Nov 3, 2019; All are Welcome; Luke 19: 1-10; ICCM; Rebecca Ellenson
It’s crazy how we remember things we learn in song, isn’t it? For example, I learned today’s gospel story when I was just a wee little girl, to a catchy tune complete with actions.
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.” But Jesus said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down from there. For I’m going to your house today, for I’m going to your house today’.”
I think we saw a filmstrip in Sunday School that day. If I close my eyes, I can see the primary colored pictures of the little man with his robe hiked up over his knees, awkwardly perched in a tree. Perhaps it made a big impression on me because I was a wee little girl, and little for my age.
One of the things I love about the stories of Jesus is that they are accessible enough for a wee little girl to grasp, yet deep enough for that same person to keep studying for decades and still find new layers of meaning. On the surface level, this story is about Jesus who clearly sees yet another person who was labeled and scorned by others. We get to see the wee little man’s joy at being drawn close to Jesus. And we are given an example of what wealth can do when given for the needs of others.
There’s so much detail in this story: Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector. He isn’t well liked by the other Jews because he works for the occupying Roman government. The people assume Zacchaeus is corrupt. It was common practice for tax collectors to take a surplus amount for themselves, over and above what the government required. The scene as described is comical — wealth and power don’t stop the important man in the big and important city of Jericho from scrambling up a tree in order to see Jesus as he passes by. The people have yet another reason to roll their eyes or dismiss Zacchaeus. What an undignified picture he must have been, perched in a sycamore, or a black mulberry tree! My good friend Peter has a mulberry tree in his backyard—it’s a messy tree with squishy berries that stain your clothes and fingers.
Jesus zeroes right in on this wee little man, calling him by name (ironically, Zacchaeus means righteous or clean, even though his association with the Romans and money would have meant people would consider him unclean and suspect, not to mention covered in mulberry stains!) Jesus tells him to get down from the tree and declares that he must stay at Zacchaeus’ house that day. The crowd grumbles and identifies the tax collector as a sinner. Then we learn that, to everyone’s surprise, except Jesus, this man is not what he seems to be. No, he gives half of his income to the poor and repays 4-fold any overcollection. Jesus addresses Zacchaeus when he says, “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.”
If we stop at the face value of this story, as we did when we learned that song as children, it is a good and memorable lesson with value. But as I said before, there’s so much rich depth in the scriptures. With just a little analysis and digging we discover even more truth. Don’t you just love that!? We can study the Word all our lives. We keep learning new things. We can find salvation anew. We can encounter the Christ and be led to live lives of joyful and expanding generosity.
Let me explain what I mean by that. We often just focus on one story of the gospels at a time. Rarely do we look at how that story fits into the whole of the writer’s narrative. When we do, though, we see how masterful these scriptures are. There are layers of meaning when we look for the patterns the writers used to tell the stories of Jesus. You see, this story about Zacchaeus does not appear in any of the other gospels. It comes at the end of a section in Luke’s gospel called the travel narrative and it fits into a progression of 10 meals that frame a key message or theme of this gospel about the Lord’s Supper. Luke composed the gospel and the Acts of the Apostles after Mark wrote his gospel. He chooses what stories to include and arranges them with cares.
When Luke wrote the stories of Zacchaeus and the other meals in the gospel, it was more than 50 years since Jesus gathered with his disciples in that upper room the night before he died. Many things had changed, Pilate, Herod, the apostles and even Peter were long gone. Jerusalem and the temple had been ruined. But throughout the world of Paul in what is now Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus Christians gathered each Sunday to do what Jesus did on the night of his last supper. They took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to each other saying, This is my body which is given for you. They ate supper together and then afterwards they took the cup and drank proclaiming, This is the cup of the new covenant, for the forgiveness of sins. The blood symbolized life, connection to Christ who rose. The bread symbolized their union in one body, offered like Jesus, for the life of the world.
Luke’s gospel includes 10 meals, seven are part of the travel narrative. The first is at the house of Levi, an ordinary tax collector. And today’s meal is the 7th meal, this time at the home of a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus. These two stories at the homes of the tax collectors frame the other five meals in Luke’s travel narrative. Levi, the first tax collector is called to follow Jesus right after the call of the first disciples, Peter James and John. Jesus saw him sitting at the customs post, something like a toll booth today. He said to him, “follow me.” And just like Peter James and John, Levi left everything behind he got up and followed. Levi then gave a great banquet for Jesus. A large crowd of tax collectors and others were there at table with them. The pharisees and scribes complained, just like the crowds did in our lesson for today. There in the first meal Luke records, Jesus sets out the theme. “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
The second meal takes place at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Do you suppose that the pharisees who didn’t like it that Jesus dined at Levi’s house decided to plan their own dinner for Jesus, to do it right? Well into that grand symposium style banquet comes a sinful woman who places herself at Jesus’ feet, in the position of a disciple, and wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair and bathes them with a costly ointment. Simon the pharisee is indignant. Jesus turns to the Pharisee and tells a story about two people whose debts were forgiven, one small one large. He then contrasts the welcome Simon and the woman offered Jesus. Like Simon, we and all those who hear these words are drawn in. All are welcome, especially those whose sins are great. True worship, as Isaiah foretold, comes from repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and finally an outpouring of love. Jesus concludes his teaching with these words: “So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
Luke’s next meal is the feeding of the multitude in Bethsaida with the meager loaves and fishes. In this meal Jesus himself is the host. He blesses the bread, breaks them, and gives them to his disciples who set them before the crowd. And all eat and are satisfied and 12 baskets of leftovers are gathered up.
The next meal is at the home of Mary and Martha where another woman sits at Jesus’ feet as a disciple. Then Jesus reclines at the table at another Pharisee’s house where the teachers scold him for not observing all the expected rituals. The sequence escalates at the home of a leading Pharisee where Jesus tells the story of the beggar Lazarus at the gate of the rich man.
I’m afraid this service would be as long as a Mexican service if I fully explain how all these meals relate to this central practice of the Christian faith—holy communion. You’ll have to read the whole gospel, for yourself, paying attention to these meals. For now, you can take my word for it that each meal turns the people’s expectations upside down. Jesus welcomes everyone, includes everyone, and challenges each of us to do the same. When people eat with Jesus, they are either transformed by his generosity with acts of discipleship themselves, or they resist Jesus’ extravagant grace, and by doing so exclude themselves from his welcome table.
It’s not just in the meal stories, though, that Luke pounds this theme home. Jesus welcomes sinners and he tells stories about the sick and the lost and the overlooked. The stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost prodigal son end with the very same words as our gospel for today: “The son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”
There is a red thread that runs through the whole fabric of the scriptures. There is a movement through the centuries toward wholeness, a spiral of truth through each generation, each family, each life, each person, each community of faith from exclusion to inclusion, from uptight legalism to extravagant grace and joyful response, from rigid ceremony and sacrifice to justice and peace.
I recently came across a poster created by Bixby Knolls United Church of Christ. I think it fits in very well with the message of our gospel.
The poster reads like this.
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR: Moabites are bad. They were not to be allowed to dwell among God’s people (Dt. 23). BUT THEN comes the story of “Ruth the Moabite,” which challenges the prejudice against Moabites.
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR: People from Uz are evil (Jer.25). BUT THEN comes the story of Job, a man from Uz who was the “most blameless man on earth.”
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR: No foreigners or eunuchs allowed. (Dt. 23) BUT THEN come the story of an African eunuch welcomed into the church (Acts 8).
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR: God’s people hated Samaritans. BUT THEN Jesus tells a story that shows not all Samaritans were bad.
THE STORY MAY BEGIN with prejudice, discrimination, & animosity but the Spirit moves God’s people toward openness, welcome, inclusion, acceptance, & affirmation.
We started out today with a wee little song about a wee little man, and we’ve dug deep into the structure of Luke’s gospel and even a bit into the long historic arc of scripture that bends toward repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. As we come to the table of our Lord, we, like all those he encountered on his journeys to Jerusalem, are invited to take and eat, to be transformed, to be found. And we are sent out from here to reach with open arms, to welcome and invite others into this grace we know.