Scripture/Sermon of the Day. October 30, 2022

Luke 19:1-10

A rich tax collector

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through town. 2 A man there named Zacchaeus, a ruler among tax collectors, was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but, being a short man, he couldn’t because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.” 6 So Zacchaeus came down at once, happy to welcome Jesus.
7 Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 The Human One came to seek and save the lost.”
Reflection/sermon:
I.      There’s a song that children learn in Sunday school called “Zacchaeus Was A Wee Little Man.”
Zacchaeus was a wee little man
And a wee little man was he
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
The Lord he wanted to see
The Lord passed by and said
"Zacchaeus, you come down from there
'Cause I'm going to your house today
'Cause I'm going to your house today”

II.     Zacchaeus, before this encounter with Jesus, was not the kind of man parent’s would want their children singing about.  Tax collectors in Jesus’ time were usually Jewish independent contractors who paid Rome a fixed sum for the right to collect.  Anything they could collect above what they paid for the franchise was their profit.  This led to abuse.  A tax-collector could open cartons of traded goods, arbitrarily assess their value, and exact a payment.  Usually the assessments were inflated but the merchant could not appeal the inflated assessment — there was no recourse.  Tax collectors would also routinely lie and threaten the merchant, if they didn’t pay hush money, to go to the Roman authorities and say the merchant was involved with smuggling.  So using methods of extortion and violence, tax-collectors became wealthy.

III.    People like Zacchaeus were hated by their fellow Jews because their work funded the Roman occupation.  Socially, they were rejected.  Politically, they were regarded as traitors.  Religiously, they were excommunicated as apostates.  Some rabbis said that it was impossible for a tax collector to repent.  An afterlife of hell was their only option.

IV.     People were shocked when Jesus reached out to such people, even making one a disciple and visiting their homes.

V.      There’s another important detail in this story.  A major force that keeps people from seeing Jesus is “the crowd.”  A few weeks ago we read the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus.  When he called Jesus, the crowd told him to stop.  And in the story of Zacchaeus, the crowd blocked Zacchaeus' view of Jesus.     I wonder what “crowds” in our own lives stop us from encountering Jesus.  In the gospels, “the crowd” is everywhere.  It could be our family!  Jesus’ family said he’d lost his mind.  Did they want to shut down his ministry?  The crowd was Herod’s soldiers who came after Jesus after he was born.   The crowd was the disciples who tried to send the people home before Jesus said no and fed them.  “The crowd” keeps us from seeing Jesus.

VI.     It’s our TV sets.  We think we might just be watching the news, but there are forces at work in “the crowd” bringing us that news — to misinform, to make us not trust other people, to divide us from others.  Jesus says, “Love one another, forgive each other, make peace;” the crowd says, “don’t trust, be afraid, be violent, lie.”  The crowd blocks our view of Jesus and it divides us.  It’s our I-Phones and social media.

VII.    Probably the crowd that does the most damage is the one we carry around with us in our head.  A line of the Pink Floyd song “Brain Damage” goes:  “There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.”
         Even Jesus fought the voices of Satan and the demons when he was in the wilderness.  The crowd is always there, the Bible says — a crowd that tries to get between us and Jesus.
        What do we do?  “When the crowd says stop calling Jesus,” the gospel says — shout louder, like Bartimaeus.  When the crowd blocks your vision of Jesus — climb a tree — go higher.  Like Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, you go high.”  Go higher.  When your enemies hate, said Jesus, show love.
        Like he called Zacchaeus, Jesus calls us, invites himself to our house.  He opens the door of our heart and enters.  When he speaks to us, it’s always love — that’s the voice in our head we need to listen to.  That’s God’s voice.  It says “I love you.  Now share the love.”