The Blessedly Obscure (Luke 19)

            Reading this story, it is nigh impossible for many Protestants to resist humming a bit as Zacchaeus, “a wee little man”, shimmies up a sycamore tree, for “the Lord he wanted to see”.  Involuntarily, you lose your grip on the Bible, your hands going on autopilot, miming the story as learned in Vacation Bible School.  The song kicks into overdrive as you remember the sugar shock of too much Kool-Aid on a summer day and the heady smell of glue sticks as you made that little craft project while very patient (and some would say, long-suffering) teachers ensure that you make that Tower of Babel out of tongue depressors before the week is over.

            Oddly enough, I did not remember much about Zacchaeus since VBS days, until I attended seminary.  Despite years of church attendance (and even paying attention during most of the sermons and Sunday School lessons in the meantime), I did not realize that Zacchaeus was such a wee little thief.

            You see, the VBS song kept the story “rated G”, when the gospel narrative itself is a bit more controversial.  Perched up that tree is a short fellow with a long rap sheet.   Zacchaeus is a tax collector working in one of the busiest (and therefore most personally lucrative) tax districts.
            If you asked anybody there, they would suggest some new lyrics.  (It’s a great tune, they’d say, it’s got rhythm and you can dance to it, but you really should be singing:

            “Zacchaeus was an extortioner, an extortioner was he.

            He taxed and swindled all day long, and then chuckled, “Hee, hee, hee!”

            If you think I jest or worse, overstate Zacchaeus’ complexity as a character alongside Jesus, consider Luke’s description of the crowd.  The crowd recoils a bit at the sight of Zacchaeus and even more so when Jesus treats this fellow well.  The gospel storyteller claims “everybody grumbles” about the situation.  And by everybody, Luke means, “everybody”:  the Pharisees and the disciples of Jesus agree at least on this point.  This guy is not worth a second glance, as he has surely lost any respectability with his work as a tax collector.  (Cue the old movie trope of a hillbilly waving a shotgun, shouting, “He’s a revenuer!  Get him!”)

            So, what sort of person would get Jesus’ opponents and Jesus’ inner circle both all riled up? 

            According to Jesus, the object of scorn is the same person that he cannot wait to see and to welcome.

            A few minutes ago, the sanctuary was visited by a variety of little goblins, dressed in all manner of outfits.  Halloween is an interesting holiday, allowing a child to pretend what it means to be a superhero, or explore a fantasy about growing up (I’m going to be a fire fighter this year!).  Sometimes, adults also find themselves curious, wondering what it would be like to take leave of the day in/day out daily grind of life, pretending for an evening that it’s fun to be a pirate rather than spend the night at home wearied from the workday as an accountant.   Take a bed sheet, and it’s time to play Caesar for an hour or two.  Shell out the big bucks and strut down the street as Darth Vader or a princess from a Disney film.  Halloween is that day that most Americans (well, the folks in New Orleans get two days a year….) can be really imaginative and, better yet, among friends and strangers with the same yearning to be so.

            So, what does Zacchaeus, the short heavy, have to do with Halloween?   Such a story as this is a wonderful gift for a day like today.  We encounter Jesus, arms open to welcome, the person who imagines that his life could indeed be other than the only way he has lived it out.   Zacchaeus does not scramble through the crowd and up a tree for his dignity’s sake.  (Indeed, the image of his efforts leaves a rather silly image in my mind.)  He hears that Jesus is coming, and he knows that, despite the ridiculous efforts he will undertake to see Jesus, despite the ridicule he inevitably draws from anyone (Luke said, everyone) around him, Zacchaeus realizes that he sees something far better than the “easy life” he has created.  He wants to see Jesus, as it’s part of what it means to start being somebody other than he’s always been.

            It’s quite a spectacle:  Zacchaeus welcomed by Jesus and the derisive reaction of the crowd.  Such love and grace pours forth from Jesus, yet the religious around him (friend and foe alike) cannot see any good reason to celebrate.  After all, did not John the Baptist himself, proclaim (in Luke’s own gospel, to boot!) that tax collectors had a difficult challenge.  For the tax collector to repent, the cranky Baptist claimed, would have to stop the things that made him rich:  don’t overcharge on taxes.   Don’t exploit others for your own gain.  As far as the crowd around Jesus and Zacchaeus could see, it’s like saying, “Hey, leopard! Change your spots!”

Zacchaeus has beaten the odds.  He confesses most publicly that he has amended his ways and will take the challenge to follow God’s ways even at his own expense or comfort.  This small, unlovable man has done something incredible in his life, exchanging his exploitative ways for a way that is far less lucrative.  Zacchaeus has taken up a new way, and Jesus not only sees this.  He welcomes it with great joy.

Perhaps in that moment of change, in that desire to explore that yearning spiritual and moral hunger within, Zacchaeus became what latter Christians would term a “saint”.  Saints may come with wondrous stories of daring and fortitude, or they may be persons who wouldn’t necessarily think of themselves first and foremost as “saintly”, just faithful to God.  Saints in the Christian tradition are actually not a select few.  The gospel calls each of us to be Christ’s saints!

This day, while we acknowledge Halloween with our children, we observe with appropriate reverence the holy day of “All Saints”, celebrated traditionally on November 1.  It is a day that Christians celebrate those who have gone on before, recalling the New Testament’s splendid language of “the cloud of witnesses”.  We recall not only the “greats” of the Church.  Such days call us to remember the folks who might be only known to us as great examples of the faith lived well and lived out in the midst of the world.   Recalling the saints helps us remember the best of what it means to be Christian.

The story of Zacchaeus offers us a glimpse of what happens when the least likely person steps forward in faith.  Jesus rejoices and welcomes you to this new way of life.  We have difficult choices to make about how we live our lives.  We struggle with adversities and challenge, and sometimes the scorn and misunderstanding of others.   Yet, we move forward, as Christ’s beloved, a group of people who know what it means to be lost and know what it means to be welcomed home.  

The Challenges of the Life of Faith (selections from Hebrews 11)

When I interviewed with the search committee four years ago, somebody asked if I was a Red Sox fan or a Yankees fan.  I wisely replied, “Are they football teams?” 

Four years hence, I still know very little of baseball, so I was quite puzzled by a New York Times article a few weeks ago.   When team owner George Steinbrenner died, it was reported that a pre-game memorial would take place at the next Yankees’ home game.  The article also noted that as part of the tributes, a group of fans had agreed not to chant during the game.

Puzzled even further, I tried to figure out why not chanting during a ball game was considered a tribute.  Again, I did not know of the mysterious rituals of certain hardcore Yankees fans.  I learned of the fairly modern tradition (since 1996) of a group of fans sitting in a certain section of Shea Stadium (section 39 in the old Shea stadium and now section 203 in the new one). The fans spend the first inning chanting the names of each Yankees player out on the field.  For them, not chanting and being generally raucous was considered a sign of respect for Steinbrenner.  Not surprising was to learn of their nickname:  the Bleacher Creatures. 

You might be wondering:  where is he going with this?  How a bunch of “super-fans” (often known for their rude habits and rituals) wind up in a Vermont Baptist church service where the strongest concession item we offer is a stout cup of coffee? 

Oddly enough, the Bleacher Creatures’ habits of cheering and shouting and making some noise to see their home team win fits in with the Epistle to the Hebrews.  In this book, the writer of Hebrews talks about the saints/heroes of the faith who have gone on before us, now in glory above, shouting their encouragement to the rest of us (and not with the Bleacher Creatures’ other habits thrown in).  The saints above encourage those of us down here to run the race of faith, with the writer of Hebrews claiming the Christian goes on a long journey, where endurance and determination is needed.  Such support from the saints before us is given to us, though we have to listen for it.

Listening to words of encouragement can be hard.  We tend to hear all of the other voices around in (or in us) that discourage yet the New Testament claims the abiding word for the disciples of Jesus is that certain word that calls us to press onwards.  Elsewhere in Hebrews, the writer claims that disciples can get discouraged and wore down, using this powerful image of a people of “drooping hands and bent knees” (Hebrews 12:12).  Picture this image in your mind, and perhaps you find yourself thinking, “That describes me!” 

The world of the New Testament might seem distant from us, written with the perspectives (and biases) of the emerging Christianity of the first century, yet the scriptures also weave themselves into our twenty-first century life, sometimes encouraging, sometimes chastening us to remember that some tropes about human life have not changed, despite the centuries dividing us from the “early Church”.  We still struggle with discouragement.  We remain puzzled about the way life tends to work: unpredictable and a little chaos thrown in.  Certainly, we hear Hebrews loud and clear when we read of drooping hands and bent knees.  That sounds just like “home”, “work”, “family”, “homework”, and yes, even “church”.  However, can we hear that contrary word of encouragement?  Can you hear that good word lilting above the din of the world and the noise within you?

The writer of Hebrews launches into a roll call of the faithful, those who have lived out their lives in fullness and faithfulness before God.  It’s a veritable “who’s who” of the great people some of you first learned about in Baptist Sunday school.  The roll call starts off with one of the greatest of the greats, Abraham, the one whose covenant with God made him the father of multitudes, generation upon generation of faithful followers.  Abraham lived a very difficult life, even after he was called out by God to do great things. 

            A few years ago, journalist Bill Moyers explored the Book of Genesis alongside Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars, writers and religious leaders as part of PBS series.  Moyers observes about the call of Abraham:

John Gardner tells us that history never looks like history when you are living through it.  It looks confusing and messy, and always feels uncomfortable.  You can certainly say that about history as we find it in the Book of Genesis.  God is founding a dynasty, the beginnings of Judaism, Christian, and Islam.  One might expect the storyteller to pain the “First Family” ten feet tall with several coats of whitewash.  But the picture we get of these men and women is uncomfortably human.  There is so much marital conflict and sibling intrigue they almost forfeit the call and fumble the promise.  Yet the storyteller refuses to clean up their act.  This is the amazing thing about the people of Genesis.  The more we talk about them, the more they look like people we know—faces in the mirror. 

            In the mid-20^th century, Baptist translator, scholar, and social justice legend Clarence Jordan translated most of the New Testament into Southern vernacular.  He translated Hebrews 11:1:“Now faith is the turning of dreams into deeds; it is betting your life on unseen realities.”   I love that turn of phrase: faith as “betting your life on unseen realities”.  It asks us to make a choice about how we live our lives: is life nothing than the drama between letdowns, or an adventure that has its twists and turns, yet is well worth living? 
            Faith is the glue that holds us together when the world seems to be shaking at the foundations.  Faith is the spark that fans to flame our sense of a future well worth seeking out.  Faith is that belief so deep down within that it is woven into your very being.

            Abraham and many, many others in the Bible were people of faith while still being “uncomfortably human” or just like that face we know in the mirror.  The book of Hebrews aims to see the same faithfulness flower in the midst of the early Christians, struggling as a minority religious community in the midst of the Roman Empire.  The epistle writer sees the weariness etched across the faces of the church members: the challenge to live daily life, the challenge to live that life out with faithfulness to God.  With the knowledge that life was difficult, that faith can wax and wane as life’s travails add up, the epistle writer still put these words down on the page, offering the roll call of the faithful, claiming that somewhere there’s a crowd cheering you (yes, you!) on through life’s journey, providing a counter-claim to the world as we know it from first-hand experience as a hard, unpredictable place to be.

Abraham hands down to us a case study in what it means to be faithful, though he probably did not consider his faith that “great” if you were to ask him what his secrets to a life lived in faith.  He made mistakes.  He faltered.  He had moments that some readers might consider of questionable judgment.  As Moyers said, we should refrain from whitewashing the stories of the Bible in favor of often pale, unrealistic interpretations of the sacred stories.  Pay close attention to the full story of a biblical character, a saint, or a believer you would highlight as a person of admirable faith, and you will find one such as Abraham:  a person who knew life in all its adversity and wonder. 

Despite what you might believe about your own faith journey, faith is not about success or importance.  Really, it’s not even about your ability to “knock one out of the park” each and every day.  Faith is built on day-by-day living, letting your beliefs and your life intertwine, sometimes harmonizing and other times seeming at odds.  Little by little, belief takes root, and faith flowers.