To Learn the Language of Grace A Sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church,
Luke 19. 1-10 Scranton, PA on Sunday, October 30, 2022
The elementary school playground across the street from our home was in full early afternoon chaos. The “big toy” jungle-gym was teeming with bodies climbing and sliding. In the far corner a game of kickball was being played. In the near corner by the gas meter a gaggle of girls were huddled around someone shedding tears. Three young ladies circled the circumference of the space chatting while doing their laps. The cacophony of shouts and screams could be heard over the roar of the lawnmower in my hands grinding fallen leaves with its mulching blade.
Each
time I shut down the machine to empty the bag of shredded leaves into a container
I glanced over at a solitary figure standing along the fence to the left of
“the big toy.” Short of stature, wearing
jeans and a wool hat under her hoodie on a blustery October afternoon, she
stood like a statue. She made no move to join any of the activities. Only once
did I see anyone come over to speak to her.
There
was another standing alone leaning against the brick wall of the school. A third kid in a red sweatshirt sat on the
ground where the building and the fence meet.
I wondered if these three kept to themselves by choice or were they
being shunned by the others. The kid in
the sweatshirt jumped up and joined others chasing a ball; turned out he was
just resting. The guy leaning against
the wall melted back into the mass of miniature humanity mingling on the
playground.
The
figure by the fence stood motionless where she had been the last time I emptied
the bag of leaves. It wasn’t the first time I had seen someone isolated out
there while others run and play.
Some-times there’s a child staring off into the distance, back to all the
others. It wasn’t the first time I had
lifted a simple prayer: “Lord, I don’t know what is going on with that one…but
you do…so deal with her needs.”
From
the corner by the door into the school came a shrill blast of a whistle
signaling recess was over. The statue
raised her hand and pointed in that direction and followed as the children
scampered or shuffled to line up. That’s when I realized she was not a loner or
an outcast, but a vertically challenged adult…a short person doing playground
duty. As I pulled the starter cord one
more time, I laughed to myself at the assumption I had made. I did not, however, cancel the prayer with a
“never mind.” All of us can use a little
prayer on our behalf now and then!
The
moral of the story could be as simple as “you can’t judge a book by its
cover.” Or it could be a cautionary tale
about how inaccurate our judgment of others can be when we base them on out-ward
appearances or the categories we use to pigeonhole others.
In
the space of two verses we are provided with three covers to judge Zacchaeus
by; three categories to use to sort him into this, that, or the other box. Luke gives us three handles to carry the
bundle of assumptions we’re apt to make about the man who climbed a tree in
order to see Jesus. He was a chief tax
collector. He was rich. He was short in
stature.
When
we hear that Zacchaeus was short in stature, it may trigger thoughts of a man
with insecurities, like the famous actors known for standing on a box or
insisting that leading ladies wear flats to compensate for their lack of height. Think of the characters played by Danny
DeVito, where a quick wit and withering sarcasm allow him to “tower” over the
others in the cast. The wee little man
in the Sunday School song may lead us to lump him together with Napoleon or
some other historical figure who are remembered for overcoming their closeness
to the ground by rising to prominence as a memorable leader. (I am not Putin
you on!)
When
Luke labels Jericho’s chief tax collector as being rich, that four letter word
can deposit any number of pictures into our memory banks. This week for instance, as Great Britain
welcomed a new Prime Minister to Number 10 Downing Street, pundits worried that
this young rich man, married to an even richer wife, could possibly relate to
the struggles faced by the average bloke and his Mrs. trying to get by in touch
economic times.
Meanwhile,
on our side of the pond, with prices rising in the grocery store checkout
line, and the economy mentioned in the political ads that aren’t throwing mud
at the other candidate, one won-ders how do “trickle-down” promises land on the
ears of those who lost their job when a wealthy em-ployer plugged all the leaks
and raised the boards on the dam’s spillway by calling downsizing
“right-sizing”? Can anyone lacking necessities relate to those who take
luxuries for granted?
In the flow of
the Gospel of Luke, Zacchaeus shows up shortly after a certain rich ruler asks
what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers by listing a handful of
the ten commandments. The man replied
“been there, done that, got the T-shirt!”
Jesus gives him an additional assignment: “Sell all you have and
distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then
come, follow me.” When the man heard
Jesus’ answer, “he became sad; for he was very rich.”[i]
That leads Jesus to respond: “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”[ii] So when we hear there was a man in Jericho who was rich, we’re meant to wonder: Will he slip through the needle’s eye? Also in the background is the parable about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man who had ignored the poor man outside his gates finds himself in tor-ment after death, while observing the poor man resting at Abraham’s side in paradise. Will Zacchaeus fare any better?
The
odds don’t seem to be in his favor. In
addition to being called short and rich, Zacchaeus is singled out as a chief
tax collector. The word Luke uses for
“tax collector” means liter-ally “tax-farmer,” the equivalent of that the
Romans called “publicans.”[iii]
Bible scholar Christo-pher Hutson explains that Zacchaeus was nothing like an
IRS agent:
“Under the Roman republic (which preceded the empire), private businessmen called ‘publi-cans’ bid on public contracts for various government jobs, including tax collection. …Having bid to deliver to Rome a certain amount, they worked with local officials, who collected within their own districts. …Publicans were also moneylenders, speculators, and contractors supplying material for the army. Such enterprises provided opportunities for cooking the books, commodities speculation, side deals, graft, and extortion to defraud Rome, local officials, fellow investors and average citizens.”[iv] Hutson concludes: “Zacchaeus, then, was a Jewish businessman involved in large contracts with Roman businessmen. Many would have viewed him as collaborating with the foreign occupation and profiting from the misery of other Jews, which is why ‘publicans and sinners’ are routinely lumped together.”[v]
To
borrow a line from a Wendell Berry poem, Zacchaeus was numbered among those of
whom it can be said: “Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.”[vi]
Zacchaeus: short guy; rich man; corrupt collaborator. Have we got him pegged, or what? May-be, maybe not! Remember where we started? “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Our judgments of others can be wildly inaccurate when we base them on outward appearances or the categories we use to pigeonhole others. There may be more to the encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus than meets the eye.
There’s a chance
the chief tax collector is not the black hatted villain the crowd despises.
Christopher Hutson points to ambiguities in the translation of what Zacchaeus said
to Jesus after he climbed down from his perch in the Sycamore tree. Providing his own translation, Hutson asks:
“When Zacchaeus says ‘Half my possessions I give to the poor,’ is he describing
his customary practice or turning over a new leaf? When he says, ‘If I have defrauded anyone, I
repay fourfold,’ is he admitting his guilt or pledging to audit his books for
errors?”[vii]
Cameron Murchison explores this line of thinking further, noting how choice of words when translating from Greek to English is crucial. He notes: “While English translations of Zacchaeus’s statements to Jesus variously render his words about ‘giving’ and ‘restoring’ as future or present tense, the Greek verb in use…is certainly capable of being understood as customary action in the pre-sent.”[viii] This raises the same question Hutson asked: is the story recording an “account of personal generosity as an act of repentance…(a) promise of new behavior upon being confronted with the embodied grace of God in Jesus—or is it a descriptive account of his existing practice about which he simply tells Jesus.”[ix]
In other words, is the story following the typical Lukan pattern of contact with Jesus, repentance of sins and newness of life bestowed? Or is this an instance where we are shown a sinner who is never-theless capable of saintly behavior? Murchison points out that the crowd who blocks his view and later grumbles about Jesus going to his house are guilty of concluding Zacchaeus is a sinner, “but not necessarily because they know anything about him beyond his occupation and his wealth. He belongs to a class of people (wealthy tax collectors in the employ of foreign governors) who are as a class regarded as sinners.”[x] View the cover, jump to your conclusions about the content. Name the category, and tailor your perception to confirm what you already believe to be true.
I
heard an interview with an actor who portrayed a drug dealer in a movie based
on the real life experiences of one of the screenplay’s authors. The actor was asked about the complexities
of the role which required that he be seen as both a law-breaking purveyor of
illegal substances, and at the same time, a positive mentor, acting as a
father-figure to a young boy learning to survive. His comments challenge the
false dichotomies we often embrace that picture people as either evil through
and through or solid gold good citizens.
Reality lies some-where in between with the acknowledgement that we are
all capable of being incredibly good one moment and exceedingly bad the
next…and sometimes both simultaneously!
Let
that sink in as Cam Murchison digs deeper into the non-traditional
interpretation of the dialogue recorded
in the Tax Collector’s home: “If Jesus hears Zacchaeus’s testimony as a
statement of how he is currently living his life, giving half of what he has to
the poor and restoring any inadvertently defrauded fourfold, then Jesus’ claim
that ‘salvation’ has come to this household becomes a statement that human and
communal wholeness is evident in its practices.
Whether he has the proper DNA or not, this Zacchaeus is to be regarded
as a true ‘son of Abraham,’ participating in the blessings of Abraham, even as
he himself has been a blessing to the poor and defrauded.”[xi]
This
new view of Zacchaeus is supported by the curious way the story began. The
chief tax collector of Jericho was trying to see who Jesus was. So intent was he on getting a look at Jesus
that he was willing to throw dignity to the wind. It is not every day that you see a well
positioned government official running ahead of a crowd. Even less likely would
be that official shinnying up a tree and scrambling out onto a branch to get a
glimpse of the person the crowd prevented him from seeing.
If
he really was the lost cause sinner the crowd took him to be, he would probably
not put him-self in a place where the visiting man of God would spot him. More likely he would be cowering in the shadows, if he were to be found anywhere in the vicinity in the first place.
Could it be that Zacchaeus went to all that trouble because he had heard that
Jesus was the first religious person he’d ever en-countered who was likely to
see beyond his occupation and his wealth and discover the man who was doing his
best to live a life worthy of his heritage as a son of Abraham?
From his perch in the tree, Zacchaeus is looking down at the man at the center of the crowd. From the road below, Jesus looks up at the man in the tree. Jesus calls to him by name. Jesus invites himself over to his house. And instead of a “woe is me, now I’m in for it” slow climb back to the street, Zacchaeus is described as hurrying down to meet Jesus and “happy to welcome him.” Meanwhile, Luke tells us, “All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
Yes
he has! Thank God for that, especially if you are willing to admit that missing
the mark is a regular part of the way you play the game of life. All through the Gospel of Luke Jesus is seen
leaving behind the company of those who prided themselves on being pure and
upright, to spend time with those viewed as outsiders and outcasts.
That’s good
news, Cam Murchison tells us, because “Only now we glimpse the possibility
that when God so dwells with them, God finds not merely pitiable people desperate
for renewal, but at least sometimes people who in their own way have learned
God’s way to live to the praise of God’s glory.”[xii]
Remember the actor portraying the drug dealer who served as mentor to the young
boy? One of his challenges was to portray a man, who for all of his faults,
held onto a kernel of faithfulness which led him to pray for the boy.
The late poet,
hymn writer and seminary professor Tom Troeger provides us with a helpful way
of looking at the different ways Zacchaeus was viewed by Jesus and the crowds
in today’s story. He begins with a
situation to which we can all relate:
“Sometimes
when we cannot get another person to understand us, we exclaim in frustration:
‘You and I do not speak the same language!’
We may both be speaking English and even use the same accent and
colloquialisms, but the different ways we perceive, process, and interpret
reality are at odds with each other.”[xiii]
Troeger
found such a conflict of language in today’s story, noting: “Jesus speaks the
language of grace and acceptance to an outcast tax collector: ‘Zacchaeus, come
down at once. I must stay in your home today.’ But the crowd speaks a
completely different language, an idiom of judgment that cannot comprehend the
idiom of grace: ‘Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying ‘He has gone to be the
guest of a sinner.’”
Troeger
went on to say: “Jesus and the world do
not speak the same language. Jesus
speaks grace; the world speaks of keeping track of every wrong. Jesus speaks of pouring oneself out in love;
the world speaks brutal force. Herein lies the greatest quandary that Christian
preachers face: how do we break through to a world that speaks a different
language?”[xiv]
[i] Luke 18. 18-23
[ii] Luke 18. 24-25
[iii] Christopher R. Hutson, Feasting on the Gospels, Luke, Vol. 2, Chapters 12-24, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), p. 165
[iv] ibid.
[v] ibid., p. 167
[vi] Wendell Berry, from “Look Out,” GIVEN, Poems, (Washington, DC: Shoemaker Hoard, (2005), p. 124
[vii] ibid, Hutson.
[viii] D. Cameron Murchison, Feasting on the Gospels, Luke, Vol. 2, Chapters 12-24, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), p. 166
[ix] ibid.
[x] ibid.
[xi] ibid.
[xii] ibid., p. 168
[xiii] Thomas H. Troeger, Sermon Sparks, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2011), p.132
[xiv] ibid., pp. 132-3
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