By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
5th Sunday of Lent, March 17,
2013
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to
save the lost.” (Luke 19:10 NRS).
Recently a former deacon in my church in
eastern Germany called on the phone. He’s
planning to make a visit to the United States this summer and wants to visit us
on the first Sunday in July. As we were
talking, he told me he’d been working on his English language skills and had a
grammatical question. He asked, “What’s
the difference between saying, ‘I have to do something’ and ‘I must do
something’? My answer was simple. There’s not really much difference at
all. It’s simply two ways of saying the
same thing. In both situations you are
under some kind of pressure to do something.
In our text today Zacchaeus wants to see
Jesus. He’s a short fellow and having
trouble seeing above the crowd. We all
know the story, and how Jesus finally climbs up the sycamore tree to get a good
look at this traveling teacher who has come to his town. But right in the midst of this story is
another surprising story. Jesus wants
to see Zacchaeus. We read that “ When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him,
"Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today"
(Luk 19:5 NRS). The big surprise is
that is that the story is not finally about what Zacchaeus wants, but it is about
what Jesus wants. Jesus says in no
uncertain terms: “I must stay at your
house today”.
I.
WHAT JESUS WANTS (vs 10).
We do not have to wonder where this
story is going. Vs. 10 tells what Jesus
wants and what
God wants. “For
the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost”.
Of course, this should be of no surprise
to us. It is at core of evangelical
faith. We believe that Jesus came into this world,
just as the Bible declares, not just to save, but also to seek us out so that
true salvation can be realized in our lives.
But the truth of God seeking us comes as an ironic twist in this gospel
story. Even though the story opens like
it is Zacchaeus who is trying to see Jesus, all the while it has been the other
way around. Jesus is looking for him,
just in the same way that God is looking for us.
We don't always see faith and religion
this way. We normally see our faith as ‘our’
religion, which is defined as the human person seeking God. This is how we normally think. We say: “This is the God I believe in.” “This is the faith I have chosen.” “This is what I want for me and my family”. Many have come to know or have ‘faith’ in
this way. It is what our parents have
been. It is what we want our children
to believe. Or it is the way we have
chosen to live and anchor our lives. This
is all well and good, but this story about Zacchaeus takes another angle on the
nature of true faith. Faith is much
more than something we have chosen or decided, but at the heart, faith must be a
truly ‘first-hand’ faith, much more like a personal experience of truth that
has come looking for us, than a truth we sought out ourselves. This story of Zacchaeus should remind us
that true faith is less about what we are looking for, it is about our response
to this God is looking for us.
Back in my teen years, while lying in
the hospital, I had time to consider the course of the future of my life. When I shared with my doctor, how God's call
for my life became clearer in the midst of this accident, he told
The other interns that I had “found'
religion. That sounded more than a
little strange to me. I had been a
person of faith all of my life. Faith
was something that was always part of my life, and it had very little to do
with what I had found. Faith found me,
but I had never ‘found’ faith. This was
something he could not grasp.
Even the Evangelisim department of North
Carolina Baptists gets caught up in this kind of language about faith, inviting others to come to church with the emphasis 'find it here'. It’s a great appeal, and may turn out to get
a lot of people in church this Easter, but the theology does not fit Zacchaeus’
experience.
And what we find at the center of this
story about Zacchaeus is also what we find at the center of the Christian
Faith. In Christ Jesus, our central
message is about the Incarnation, that in Jesus, the eternal Spirit of God has
come into physical life looking to ‘seek
and save’ us, as much for God’s sake as for our own. As a great poet once imagined it, Jesus came
to this earth as the 'hound' of heaven, and he will hound us too until we are
caught by his relentless love. Isn’t this what we all know to be our core
belief, that in Jesus, God comes near, and in Jesus, the kingdom comes near,
and most of all, through this gospel of Jesus Christ, in the message of forgiving
and redeeming love, God has come near to us. Our faith is based on the whole premise, that
everything that has come to us, has come based upon Gods initiative, not our
own.
Why is this important? Why is it important to realize that faith
comes through the initiative, seeking and saving of God in Jesus Christ? It is important, because so much of the religious
expression we experience today is based mostly on what we want, our desires,
our wishes, our needs, our opinions, or our ideas. The trouble
this will bring to us will become obvious.
When faith is based on only on our initiative rather than God’s
initiative, it is liable to be less than what God wants.
In a recent book entitled, Bad Religion, N.Y. Times Op Ed writer, Ross Duthoth says that
because defining faith as what I want, rather than what God wants, is exactly
why we have become, ‘a nation of heretics.’
He says that though we call ourselves a ‘Christian nation’ we are only naming
it as we want it, not how it really is. Popular
Christianity has replaced true faith with our own chosen religion that is
taking further and farther from the orthodox faith of the gospels. Again, why is this be a big problem? The answer is simple and scary: How can God seek and save us with ‘his’
salvation, when we are intent on defining our own way of salvation? Too easily can we forget what moved Zacchaeus
to look for this Jesus who was also looking for him: Zacchaeus was unable to
save himself, just as we are unable to save ourselves.
II.
ZACCHAEUS SEEKS THIS JESUS WHO CAME
SEEKING HIM (vs. 3).
Jesus wants to seek and to save the lost,
precisely because the ‘lost’ are lost, and don’t know how to find their way
back home. This brings us to the second ‘irony’ of this
story: Not only is Jesus seeking Zacchaeus, but Zcchaeus is seeking Jesus, even
though, as it looks, Zacchaeus shouldn’t need Jesus at all. Do you see that? Zacchaeus
is a person who has much. He’s
rich. He is not just a ‘tax collector’,
but he is tax collector in chief. Why is he, this one who seems to have
everything, seeking out this one who has come to town seeking all kinds of
other people, who have nothing? What
does rich Zacchaeus have to do with all those other desparate people who came
seeking Jesus?
What makes the story even more
hilarious, is that Zacchaeus, as a short man, does all he can to be seen. He wants to be found. He climbs up a tree wanting to see Jesus,
but not fully expecting that Jesus will also see all of him. In
this situation, with so much in his life already, most of us would be trying to
hide from Jesus. If you are making your
wealth on the backs of the poor, wouldn't you want to hide? But strangely Zacchaeus despartelys wants to
see, and does not mind being seen. It
is as if he wants Jesus to see him, not as big man, but as a very little man,
who has gotten himself up a tree.
There is only one way to explain the two-way
action of this story. Zacchaeus is not happy or at peace with who he
has become. He wants Jesus to find him
because he feels lost--even in his own skin--even
with his great wealth---and even with all
he is and has. When Zacchaeus learned that
Jesus was coming to twon, he not only wants to see Jesus, but he wants Jesus to
see him, warts and all, so that somehow, someway, maybe even today, Jesus can help
him become someone more.
The Jesus who also comes looking for us
can work on our souls in this way. His
presence causes us to meet
our lost selves for the very first
time. The presence of Jesus can make us
meet our great spiritual needs, and he can show us how this need can be met,
healed, helped, saved or redeemed. What
is your great need today? The presence
of Jesus not only reveals himself, he reveals the real us. And Jesus reveals who we are, he has come to be
with us and to meet us at our point of need, if we will open ourselves to his
truth.
When Earl Brewer, the very talented 79 year old gospel musican, told me of his ordeal with
a brain tumor, he shared how the Doctor informed him of the good news—that it was
benign. After several surgeries, and at
the final visit with Doctor Pilsbury, who was releasing him, Earl thanked him for all he'd done for him
both physically and spiritually. It was
then that the doctor reached to hug him.
'He never does that' the nurses told Earl. Something was pulling in both their souls as
they rejoiced in the healing and hope that had come. It
was also this same doctor, Dr. Pilsbury, who gave Earl Brewer his new nickname,
'earl the pearl'. Every time he would
greet Earl in his office, he would address him as, “Earl the Pearl”.
Jesus knows the great healing we all
need. Interestingly, there is nothing about
any physical healing in this gospel story.
This is rare in the gospels. The
miracle Zacchaeus seeks is the need for the healing of the human heart. It is the kind of healing that only comes with
the forgiveness and acceptance of God. All
through Scripture there is a desire to find, see and know God. But this great knowledge of God only comes
when we acknowledge our great need to this God who knows and seeks us, right
where we are.
III.
THE NEW YOU, YOU CAN BE IN JESUS (vs. 8)
But here comes a final question we ‘must’
put to this story. We see what Jesus
wants. We see what Zacchaeus wants. But now comes point the story puts to each
one of us: What do we want?
In reality, there are two people under pressure
in this story: Jesus in under pressure
to do the Father’s will to seek and to save the lost. Zacchaeus is under the pressure of ‘trying’
to see who Jesus was (vs. 3). But the ‘third’ pressure point of this story
is to consider, what we ‘must’ do to see the good news of Jesus realized in our
own story today.
One day, not long ago, my wife came home
from getting her hair cut. She had
stopped by “Little Pigs” Barbeque to pick up our lunch, but she got much more
than a sandwich. A couple of Emergency
Workers were in line to get food, when they learned that “Little Pigs” does not
take credit cards. They were about to
walk away, when a woman handed one of them money and whispered, “pay it forward”. “No thank you, ma’am, neither of us have any money,
we’ll have to go elsewhere. “She handed
them more money and said, “Here, pay this forward too.” They were grateful.
Upon seeing this unfold, Teresa
complimented the woman’s wonderful deed, and the woman said, “oh, no please don’t
thank me, then it won’t work.” It was
as if the good deed, would only work if it was done for not acknowledgement at
all. “But that was a wonderful thing
you did,” Teresa told the lady again, “let’s not talk about it, I’m so blessed.” “We are all blessed,” Teresa continued. “Yes,” the lady responded again, “I did not
realize this until my husband developed two brain tumors, and recently had a
stroke.” “How is that a blessing?”
Teresa inquired further. “The tumors are
inoperable, but this stroke has cut off the blood supply to the tumor and it is
no longer growing. We would not have
realized how blessed we are until we found have now found ourselves overwhelmed
and changed by hope.
This new found blessing of hope had
changed this woman into a ‘giver’. She
was no longer content to live her life only as a taker of the blessings that
came her way. That’s what happens when God
finds you. That’s what happens when you
go looking for God knows what, and you find what you really need—the God who
wants to be with you. Isn’t this what
happened to Zacchaeus? When Jesus looked
him in the eyes and said, “Zacchaeus, I
must stay at your house today,”
Zacchaeus’ life was transformed by God’s forgiving, accepting, and
saving love. With a transformed heart,
this man who has everything, starts to give it away: "Look,
half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded
anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much" (Luk 19:8 NRS).
What will you start giving back to God,
when God gives you everything you really need?
This is how we know that salvation is real ‘today’ and in ‘this house’
(v. 9). It is not when we get what we
want, but it is when God gives us what we really need, and we are able to respond
to God’s love and grace, by becoming givers, not just takers.
Now, after sharing this message, I think
I have discovered the small grammatical difference between “have to” and “must”. “Have
to” is used for something that you are obligated to do because you ‘have to’ do
something whether you want to or not. “Must”
is used when the obligation is felt from within. Jesus said, “I must stay” at the Zacchaeus’ house, because he wanted too. But Zacchaeus ‘had to’ see Jesus, not simply because he wanted to, but because he
knew that without Jesus’ love in his life, he would end up with nothing at all. This is why he ‘had to’ see Jesus. And when he saw that Jesus ‘wanted’ to see
him, his heart and life were transformed forever. That’s what blessing, love and hope will
always do. It will change you from the
inside out. Is anybody here ‘trying’ to
see Jesus? Let me tell you, that more
than you realize, this very day, God in Jesus Christ is looking for and wanting to touch and change someone just like you. Amen.
No comments :
Post a Comment