To Love and Serve
The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 26C) October 30, 2022
The Ven. Rose Bogal-Allbritten, Deacon To love and serve
When our now 36-year-old daughter was young, she was one of a very small group of
children who made up St. John’s children’s Sunday School class. They would always end
their class with some singing and this was one of the songs that they sang:
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man
And a wee little man was he
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see
And as the Savior passed that way
He looked up in that tree
And He said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down!
For I’m going to your house today
For I’m going to your house to stay’.”
This version of the story about Zacchaeus is the “G” rated one—popular especially with
children who can relate to someone who was too short to see anything of interest,
including Jesus.
Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, however, is the “R” rated version of the
story—Zacchaeus is still short, but hardly innocuous—more like the late Bernie Madoff
of Jericho—and about as well-loved. The people of Jericho would have been horrified to
think that of all the inhabitants of the town, Zacchaeus would have been the one known
by name to millions of people two thousand years later. He was a tax collector—but not
only a tax collector—he was a chief tax collector.
Roman officials contracted with local entrepreneurs to collect the prescribed taxes, tolls,
tariffs and customs fees in a given area. These entrepreneurs or “chief tax collectors”
were required to pay for the contract in advance. They, in turn, employed others to collect
the taxes and were free to collect extra taxes from the people in order to make a profit.
Opportunities for theft, fraud and corruption abounded and tax collectors were generally
despised.
Jews who collected taxes were hated by other Jews, because they were assumed to be
dishonest as well as complicit with their Roman oppressors. Additionally, they were
rejected because they had contact with Gentiles and were ritually unclean. In a corrupt
system, the loftier one’s position, the greater one’s complicity in that system, and
Zacchaeus was at the top of the heap.
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We are told that Zacchaeus was rich—so apparently he was very good at what he did.
Ironically, however, while Zacchaeus’ wealth provided for a comfortable lifestyle which
was probably the envy of those around him, it also made him vulnerable. Luke’s Gospel
is laced with comments about wealth. In the Magnificat, we hear: “…he has filled the
hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (1:53). In Luke’s version of the
beatitudes, we are told: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your
consolation” (6:24). And several Sundays ago, we heard the story of the poor man named
Lazarus and the unnamed rich man. When Lazarus dies, he is carried away by angels to
be with Abraham, but the rich man is admonished by Abraham: “Child, remember that
during your lifetime you received good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things;
but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony” (16:25).
Zacchaeus doesn’t seem to stand a chance. After all, we already know the story of the
rich ruler—the man who has kept all of the commandments, the man who is genuinely
respectable and religious, honored in his community—in other words, the man who is
everything that Zacchaeus is not. It is apparent that this man is restless, that he truly
desires something more in life than his present affluent situation offers. But when told by
Jesus that there was only one thing that he lacked—he needed to sell all that he owned
and give the money to the poor—he just would not or could not do it.
If the rich ruler was not capable of doing what he needed to do, how could we expect
anything more of Zacchaeus, a sinner by anyone’s standards? To the average person who
heard Luke’s Gospel, the notion of Zacchaeus’ repentance must have been almost beyond
imagination. But nothing is beyond God’s imagination.
As an outcast in the community, Zacchaeus takes the initiative to seek out Jesus, despite
the obstacles of a large crowd and his short stature. When Jesus tells him to “hurry and
come down,” because Jesus “must” stay at his house, he doesn’t hesitate. He is overjoyed
at the prospect of welcoming Jesus into his house. And, unlike the rich ruler, his
encounter with Jesus enables Zacchaeus to see himself in a new way—not as the despised
chief tax collector, but as someone who Jesus has honored with his request for
hospitality.
Additionally, his encounter with Jesus enables Zacchaeus to distance himself from his
riches. His vow of repentance and reparation is profound: “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.” To give 20% of one’s wealth to the poor was considered generous;
to give 50% was extreme. And in a society in which the standard reparation was the
original amount plus 20%, a 400% reparation was unheard of.
We are not told that Zacchaeus stops being a tax collector. He isn’t going to follow Jesus
on the road to Jerusalem. We assume that he will live out his life in this community, but
we know that his encounter with Jesus has left him a changed person.
When Jesus saw Zacchaeus, he did not turn away from him for fear of being criticized for
his association with a person of ill repute; he did not chastise Zacchaeus for being a tax
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collector; he did not demand that Zacchaeus repent; he did not prescribe the reparation
that Zacchaeus should make. Instead, he invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house. It was
Zacchaeus’ house, but it was Jesus who was offering hospitality—the same hospitality
that he offered to the other sinners and outcasts that he encountered throughout his
ministry—the same hospitality that he offers to each of us. All that Zacchaeus had done
and had been up to this point had not moved him beyond the reach of God’s seeking
love—the same love that is extended to each and every one of us.
So what do we take from this story set in 1 st century Jericho and how do we carry its
message into 21 st century western Kentucky and Tennessee? We don’t know any chief tax
collectors—IRS agents and city and county clerks don’t count—but we do know people
who are despised because of their sexual orientation, because they don’t speak our
language, because they don’t look and act like the majority of us. They are despised in
the name of Christianity, but it is a Christianity that has been taken hostage by Christian
nationalism. Christian nationalism is NOT conservative Christianity and it’s not liberal
Christianity—it’s a political ideology and cultural framework that creates second-class
citizenship for everyone who does not fit their very narrow definition of Christian. At a
recent seminar, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry was asked how white Christian
nationalism has affected him personally and what he fears most. Curry recalled being
warned by his grandmother about the “hooded men” of the Ku Klux Klan, which claimed
to be a Christian movement. He went on to say that one of the most powerful tools that
Christians have is the Bible--lift up the New Testament, specifically, the four Gospels,
and let Jesus talk. “Anything that claims to be Christian, if it doesn’t match up, then we
say, ‘Well that’s not Christianity.’”
Jesus does not physically walk the streets of Murray, Mayfield, Cadiz or Paris, but each
Sunday, we pray for “all connected to St. John’s.” And every service ends with the
congregation being sent out to “love and serve Jesus Christ our Savior. The dismissal
serves as a reminder that, while we draw our sustenance from what takes place within
these walls, our commission is to go out those doors to take the “good news” of God’s
love to hurting people—and there are many hurting people, even in our own community.
We don’t need to convert them or chastise them—this is a message that they have already
heard from a number of churches in this community. We wear shirts that say “God loves
you—no exceptions” Our role as Episcopalians is to let them know through our words
and actions that no matter how much they are despised by society or how much they
despise themselves, they are not beyond the reach of God’s seeking love—a love that
none of us deserves, a love that none of us can earn by our own merits—but a love that is
ever-present and never failing. That is “good news” indeed.
Luke 19:1-10
