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.”