Amazing Grace finds us even before we realize we’re found

(originally delivered October 31, 2010 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Wichita, KS)

Holy Spirit...  Take my lips and speak through them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  As Zacchaeus was blessed to receive Jesus into his home and responded with generosity to this gift, so may we blessed and inspired.* In Christ’s name, I pray.  Amen.

(*from Intercessions for the Christian People by Gail Ramshaw, p. 200)

Where are we on our journey with Jesus?  What does the Spirit want us to hear today?  Come with me in your imagination.  Imagine that we’re on this long walk with Jesus.  We’re part of the rag tag group of groupies who have left behind our jobs and homes to caravan with this charismatic preacher.  We’re not really sure where he’s leading us – we’re caught up in the movement and feeling a part of something bigger and better than the life we’ve left behind.  For some of us it’s the summer of love and we’re on our way to San Francisco with flowers in our hair.  For others, we’re marching to D.C. where we’re going to be a part of huge rally on the Mall.  Some of us are probably secretly hoping that our charismatic leader is going to lead a political revolt that will restore us to health and prosperity.  Regardless of what might be motivating us to be part of this caravan, we know we’re moving with a new crowd that has got us interested in and excited about the future.  And, each time we watch this wily rabbi from Nazareth interact with crowds, we’re stunned by what he says and does and what this stirs in our hearts.

As we’ve been traveling along with Luke lately, we’ve watched Jesus really irritate “the establishment” with his sharp wit and prophetic criticisms.  He has really put it to the people who think they’re smarter than us, who have more money than us, and who we’ve watched take advantage of the corrupt systems around us for their own advantage and to our disadvantage – he’s called them shallow, hypocritical, confused, and lost.  And just when we’re starting to think Jesus is only challenging ‘them’, he shocks us, too, by paying attention to and even seeming to favor some rather unsavory and unclean people that we’d rather avoid.  It’s shocking to see who Jesus considers ‘a neighbor’ and to hear him call us to reconsider who is part of our family.  Jesus tells stories in which the heroes are often misfits and people who have really screwed up their lives.  This radical rabbi even reveres non-Jews/Gentiles and half-breeds!  He makes a hero out of Samaritan, for heaven’s sake. He makes a point of touching and healing lepers and cripples, women with chronic bleeding, the lame, the poor, and the blind.  Just yesterday, he made us all stop and pay attention while he walked over and healed this irritating blind beggar at the gate who was hollering at the top of his lungs for our Lord.   And our Jesus even invites some of these people into our communal life together while calling all of us to have a bigger mind about our responsibility to each other.  But there’s something about all this that keeps us traveling with Jesus... and with each other.  Our Lord has a way of making us all feel welcome at his table, even if we’re not all comfortable with each other yet.

Last week, you might recall, Luke (18:9-12) was telling us how Jesus provoked some critical thinking about justice, justification, and humility by contrasting the standing of a Pharisee and a tax collector before God.  This particular Pharisee, a complacent, self-righteous law abider, believed that he was in good standing with God as he smugly prayed that he, thankfully, wasn’t as bad a sinner as those ‘other’ people, particularly that tax collector over there.  Indeed, those tax collectors are a crooked bunch.  They mingle and deal with non-Jews all the time, they suck up to the occupying Roman rulers to do their bidding, and we’re all pretty convinced that they demand more payment than is required so that they can line their own pockets – in essence, they’re despicable bottom-feeding thieves.   Much to our surprise, however, in his story Jesus praises the humble confessions of the repentant tax collector huddled in the shadow of the temple, saying that he went home justified before God, rather than giving any credit to the seemingly upright moral Pharisee praying aloud in the well lit sanctuary.

Well, here we are today on this road watching our Lord embrace yet another of those tax collectors. We’re making our way through Jericho, surrounded by crowds of people pressing in on us.  We’d kinda like to just keep moving so that we can get wherever we’re going.  But, again, Jesus stops us all in the middle of this crowded street so that he can zero in on one among us.  Our Lord has taken notice a short, little man who is watching us from up in a tree over there.  Hey, we recognize the man up in that tree; he’s one of those tax collectors who is said to have holed away a lot of our hard-earned tax dollars for himself.  That sinister sinner would probably do better to turn away in shame rather than look our Lord in the eye.  But, Jesus doesn’t just acknowledge this sinner, he calls out to him by name in front of the entire crowd and says, “Hey, Zacchaeus, come get down from there and show me some hospitality – I’m coming to stay in your home today and share a meal with you.”  What?!   Really, Jesus?   Like Habakkuk’s oracle in today’s earlier lesson, we’re beginning to ask where is the justice here.  Why would you seek to share a table with that wrong-doing wretch?   Like today’s psalmist, we’re feeling a little indignant because this creep you’re getting cozy with doesn’t seem to honor the commandment not to steal.  Why is Jesus doing this?  We’ve seen our Lord stop to pick up the downtrodden, disregarded, and the poor.  But what’s with his embrace of tax collectors – it’s not the first time he’s done this while we’ve been traveling with him – he’s essentially reaching out to the despised and treacherous among us?  What’s the Spirit trying to get us to hear?  What does God want us to see?

Just then, seeing our frustration with this whole scene, someone beside us in the crowd nudges us and says, ‘yeah, man, I get it.  That’s not just any tax collector, that’s the chief – he has sold out to the Romans and is in charge of all the other tax collectors in this area; he directs the extortionist practices of the whole brood in these parts.  He’s the worst sort of traitor to our people - I get it.  And our beloved Jesus is about to share a meal with this vicious crook.”  Yeah, and I dropped everything I was doing to follow this Jesus of Nazareth… but sometimes I question what’s he really up to and why I’m here.  “I understand” says our neighbor in the crowd.  “See, I had a thriving tax collection business of my own… and when Jesus called out to me, I left my booth behind and eventually found myself spending my money on a big dinner party for Jesus and all these crazy cats who are following his call.”  As we spin around to get a look at this former tax collector standing right beside us, he reaches out his hand and says, “Hi, my name is Levi.”  And then he breaks into song, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”  

What’s the Spirit saying to God’s people?  Was Zacchaeus the tax collector who was lurking in the shadows of the temple in the story we heard last week?  Like that repentant tax collector, Zacchaeus, we’re told, is also repentant.  He is aware that people are grumbling about his interaction with Jesus, so he takes the opportunity to publicly confess his sinfulness before our Lord and the community and offers penance well-beyond the restitution percentages that the law requires of him.  He generously offers to restore 400% of what he has defrauded people of and to give away 50% of his wealth to those in need.  Jesus is also aware that people are grumbling about his interaction with Zacchaeus, so he proclaims loudly so we can all hear him, “Here he is Zacchaeus, son of Abraham!  Today is salvation day in this home!  For the Son of Man has come to find and restore the lost.”  And then he and Zacchaeus go off together for a meal in the tax collector’s home. What’s the good news here?

If we imagine that the followers of Jesus in Jericho were shocked by Jesus’s merciful and loving embrace of this notorious sinner, and surprised even more by the repentant tax collector’s enormous generosity when he came to know Jesus, how much more amazed should we be by God’s enormously generous loving embrace of each and every one of us, sinners that we all are in this broken world. 

Now I don’t know if there are any tax collectors among us this morning.  But I do imagine that some of you in here have felt the isolation or scorn of being cast as a sinner.  I imagine that someone in here might still be keeping a safe distance from Jesus, curious about and interested in what he has to say, but content to stay in up in the tree with all your material riches not wanting to come down into the crowd and risk getting too involved.  I imagine that at least one of us has been so consumed by passion for justice for one cause that we’ve neglected exhibiting compassionate love for those in our midst, perhaps in our immediate family or neighborhood. Surely, no one in here has ever stood proudly in a well-lit sanctuary praying righteously in contrast to someone in the shadows who we consider a ‘worse’ sinner.  At least we’ve all figured out how to get right with God – we come in here, we generally confess our sins, we receive absolution, and then we’re ‘clean enough’ to receive food from our master’s table. 

But what if the good news is that we sometimes get it a little backwards, believing that our actions toward Jesus redeem us?  What if, like the crowd on that day in Jericho, we’re failing to see some of the best news of all in God’s actions toward us?  What if the best news is that even before we seek it, even before we confess, even before we appear worthy of it, even before we think we’re clean enough to approach the table, God’s love has already found us, God’s amazing grace has already forgiven us; our Savior’s blood has already washed us clean.  No matter how lost we might seem, Jesus Christ can sense our curiosity and hear the voice of our heart, however faint, amid the crowded noise and haste, and he locates us.  He pays no attention to the hecklers and the naysayers who think he’s being foolish or wasting his time.  He sees us huddled in the shadows, or up in that distant tree, or otherwise outside the boundaries and he calls to each of us by name - he asked to be let into our home - because desires communion with us.   This is good news.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  We can always be found and restored through amazing grace.  Thanks be to God!

And just as Jesus leads with love, loving the seemingly least loveable of among us, so are we called to love our neighbors, and particularly those who are harder for us to love.  Just as His grace and forgiveness is extended to us even before we confess or repent, so are we called to offer love to our neighbors, even before they seem worthy of it.  Those who are ‘wrong;’ those who abuse and exploit; those who have belittled or been indifferent to our suffering; those who we might otherwise judge to be so sinful as to be untouchable – even to those neighbors – just like Jesus to the despised tax collectors - we are to extend our charitable love and forgiveness.  God loves even the apparently ungodly – that’s good news.  Our own pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness can get in the way of our receiving the benefits of that profound love.  It’s when our hearts open, and we walk humbly before our God, that God’s love is able to break through and change our lives.  

Soon we’ll all be coming to his table again right here, in remembrance of our Lord who showed us how to live the greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbors.  Even before we confess and pray together, Christ is already reaching out to us from his table.  No matter where we are on our spiritual journey, Christ is always gracefully inviting us to share in this communion.  Who, outside of these doors, is on the outskirts?  Who might among our neighbors out there is searching?  Which so-called wretches are merely blind, awaiting someone to help them see?  What will we do after having been fed at Christ’s table this morning?  When we go forth from this church this morning, how will we participate with Christ in seeking, finding, and redeeming the lost, just as God sought, found, and redeemed us?

Let us pray. 

Lord of the lost ones, you come to our broken homes and call us your own:  may our tables be graced by your presence as guest and our possessions freed to serve the poor; through Jesus Christ, the Seeker.  (from Prayers for an Inclusive Church by Steven Shakespeare, p. 109)

Christ, you are no discriminator of persons.  Look then with love on all those who in this world are disregarded or despised.  May all who seek salvation find a home in your heart and in the house of your church. 

O God, lover of all who wander and who seek, you have taken up your dwelling among those who desire life and those who need compassion and understanding.  Open our eyes to your presence and call, as Jesus opened the eyes of Zacchaeus by eating as his table.

Jesus, you have given your command that the riches of this world be turned to the service of the needy and the poor.  Grant that those who control wealth and its distribution may be inspired by a strong sense of compassion and a desire for justice.

O God, you are the God of the sinner and not of the just.  Grant that we may despise none of those to whom you please to give your love.

May the desire to follow Christ consume our whole being, and make our hearts and homes receptive to your call, with the same zeal with which Zacchaeus sought Jesus and responded to his presence. 

(adapted from Intercessions for the Christian People by Gail Ramshaw, p. 200)

AMEN.