"Getting Closer to God: Patience and Posterity
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Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Text: Luke 19:1-10
I had been putting it off for months. Something in the Stirling household had become unhinged. No need to laugh! It wasn't me, it wasn't Marial. It was a door. It had been unhinged for months and needed fixing, because it was swinging loosely. I had to do something about it and not having a clue how to fix it, I went to one of the big box renovation stores. I marched in through the front door, looked at the signs up near the ceiling and went to the hardware section labelled: “Nuts and Bolts.”
Feeling at home in that aisle, I walked down and stood in front of the vast array of nuts and bolts. I didn't know which nut and which bolt to use so I stood there, forlorn. Finally, one of the people who worked there took pity on me, and asked, “Sir, can I help you?”
I said, “I have a hinge that has come loose.”
He laughed! “Tell me about it.”
I told him about it.
He said, “You are in the wrong aisle. You need Screws and Hinges,” so I followed him.
I stood in front of an array of screws and hinges and swingy things. I didn't have a clue which one to use. Finally, he reached into a box and pulled them out. I confessed to him that God had not given me the ability to fix things.
He said, after pausing, “That is all right, sir, because if he had, people like me would be out of a job.” We laughed.
He gave me two screws, and said, “This will and fix your problem.” I was ecstatic!
We talked for a while about life, about the fall weather, and the falling leaves. We then talked about the Toronto Maple Leafs, another fallen group of leaves, and we felt for each other in our despair. Finally, he said to me, “Why is it that no members of the Toronto Maple Leafs can use the Web?”
I said, “I have no idea.”
He said, “Because they can't put three 'Ws' together.”
We nearly embraced at that very touching moment. I took my screws. I started to leave. I said, “God bless you.” He then realized I was a minister.
He flipped his thumb and said, “Keep it real!” And, I laughed.
I went home, used the screws in the hinge that was there: fixed! All these months, and it took two screws to fix it! But, in my arrogance, I had not taken the time to ask for help.
I want you to think about our text this morning. In many ways there is a great similarity in that encounter in that particular store and the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. In many ways, as I went home and reflected on that text in preparation for today, I realized that at that moment in that store, I felt like Zacchaeus. I realized that under my own devices and powers, I would never be able to solve the problem before me.
I also realized that I was in the wrong aisle, looking in the wrong place to fix my woes, and that I needed to be in a better place. I needed help and under my own strength I wouldn't be able to solve this problem. Then again, I needed to humble myself to seek the guidance of someone else. When I think back to that moment in the store, a bond had developed between that individual and me. Even though it was only momentary, there was something about it that was joyful and humorous and life giving. A bond had been established, and the “Keep it real” meant a lot.
In many ways when Jesus encountered Zacchaeus, all of those things existed in Zacchaeus' mind. When I think about that particular moment in the store, I realize that it took time, it took patience, it took the time of the person who was helping me, and it took time and humility on my part to listen. The time was the important thing. When the time was spent, the problem could be solved.
The story of the encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus is not only, I think, a moment in time between Zacchaeus and Jesus. As I mentioned last week, Tomas Halik, the Czech theologian suggests it is an encounter for all time. It is how God relates to us and how we relate to God. It is an archetype, a form through which we can see the unfolding work of God. In all its simplicity, there is something very powerful between Jesus and Zacchaeus.
What is most powerful about it is that God has time for us. If I were to find a technical term to describe Zacchaeus, it would be the Latin phrase persona non grata. Zacchaeus was persona non grata. By that, I mean the true meaning of the words. The first meaning is someone who is unwelcome.
For those of you who weren't here last week, let me just remind you of the story. Zacchaeus is in a Sycamore tree. He is there to look at Jesus beyond the crowds. We read that Zacchaeus is a tax collector. As a tax collector, he was someone who was hated by the people in the city of Jericho, because tax collectors would take tax on behalf of the Romans, but then keep some of the shekels for themselves, so the more taxes they collected, the more money they made.
Zacchaeus is despised by his people. Nevertheless, he clearly wanted to see Jesus. Clearly Zacchaeus is persona non grata, he is unwelcome, and the greatest statement against Zacchaeus is that he was no longer considered to be or welcomed as a “Child of Abraham.” We know that because at the end of the story, Jesus says, “This person is surely a Child of Abraham.” He obviously was not considered to be a “Child of Abraham” beforehand.
My friends, there is no greater insult to a Jew than to say that you are no longer a “Child of Abraham.” It means you no longer belong to the Covenant, and you no longer have the right of belonging to the people of God. You no longer are the successor of Abraham's promise: the promise that Abraham and his people would be able to extend the reign of the Kingdom of God.
To say to Zacchaeus that he was no longer a “Child of Abraham” must have been devastating. It must have meant for him that Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, those moments of forgiveness and atonement, were no longer there for him; the moments of celebration of God's grace and God's power were no longer there. Zacchaeus, when he climbed the Sycamore tree must have felt persona non grata: unwelcome.
Zacchaeus must have been tired of it. Can you imagine continually being ostracized and pushed to the side and told that you are of no value? It must have hurt him greatly. To say he was no longer a “Child of Abraham,” no longer there for the successor of Abraham's children must have been devastating. If I could pick a song that would have been his theme tune, it would have been The Beatles' Money Can't Buy Me Love. He couldn't! He was persona non grata: unwelcome.
There is a second meaning, and it is the legal meaning of a diplomat. If a diplomat goes to a foreign country and the sovereign power, or the monarchy, or the government feels that this diplomat does not have the right to be able to represent a particular country, they are deemed to be persona non grata. That means you cannot enter the country, you cannot exercise the power of the government that has sent you, you are nobody in the sight of the sovereign power receiving you.
The irony, as the New Testament theologian N. T. Wright points out, is that Zacchaeus was not persona non grata with foreign powers, the Romans, the invading power. He was persona non grata from the very nation from which he arose, his homeland. His credentials were not accepted by his own, but they were accepted by Rome. Here, then, was the greatest irony of all, Zacchaeus is persona non grata as a child of Israel, the lowest you could possibly be.
What this really meant was that nobody had any time for Zacchaeus anymore. Zacchaeus was somebody who was superfluous, hiding behind the crowd, wanting to see Jesus. While Zacchaeus was persona non grata with his nation, with Jesus he was the exact opposite. Jesus says to him, “Come down, Zacchaeus, for I want to have dinner with you today.” Not only does Jesus acknowledge him, recognize him, but most of all he is seen publicly spending time with him, when others had no time for him.
On this Reformation Sunday, the Sunday when we hold dear those tools that we have been handed down through the Protestant tradition, the core phrase, another Latin phrase that is central to the Reformation is sola gratia: by grace alone, not by works, but by grace, we are saved. This is the fundamental tenet of our faith. This is important to remember because
We live in a time when people are obsessed with seeking after God. There are many different methods and ideas, programs, streams of consciousness, ideas out there as to how we can search better after God. In all that searching, the subject of that searching is ourselves. In that searching, and in that desiring to know and to reach God, people want to extend beyond themselves and get to know God.
There is a wonderful parable that is told by Franz Kafka in The Trial:
There was a man sitting in front of the gateway to the Law who has tried for years to enter but has not found the way. The gateway is guarded by a powerful gatekeeper, who indicates that after him come other gatekeepers who are even more powerful and obdurate than he. At the moment, the life of the man from the country is fading and his waiting is coming to an end. He begs the gatekeeper with his remaining strength to answer one single question: 'Why, over all these years, given that everyone wants access to the Law, has no one but me asked to be let in?' The doorkeeper replies to the dying man 'Because this gateway was intended for you alone. Now I will go and close it.'
You see, for all those who sit outside the gateway of the Law, for all of those who are seeking to enter into the presence of God, for all those who desire to have a life that is known and loved by God, in all that seeking, there is one profound truth that should rise above it all: It is not in the seeking that we should place emphasis, but in the fact that you have already been found. There has been a gatekeeper that has opened the door for you.
The great principle of the Reformation, the Protestant principle, is that grace is already there for you. Just like Jesus when Zacchaeus went up the Sycamore tree, and Jesus said, “Come down and I will have dinner with you today.” It is that God has time for us.
One thing I have really come to grasp, this summer in particular, is the great Protestant idea of De sufficientia legis Christi. It was written by John Wycliffe and Jan Huss: The Sufficiency of the Law of Christ. You don't always need to be knocking on the door. You don't always need to be obsessed with seeking, but rather to know the sufficiency of the love of God in Jesus Christ is always there for you. The power of grace, that God always has time for you. And when you feel that no one else has time for you, or when you feel that you have no more time for yourself, or when you feel that you have no more time for God, God still has time for you.
God also wants us to be in the right place. The phrase that is quoted at the end of this passage is that “Jesus Christ has come to speak and to save that which is lost.” Now the Jesus Seminar suggests that those words were put into Jesus' mouth by the Church years after his death. I think that is nonsense, and can't be substantiated technically. The reason I say this is because throughout the whole of the Gospel narrative, this was something that Jesus said: he has come “to seek” - notice the word - and “to save” that which is lost. It is his initiation, it is his ministry, and it is his gift. It is consistent with his entire ministry.
When we understand “lost”, we mustn't just mean lost in some eternal sense, although that is of course true. Lost simply means you do not know where you are. You are in the wrong place. I mean, look at me in that store. I was in the wrong aisle, looking for the wrong widgets. Had I stayed in the wrong place in perpetuity, I would never have been able to find relief for my swinging loose hinge. But because someone came and showed me the right place, I could.
Jesus came to Zacchaeus and showed him the right place. He brought him back into the Covenant relationship with the People of God. The very people who had ostracized him, who had decided that he was no longer a “Child of Abraham” are ignored by Jesus. He picks the one out of the crowd and brings him back home where he belongs. For a man who lives supposedly outside of the Kingdom, beyond the pale, persona non grata, the grace of Christ brings him back into the right place, into the right home, into the Covenant.
You see, my friends, the signs of being outside the Covenant, of being in the wrong place are all around us. For those who feel the stress and the anxiety of life and are worried about that no one has any time for them or they have no time in their lives, the message of Jesus to Zacchaeus is “Look, God has time for you if you will just let Him bring you into the right place.”
When people wander morally from the path of righteousness and of holiness, Jesus has the time to bring you back into the right place if you will let him. For those who find themselves close to the periphery of the world, those who are poor or who are outcasts or who are dying, Jesus says, “I want to put you in the right place, and I will take the time to do it.”
To a secular world (as I mentioned last week) that sometimes decides that it has no place for God officially, God is patient, and says to that world. “I am willing to bring you back into that right place, and I will do whatever I need to do.” When people feel that they are persona non grata - unwelcome, unloved, even by the Church, Jesus says, “Here's my grace. I will bring you home to the right place.”
That is why this simple encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus is still, for me, one of the foundational texts of the Bible. It is what our hope and our faith is based on: Not on a principle, but on a person; not upon a way we must somehow please God, but in a way that God has taken time to receive us. I don't know about you, but I cannot think of an encounter in history that is more important than Zacchaeus and Jesus. Can you? Amen.