(Sermon for May Memorial Baptist Church's Worship on November 3, 2019, Proper 26)
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Zacchaeus the Leprechaun
For many of us, the story of Zacchaeus summons
up sentimental memories of Sunday School: the song we sang about a “wee, little
man”; the comical, coloring-book images of a short man scrambling up and down a
tree. I still remember the year that the
lesson on Zacchaeus followed immediately after St. Patrick’s Day. We children drew the natural conclusion. This short man who had a lot of gold
obviously was a wee leprechaun!
What’s Wrong with Having Money?
The story of Zacchaeus contains within it a
lesson about money. But it was not the
first lesson about money that I learned.
The first lesson I learned was simple: to get
what I wanted, I needed money. As a
young child, I thought getting money was as simple as walking into a bank or
punching buttons on an ATM. Only later
as a teenager would I learn that getting money involved a bit more. And so I became motivated to do things like
mow the neighbors’ lawns, rake leaves, and shovel snow.
It was around this time when I was learning the
value of money that my youth group at church read the story of the rich, young
ruler. And the story frightened me
because it challenged my very motivation for life.
It’s a familiar story. A ruler asks Jesus how to inherit eternal
life. Jesus reminds him to follow the
commandments, to which the ruler responds, “I do all of these things.” In other words, this guy knew his Bible just
like I did, and he tried to follow the rules just like I did. This was a guy with whom I could identify. He seemed alright. Then Jesus tells him he lacks one thing
still. He invites him to sell all that
he has and give his money to the poor and to follow him, which makes the man
sad. In truth, it made me sad too,
because to have a lot of money was a good thing as far as I could tell. Isn’t that why I was mowing lawns and raking leaves? What was wrong with having a lot of money?
Building Block or Stumbling Block?
What followed, however, frightened me even
more. Jesus exclaims that it’s easier
for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than for someone with wealth to enter
into the kingdom of God. I found myself
asking the exact same question that the crowd Jesus asks, “Who then can be
saved?” Jesus responds, “What is
impossible for mortals is possible for God,” which was mysterious enough to
leave me unsettled.
Thankfully the leader of our Bible study came
to the rescue with a host of reassuring interpretations. First, he said that Jesus’ invitation to the
rich man is not necessarily Jesus’ invitation to us. Rather, Jesus knew that the man’s riches were
his prize possession and thus potentially an idol. For you or me, it might be something else: a
relationship, a job, a dream. The
important thing, my leader said, is that we are willing to give it up
for God. (And notice that willing
to give something up does not mean we actually give it up in the end. God is merciful, after all.) Then he continued. The eye of the needle, he said, is actually a
reference to a gate in Jerusalem that camels could pass through if they
relinquished all their baggage. In other
words, it is possible for a camel to make it through the eye of the
needle. Finally, Jesus’ reminder that what is impossible for us is possible for
God means that ultimately it’s not about what we do or don’t do, but
rather about what God does for us. Even
if we hold onto our money, or whatever it is that we need to relinquish, God
can still help us through.
If I’m being honest, these interpretations did
not reassure me. They felt like excuses,
like escape clauses that Christian lawyers had drawn up for our eternal benefit. What left a greater impression on me were not
these reassurances but the words of Jesus himself. His words haunted me. They upset the balance and order of my life,
suggesting that money was not the building block of life but rather a stumbling
block. I could not escape Jesus’
suggestion that camels have a better chance walking through a needle’s eye—or
today we might say, pigs have a better chance of flying—than a person with
wealth has of entering the kingdom of God.
So I was left with the crowd’s question: “Who then can be saved?”
A Tale of Two Rich Rulers and the Impossible
Jesus’ answer to that question—“nothing is
impossible with God”—is a throwback in the book of Luke. You might remember it. Mary asks the angel Gabriel how she could
possibly conceive; Gabriel responds, “Nothing is impossible with God.” Shortly after that, Mary sings a song of joy,
a song that celebrates lowly persons such as herself lifted up and the powerful
brought low, a song that imagines the poor filled with good things and the rich
emptied out. In other words, the
impossibility that God overcomes in Luke is not just the laws of physics. It is the impossibility posed by human hearts,
hands, and habits. It is the
impossibility of a new world and way of living, a world where the lowly are
lifted up and restored to community and the hungry are filled, where the powers
that be who lord it over others and preserve the status quo are emptied of
their prestige and possessions.
It’s a little disheartening to me that this
impossibility that God overcomes, is not overcome in the story of the
rich ruler. Here the rich man is not
emptied, nor are the hungry filled. Here
the powerful are not brought low, nor the lowly lifted up. But the story does not end here. Just one chapter after Jesus insists that
with God nothing is impossible, we are introduced to Zacchaeus. Our Bibles call him “the chief tax
collector,” but in the Greek he is actually “the ruler of tax
collectors.” He’s also rich. In other words, Zacchaeus is a rich ruler. Déjà vu.
We’ve just seen this.
But whereas the first time we were left asking,
“Who then can be saved?” this time the story ends with Jesus’ defiant
proclamation, “Today salvation has come to this house.”[1] It’s almost as though in response to the
question, “Who can be saved?” Luke tells us the story of another rich ruler who
in fact is saved. Zacchaeus is
the answer to the question.
Zacchaeus stands in stark contrast to the first
rich ruler. First, he gives away nearly
all that he has: half his possessions, and then four times back to those he has
defrauded. But that’s not all. Jesus invites Zacchaeus to “come down” the
tree, and he does. He hurries down. He can’t get down quick enough. There echoes in Zacchaeus’ physical movement
down the tree, the kingdom movement that Mary sang about in the days before
Jesus’ birth. Zacchaeus is a powerful
man who is brought down, a rich man who is subsequently emptied. Zacchaeus is a witness to the good news that
with God nothing is impossible.
The Lord’s Supper Is More than the Last Supper
And is it any surprise that God overcomes the
impossible at the table? Because that’s
where the story of Zacchaeus ends. Jesus’
insistence, “I must stay at your house,” and the mention that Zacchaeus was
“happy to welcome him” are the unmistakable language of table hospitality.
In Luke, the table is not just the site of
Jesus’ last supper. It’s where Jesus is
always hanging out. It’s where he makes
a name for himself. Repeatedly in Luke people
grumble (like they do in today’s scripture) because Jesus eats with tax
collectors and sinners (cf. Luke 5:30; 15:2).
“In Jesus’ society, eating was a key indicator of belonging and status. In the way he ate, Jesus refused the
boundaries of [status and power and purity] which eating was supposed to
uphold. In so doing he challenged not
only a religious establishment but also an entire empire. [Jesus’ table manners] turned everything
upside down: power, status, gender, purity, money.”[2]
For Luke, the Lord’s Supper is about much more
than the last supper. It is about Jesus’
way of gathering around tables.
And there is perhaps no more striking example of that in Luke than
today’s scripture. Whereas churches
today have commonly sought to protect the table, making it a boundary between
insiders and outsiders, a stronghold for right doctrine, Jesus shows us the
opposite. In today’s scripture, the
Lord’s Supper takes place in the house of a sinner. This is what outraged his
contemporaries. It would have been fine
if Jesus were eating with repentant sinners, with people who had already
conformed to right religious practice.
But Jesus was eating with sinners, plain and simple, regardless of their
repentance. In today’s story, Jesus
doesn’t wait until Zacchaeus promises to give away half his possessions and
restore fourfold to others what he has taken wrongly from them. He insists on sharing the table, and only
then do we see Zacchaeus’ transformation.
In other words, for Jesus gathering at the table is not conditional on
salvation. In today’s story, it’s constitutive
of salvation.
Zacchaeus is so overwhelmed by Jesus—and not by
his miracles, nor by his teaching, but simply by his loving initiative and
grace—that he cannot help but follow in Jesus’ way. At the table, he resolves to follow Jesus’
way of love and self-giving.
Jesus’ response reveals the power of the
table. “Today salvation has come
to this house” (19:9). It strikes me
that the rich ruler had asked Jesus about his personal salvation, “What must I
do to inherit eternal life” (18:18).
But with Zacchaeus, salvation acquires a broader horizon. It’s not just Zacchaeus who is saved. Salvation comes to his house—the same house
where Jesus and his rag-tag, itinerant disciples are sitting. Around this sinner’s table, which is also the
Lord’s table, we catch a glimpse of the impossible world that Mary earlier sang
about: a world where the lowly are lifted up even as the lofty are brought low.
The Impossible Table
When I began writing this sermon, I intended to
share a challenge about the ways we use our money, for I think today’s passage
is very challenging on that matter.
But now that I reach the end, I read in our
story a challenge that encompasses more than simply our money. What is most challenging to me in today’s
scripture is the Lord’s table, a place where Jesus turned the tables on this
world, where he did the impossible, where he ate with the people I would
reject, where the rich are emptied and the hungry are filled, where the lofty
are brought low and the lowly are lifted up.
From my parents, I have learned that May
Memorial is celebrating and sharing the Lord’s table in some inspiring
ways. I understand that you all set up
tables and shared your love and good cheer with trick-or-treaters at Scottville
this past Thursday. Like Jesus, you saw
the table not as the property of the church but the possibility of the kingdom
in the world. I understand too that in
your program “Backpacks of Love,” you fill bags with food for underprivileged
students in the community. In this way,
you share in the Lord’s table where the rich are emptied and the hungry are
filled.
Twenty years ago, Jesus’ words haunted me, in
spite of my Bible study leader’s best assurance. Today I am haunted again, this time by the
impossible image of the Lord’s table.
May that table be for us this morning not a boundary but just the
beginning of a new, impossible world.
Prayer
Lord of the table,
For whom nothing is impossible:
Where we are full of ourselves,
Full of pride, possession, or power,
Empty us.
Where we are empty,
Fill us with your love.
Gather us around your table,
That we might be changed
And that salvation might come today
To us and our communities.
In Christ, who ate with sinners and tax collectors:
Amen.
[1]
Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997),
666, observes these parallels between the stories of the rich ruler (18:18-30)
and Zacchaeus (19:1-10) and suggests that the stories’ juxtaposition invites
their comparison.
[2] Steven Shakespeare and Hugh Rayment-Pickard, The Inclusive God: Reclaiming Theology for an Inclusive Church (London: Canterbury, 2006), 97-98.
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