Scripture Readings: Luke 19: 1-10
Jesus went on into Jericho and was passing through. 2 There was a chief tax collector there named Zacchaeus, who was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, who was going to pass that way.
5 When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus, “Hurry down, Zacchaeus, because I must stay in your house today.” 6 Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him with great joy.
7 All the people who saw it started grumbling, “This man has gone as a guest to the home of a sinner!”
8 Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Listen, sir! I will give half my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times as much.”
9Jesus said to him, “Salvation has come to this house today, for this man, also, is a descendant of Abraham. 10 The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Sermon
- Zaccheus had everything he needed materially in the world;
- He was wealthy, independent, comfortable
- But my guess is that he was lonely and isolated
- Because he was despised by his community;
- he was a tax collector and used the Roman taxation system to essentially rob from the community to enrich himself.
- The day Jesus came to town, Zaccheus was curious about him and went to see
- Because he was short, he had to climb a sycamore tree to see over people’s heads
- From there, I imagined he listened to Jesus’ words, and watched his actions
- And he noticed the people who were drawn to Jesus
- The sick
- The poor
- The disabled
- How they’re all clinging to Jesus’ words and healing and hope;
- Because unlike him, they didn’t have money to save them from their troubles
- They just had to trust God to save them.
- I like to think something happened to Zaccheus up in that tree before Jesus even invited himself to his house for dinner
- He saw for the first time, from up above, all the people he had affected, and cheated
- For the first time, he understood their need, their loss
- For the first time, maybe he regretted his past actions
- So, when Jesus called up to him, something had already flipped in his heart and he was ready,
- Ready not only to entertain Jesus as a privileged host
- but to have his heart– and economic status– transformed by his community
- Ready to return four times what he’d stolen from the community he had wronged
- It wasn’t just about money; Zaccheus wanted to restore his relationships with others
- I think this is a story about reparations. I haven’t studied reparations much, so I’m preaching about something I don’t know about.
- But I do see Zaccheus as making a decision
- to cut through an unjust taxation system that benefited him and hurt others,
- he committed to undo his own use of that system
- But I do see Zaccheus as making a decision
- This also contrasts with the way repentance happened in the Temple system, which was based on sacrifices as payment for sin.
- In the Temple, repentance and restoration happened through animal sacrifices; it was a sort of transaction, and it had to be repeated regularly
- Catholicism adopted similar rituals of saying certain prayers and even self deprivation to atone for sins confessed to the priest
- But with Zaccheus it wasn’t like that
- Nobody told him to “pay for his sins”.
- He was moved spiritually by Jesus’ teachings and presence to let go of his old self and his money, and be made new by God.
- And some part of him must have believed that grace and restoration was possible, because he gave up a lot to get that, without any guarantee that his community would embrace him again.
- His action was a reflection of the old Jubilee law from Old Testament time, that called for the canceling of debts every 7 years.
- The spirit of that Law was that, without it, the poor could never catch up and would always operate in an unlevel playing field.
- In Reformed Christianity, we have come to believe in God’s grace as a door to inclusion in God’s reign;
- We believe that all we have to do is open ourselves to be transformed by God, and we are always welcomed into God’s arms.
- There is no payment to be made; no special prayer to say;
- But something bigger is called for from us: transformation; real change
- The old quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer goes: Grace is free. Grace is costly. But grace is not cheap.
- This isn’t just an action that scratches the surface; it’s deep change that is called for when we receive God’s grace.
- And why are reformed Christians interested in this kind of grace and the hard work of transformation?
- It’s not just personal salvation we’re interested in, or a ticket to heaven
- We long to be transformed because we long for a transformed world,
- And we know at some level that it starts with US.
- Reparation, as we are learning to practice it, is partly about the past:
- Acknowledging what we have done wrong is necessary to repentance and reparation
- Anyone familiar with 12 step programs knows there is a hard step for acknowledging harm done to others in the past
- But of course it’s hearing the stories of cultural harm, too
- Acknowledging even the sins even of our ancestors
- Like the stories of the graves of indigenous children uncovered at boarding schools
- Or the recent stories of people buried in Tulsa after the Tulsa massacre of Black Wall Street
- We need to uncover our past to reckon with it and make peace to begin to move forward alongside those we have harmed.
- Acknowledging what we have done wrong is necessary to repentance and reparation
- But only focusing on past wrongs is not enough. Reparation is also about the future:
- about dreaming of a transformed world where the cruelty and violence at hate end and there is enough compassion, health care, food, education, and housing for everyone to live with dignity and in peace.
- Lyndale one year ago made a commitment/investment in reparations through
- Study together – how was that done? What did you learn?
- How did you make the decision to put a line item for reparations in your budget?
- I understand that every year now you will discern what the reparations money will go toward to help build God’s vision of a transformed world
- This year: East Phillips Urban Farm project which we will hear about later
- Here’s a question:
- Do you expect that your reparations gift will help transform the property that becomes the Urban Farm?
- Do you expect the giving of this gift will transform you? Personally?
- Do you expect your church to be transformed by the giving of these gifts?
- How can you prevent it from becoming just another “payment for past sins” and instead make it a door to deeper transformation?
- Jesus often talked about the redistribution of wealth in society;
- but he was not an economist
- He was trying to build a new reign of God, one changed heart at a time
- And Zaccheus was just one heart.
- Thank you for venturing into this project of reparations as a congregation and teaching me about it.
- There is more to learn!
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