking with your eyes, it means trying to understand, it means that he had been thinking about this, meditating on it. And it means to crave. Zacchaeus wasn’t just looking for Jesus. He was CRAVING Jesus.

There is another “seeker” in this story, another craver – Jesus himself. The last line of tonight’s gospel tells us, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus craved Zacchaeus’ salvation at least as much as Zacchaeus craved Jesus. “Zacchaeus come down, I MUST stay at your house.” Jesus is desperate to save this tax collector.

The encounter changed Zacchaeus.  He was converted and transformed. He was the new and improved model. But the crowd wasn’t buying it. “Jesus is hanging out with sinners. What’s with that”

But Zacchaeus stood up to the crowd and their complaints. He stood his ground and laid claim to his new life in Christ. “I’ll prove it” he said, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor – more than the law required, and to I’ll repay anyone I may cheated four times the amount. He went beyond what the law demanded.

Nothing was more important than Jesus. And so, Zacchaeus received him, with great joy. One man went away sad and the other joyful.

When the Patriots won their first super bowl, my son, wanted to go into Boston to see the victory parade. I wasn’t too keen on the idea but decided to let him skip school and we went in town, and staked out a spot near the Park Street station.  The Crowd was already at least 5 people deep when we got there and it got thicker. And when those duck-boats approached, you could hear the shouting of the crowd swell louder and louder as the parade drew near.  The crowd surged forward. Ben and I didn’t have a chance.  We were crowded out. All we could really see was a hand waving or the top of someone’s hat. Coincidentally, we were directly across from the Episcopal Cathedral. There is a tree on their property, quite possibly a sycamore, and one man made the effort to climb that tree to see better.

I think it must have been like that for Zacchaeus, too many people in his way. He was crowed out. And no one was going to give an inch to the likes of him.

You know, there are a number of scripture accounts of a crowd keeping people from Jesus.

·         The blind man Bartemeus. They weren’t just physically in the way they were telling him to “shut up.  Jesus doesn’t want you.”

·         There’s the story of the paralytic. The crowds were so large that his friends had to poke a hole in the roof to get him to Jesus.  

·         The woman with the hemorrhage – not just lost in the crowd but separated by social norms because she was considered unclean.

·         People were bringing infants and children to Jesus, and his own disciples got in the way.  His own followers were crowding out little children. Like a dozen WC fields’ “Go away kid ya bother me.”

What’s crowding us out? What’s preventing us from seeing Jesus? Who’s telling us to be quiet or to go away?

·         Is it the “in” crowd we want to be part of? Our family or friends?

·         Do our possessions and wealth keep us from seeing Jesus?

·         How about our grudges and resentments?

·         Our favorite sin?

·         Does prejudice keep us from seeing Christ?

·         Is it our pride or the need to be right all the time?

·         Are we blinded by our own tears?

We are given a choice, you and I. We can reject Christ and go away sad or we can open the door and receive him with great joy. There’s no in between. It’s either yes or no, hot or cold. Lukewarm is not an option. But we need to be courageous. We need to find the courage to change our attitudes.

We need the courage to cry out like Baremeus “Son of David have mercy on me a sinner.”

We need to have the kind courage that cuts holes in the roof tops for the sake of another and not care what the crowd thinks of it.

We need the determination to work our way through the crowd even if it’s just to touch the hem of Christ’s garment, even if society tells us not to.

We need to be like Zacchaeus and stand up to the crowd, claim our salvation amid the taunts and ridicule of our neighbors.

We need to crave Jesus THAT much. And we need to be strong in the knowledge that Christ also craves us. He craves our salvation, he longs to share his love with us, he wants us so much that he climbed not a sycamore, but the wood of the cross, so that we can look up, recover our lost sight, and see his love clearly, sacrificed not for the righteous but for the sinner – to free us, the lost, from sin. Jesus loves us to death – His own.

And so my friends let us be eager to open the door when Jesus knocks, and let salvation enter our lives. Let us not go away sad but may we be made new by our encounter with Christ and receive him with great joy.