10.30.2022 - Biblical Faith - Faith at the Last

Scripture: Luke 19:1-10

Luke 19:1–10 NRSV

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 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.” 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “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.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Faith at the Last

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Not Good Enough

Not good enough. October of 2000 was the first time I remember being worried that I would fail a class. I took a psychology class, expecting it to be a breeze since I had a psychology class two years before in High School. I was good at taking tests and had a good memory for recalling lectures. I remember getting my midterm exam back with the lowest test score I had ever received. My world had changed—the old way of doing things no longer worked for me. I had to grow up, and it wasn't much fun. That experience did something else for me as well. It knocked me down a peg, and that humbling experience prepared me for greater challenges later. We have all had experiences like that, whether at school, playing sports, trying to do artwork, or working with the technology in our phones, televisions, or cars. That frustration reaches into our spiritual and relational lives as well. When we come across a difficult bible passage that is hard to understand or too challenging for us to apply to our lives, we often choose another path. Maybe this faith life is not for me. The world gives us plenty of other options out there. Or perhaps I will keep calling myself a Christian, but I will leave that difficult part out. If you have ever felt that way, know that you are in good company today. As I mentioned last week, part of growing and maturing in our faith is recognizing how much more we need God's help than we ever thought, and if we think and feel like we are not enough, how much more will those we are disciplining feel and experience that? However, if we persevere and humbly ask for God's help, He will help us through it all.

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Don’t Give Up!

Salvation comes anytime we repent and believe.

Jesus told his disciples to preach one message to the people as they gathered the crowds to see Him: Repent and Believe. If you were one of the disciples back then, who would you go after first? Most of us go after people like us, those we consider ordinary people. So, those disciples probably gathered fishermen and other tradespeople from the marketplace. They probably talked to the women that were shopping there. They may even have felt brave enough to speak to the local rabbi's in the synagogues.

There were people they might not have invited, at least at first. They might have skipped anyone who was identifying themselves as a member of the Pharisees. They would have avoided any Gentiles and especially Samaritans in the area. Although they probably invited the poor and the sick, I'm not sure if they would have asked those who were contagious. After all, they needed to keep Jesus safe.

The disciples probably did their best to invite every good Jew they could find and a few that may not have been the most upstanding citizens. However, until Jesus invited Matthew to join the disciples, there was one person from every town they probably avoided: the tax collector. As we learned last week from the parable about prayer that Jesus taught, tax collectors were considered the worst in society. They were traitors to their people and often extorted money from their neighbors with the help and threat of roman soldiers. They were the abusers of society, and the disciples may have looked at them the way Jonah looked at the people of Ninevah - knowing God wanted them invited to the table as well but not wanting to be at the same table with them.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. We all remember from the song that he was short, but the first thing scripture tells us about him is that He was rich. That might translate into extra sinful, especially if he got those riches by ripping off his people. He may have had trouble making friends outside of other tax collectors, and even then, they may have only spent time with him because he had money. Everything about his life made it challenging for him to have people who truly knew him and cared for him. Then Jesus blew everyone's mind by telling Zacchaeus to get off that tree and head home because Jesus was on his way to dinner with him. The last person anyone expected Jesus to have anything to do with became the first visit on his list in Jericho.

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The Audit

There are moments in the Gospels when Jesus seems to switch roles on us. He moves from the shepherd of the people, letting the children come to Him, to the sheriff of heaven, knocking on someone's door and telling them he wants dinner and an account of how they live their lives. Unfortunately, the scripture doesn't tell us what Jesus said to Zacchaeus in his house or who was present. It could have been a private conversation, which is how our western sensibilities go, or it could have been Middle Eastern hospitality where all the disciples, along with the family, friends, and neighbors of Zacchaeus, may have been there. I'm inclined to believe it was the latter because the religious leaders accused Jesus of going to parties with tax collectors and sinners. Either way, the scripture focuses on the outcome: Salvation came to that household because this man repented and believed. When we think of throwing a dinner party and showing off your gift of hospitality, we don't usually think about doing it in honor of an IRS tax agent that has come to audit us. Zacchaeus was that tax agent, and I'm sure he never imagined being put on the spot to show hospitality to the one who had come to audit him. These are two very different concepts that do not mix but work together in a powerful way when God works through them. You can't repent if you don't know what you are doing wrong. So to get to living a life as a follower of Jesus, receiving His goodness and grace, we must align ourselves with Him. What does that mean? Let me give you an example. Experiencing a sunrise is a beautiful thing, and every single one is different. You and I have the opportunity to witness it every day. However, I, not being a morning person, have missed nearly forty years of sunrises. To be able to experience that in my life, I have to make different choices, maybe even ones that seem to go against my nature. One of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is doing a fearless moral inventory of your life. Everyone in AA knows they are there because drinking has become unmanageable in their lives.

However, most of them do not see what other parts of their lives led them to drink in the first place. Without doing a fearless moral inventory - a kind of life audit, we don't really repent. Instead, we trade one sin for another and work our way in a circle right back to where we are. By going through this process, we can discover what lies are running and ruining our lives, and with God's help and His Word, what truth will lead us to freedom and life. That's a pretty practical thing to do. Self-care and self-checkups. Here is where it gets uncomfortable. Jesus invited his disciples (and probably Zacchaeus) to do this fearless moral inventory alongside others. His invitation was not just to admit wrongdoing and promise to do better next time. It was to make the wrongs right, pay back what he owed, and promise this publically among those who would hold them accountable for acting on their words.

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Hospitality and Jesus

Now, hold on to that thought of doing a life audit with a community of believers and consider how hospitality is represented here in this passage. Jesus does not give many good practical examples of hospitality. He did not open up His earthly home to others or spend hours preparing meals for them. He prayed for them, healed them, fed them, and even washed their feet, but it was always in someone else's home. This passage demonstrates a more typical perspective of Jesus at a dinner party... Jesus is the guest of honor, and He asked Zacchaeus to do this for Him. That feels backward to me. If I'm going to show hospitality to others, I want to do it from my own home with my kitchenware and using my recipes. So why is Jesus trying to invite sinners to show Him hospitality instead of offering hospitality to them?

The answer is that Jesus knows what He has to offer. He did not leave heaven to come and feed us food that would only leave us hungry again hours later. He did not come to heal us for a day, a month, or a year. He did not come to teach us seven steps to better living. Instead, he came to invite us to His home in heaven and to help us get there. That involves letting go of sin and turning to the strength that grace gives us to live differently. It involves new relationships with each other and a new relationship with God. It involves so much new life that He described it to Nicodemus as being "born again."

So yes, Jesus will stand at the door of a sinner and knock, asking to be let in so they can begin a new relationship together, and that is awkward on so many levels. But it is also the only way that Jesus gets into the home and the hearts of the whole family and household of Zacchaeus.

As we follow Jesus, making disciples, He calls us to do the same. The difference between Jesus and us is that we can sit down with others, share our own life audit, and invite them to do the same with us. We can do this with our friends and family. John Wesley's mother used to do this with her children weekly, inspiring the small groups that Methodism became known for decades later. But we can do it with those God sends us to as well. Sometimes it is out of conflict, and God calls us to show hospitality to those who have sinned against us so that we can admit and correct the wrongdoing and get back into the right relationship with each other.

Let me leave you with a challenge and a promise. Go home and read Matthew 18, another teaching of Jesus about being in godly relationships with one another. Ask God what he wants you to do next and who you need to show or receive hospitality. And know that right in the middle of that chapter about the messiness of life together following God is this promise from Jesus: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

Jesus came to open up His home and heaven for us and to show us that God's heart has always been open to us. He brings us peace with God and each other. Will you open your hearts to Him so that salvation and peace may come to your house? Will you open up your hearts to those God sends you to and brings to you so that salvation and peace may flow through you into their homes as well?

Sunday school starts in just a few minutes and come back and join us for a hymn sing at our Sunday evening service at 6 pm.