Luke 19:1-10
October 31, 2010
"What Has Your Soul?"
Today is the 3rd Sunday in the “Our Three Gifts” stewardship program. This Sunday we consider the gift of “gold”. The first Sunday was “Frankincense” where we looked at prayer. The second Sunday was “Relationship/Commitment” where we looked at the importance of our presence with each other and today we are looking at “Gold” or giving.
Next Sunday is “Myrrh” Sunday where we will look at our service to others with the highlight being putting that into action as we serve others by bringing in our “Thanksgiving Dinner Bags.” And we will make our financial commitments to the ministries of this church in 2011.
You have probably noticed that these Sunday themes follow the membership vows that we take when we join the church, which our new members took today and we reaffirmed when we said we would support the church with our “prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.”
The mystery and marvel of them is that while we live them out, we grow spiritually and the church thrives.
Now I want to delve into today’s scripture by reminding you of what I said last week about the attitude towards “tax collectors” in Jesus’ day.
A tax collector was generally held in contempt by most of the Jewish Society of Jesus’ day. He was the stereotype of a sinner. He worked for the Romans who were an occupying force and he collected taxes for them often through extortion, force and deceit.
So he was seen as renegade and traitor. He was a legal thief and liar, and since he dealt in coins stamped with the image of Roman gods, he was constantly in a state of religious defilement.
They were so despised that they were banned from the synagogue. They were also classified with robbers and murderers. The Pharisees would not let even the hem of their robes touch a tax-collector.
That is how Zacchaeus would have been treated. He was rich; but lonely and despised by all.
I believe, though, Jesus intentionally sought him out because he was “rich”. Jesus had sought out and healed the blind. He had fed the multitudes and now Jesus was going to demonstrate that he not only had power over the demonic forces that bound people. He had power over “riches” that bound people just as tightly.
Jesus entered Z’s life to free him from what bound him the most, the fleeting power and allure of riches.
Now in last week’s sermon there was a call for humility over pride. In fact Jesus ended that parable and teaching by saying “he who humbles himself will be exalted.” This week we see that lived out in the life of Zacchaeus.
Z humbled himself. In fact, he even embarrassed himself by doing two things that adults in his society did not do. He “ran” and he “climbed a tree.” Only children did such things, not adults. But he so wanted to just see Jesus that day, the prophet of God who ate and drank with tax-collectors and sinners that when the crowd blocked his view he ran ahead and climbed a tree.
Now the rich don’t fair very well in the Gospel of Luke. Earlier in Luke you can hear Jesus pronouncing woe on the rich. God called the rich farmer a fool in the Parable of “Bigger Barns”. In the parable of the “Rich Man and Lazarus” the rich man went to Hades and Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham. And Jesus spoke about how hard it was for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God, so we would naturally expect Jesus to be down on rich Zacchaeus here, but no.
Jesus acknowledges Z and invites himself over to Z’s house!!!
Jesus not only stood at this rich man’s door, Jesus got Zacchaeus to invite him in to dinner. Money had Zacchaeus’ soul.
But what has your soul? It can be money, greed, prejudice, pride, anger, fear, etc. Who are our “rich men” or women who we grumble about and don’t greet with the grace that Jesus showed this rich man?
A story is told in Youth Specialties Hot Illustrations called “Do Something!”
The story goes like this, “St. Michaels had always been a very wealthy church. Its 300 members usually gave a combined annual offering of over one million dollars—because they could afford to.
Over the years, however, the neighborhood around the beautiful old stone church began to change. Immigrants flocked to the area, changing the complexion of the community. Steel bars replaced welcome signs in store windows. Homeless people could be found wandering the sidewalks and streets. The changes made some members of St. Michael’s very uncomfortable. They usually tried to avoid that part of the town except on Sundays.
One Sunday, shortly after a young associate priest had joined the church staff, the church members were gathered after the morning service for coffee and pastries. In the spring months they loved to gather in the flower garden outside the church, among its gazebos, fountains, and vine-covered arches.
As the elegantly dressed worshipers sipped coffee and chatted in the garden, a homeless man shuffled in off the street. He entered through the garden gate without looking at anyone. But the crowd’s eyes were certainly on him. He quietly walked over to the table where a spread of expensive pastries was displayed on silver trays.
He picked up one of the pastries and bit into it with delight, keeping his eyes closed.
Then he reached for a second pastry and placed it into his coat pocket. Moving slowly and trying not to be noticed, he placed another into the same pocket.
The crowd in the garden began buzzing with whispers. Finally, one of the women walked over to the new priest and said, indignantly, “Well, do something!!”
Still feeling a little awkward in his new position, the young priest handed his coffee cup to the woman, walked over to the table, and stood next to the homeless man. He reached under the table, where the empty pastry boxes had been stored. Then he picked up one of the silver trays loaded with pastries and emptied them into a box. He did the same with a second tray of expensive goodies. Then he closed the lids on the boxes and held them out to the homeless man.
The priest then, to the gasps of the crowd said, “We’re here every Sunday, worship begins at 9:00AM.”
The man smiled at the priest, cradled the boxes in his arms, and shuffled quietly out of the garden and down the street.
The priest returned to his coffee cup, smiled at the woman holding it, and said, “That’s what you meant, wasn’t it, when you said, ‘Do something?”
What Jesus did for Z was as surprising as what this young priest did. Both extended the grace of God in a simple meal to those the crowds thought unworthy of that grace.
Z thought he had to sneak a peek at Jesus, but Jesus presented his whole self to Zacchaeus.
The homeless guy thought he had to sneak pastries and instead through grace got two whole boxes.
When the grace and the Spirit of the Lord are in our lives out of thanksgiving “we do something.”
When the grace of God comes into our hearts and lives we respond. We do something. Z gave away half his net worth. The homeless man left with the affirmation of his humanity.
Both lived in shame and fear and both were set free to live.
When that grace that is evident in our lives, enters another person’s life, “they also do something.” And usually the crowd like in our scripture story and in St. Michael’s story they stand around and grumble. They if not consciously, then unconsciously try to block the Z’s of the world from seeing Jesus and receiving the grace of God.
Most of you know 3 ½ years ago I had cancer surgery. I believed I was cured. As a way of saying thank you to God I began collecting coins from Jesus’ day from the area of Palestine to use as teaching tools. My degree is in Anthropology/Archaeology and I wanted to share the gifts of my knowledge and these coins with others as a way of saying thanks to God. Just saying, “Thank you God” seemed so inadequate I felt I had to do something!!!
Shifting gears, now here again is where I might get into trouble.
An old joke goes – The Preacher asked farmer Brown, "If God blessed you with 1000 head of cattle, would you offer back 500 to God?"
Farmer Brown answers, "I'd be happy to do so."
"Well, what if God gave you 100 sheep, would you sacrifice 50?"
"I'd consider it an honor."
"And now what if God gave you 2 pigs?"
At this farmer Brown blew up and said, "Now wait a minute preacher! That ain't fair. You know good and well I got 2 pigs!"
God asks for different things from each of us. He asked from the rich young ruler his entire fortune and said, “Come follow me.” The rich young ruler went away sad.
Here Zacchaeus gives away half of his net worth. He wasn’t in the 10 or 15 % giving bracket. He was in the 50% bracket and he did it joyfully and announced it in front of God and all his friends, guests and neighbors.
The homeless man just had to acknowledge his humanity, that he was a worthy child of God. He smiled. It was enough. It was all he had to give.
For all these men it wasn’t the amount that mattered it was their heart. For the rich young ruler to be set free of his possessions that possessed him it was 100%. For Z it was 50%. For most of the rest of us it’s 10%. And for some, because of the circumstances of their life, all they can give is the most important gift of all and that is their heart to Christ.
It was when Z’s heart was humbled that he gave his soul to Jesus and his soul was so tied up in his money that a large portion of that had to go to set him free. His money had his soul. And I believe he still wasn’t poor, but he wasn’t possessed by his possessions. His possessions actually became his when he used them to help others.
Now today one of the things I want to talk about is how much to give to God. The Biblical standard has always been the tithe, giving 10 percent of our income to God. Jesus in fact even acknowledges this when he is chewing out the Pharisees because their hearts weren’t right with God. Jesus said, “You tithe mint, dill and cumin (which were common garden herbs) but you ignore the weightier matters of the Law.”
Jesus implication was that tithing was good and proper, but also worthless if one’s heart was not right with God.
When our hearts are right with God we indeed can give joyfully and not “reluctantly or under compulsion, because God indeed loves a cheerful giver.” When our hearts are right with God we can and do give generously. This story in the end is not about money it’s about our hearts and the grace of God.
Now in this congregation many tithe. Some go beyond the tithe and most are striving towards the tithe. You know my wife and I practice it, and I encourage it, but it must come from the heart out of gratitude for God’s grace.
So I want to close with this thought. Jesus said to Z in verses 9 & 10, “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 thought these verses really curious because at first reading they seem to say that Z was saved because he was a Jew, a son of Abraham.
No, it meant that when Z turned his heart over to God he became, once again, part of the family of God through faith. Or as we Christian would say part of the Kingdom of God. Z found his place once again at the family table.
Dr. Barclay wrote this about these verses, “’Lost’ does not mean damned or doomed. It simply means in the wrong place. A thing is lost when it has got out of its own place into the wrong place; and when we find such a thing, we return it to the place it ought to occupy.” When we come home to God (which Z did that day) we are then in our right place the family of God.” Dr. Barclay “Luke” page 79
So in the end this story today is not so much about money as it is our hearts and the Grace of God. It’s about people who have placed themselves outside the family of God and through sneaking a peek at Jesus have been invited back to the family reunion.
Next week we’re having a family reunion here complete with a fantastic luncheon.
I pray next week we all can find our place around our family table, the table of the Lord as we share in Holy Communion with one another and our Lord.
In Jesus Name…… Amen!!!!
