Homily for
The 24th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 26 - Time of the Church
Proper 26 - Time of the Church
Sunday 30 October 2016
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church
Readings:
Now here is a Gospel reading we all know well. As I have sat with this Gospel over the
course of the past week, I have had visions and memories of Sunday School when
I as a kid was taught to sing about Zacchaeus and the sycamore tree he climbed
in order to get a good view of Jesus of Nazareth as he passed through
Jericho. I bet right about now at least
some of you are humming that very song in your heads and remembering being
taught this when you also were a child.
You have heard me say a good many times in the past, and God willing you
will hear it many more times to come, that there is something wonderful in
these passages we know so well, and there is also a trap in them. We can all too easily fall into the
temptation that we know all that there is to know about a passage of the
Scriptures that we know well. The way to
address this is to approach even those Gospel moments as if we are hearing them
for the very first time all over again and to ask the Holy Spirit to open our
hearts and minds that we might receive Christ the Teacher in our midst as the
Scriptures are opened before us.
That is our challenge. In these
next few moments I want you to set aside any memory of Zacchaeus and to stand
with me at that sycamore tree in Jericho looking for something fresh and
new. And let me share with you, by the
way, that this is possible. I say that
because in my own study and preparation for preaching this Sunday there were
things that jumped off the page that quite frankly I never noticed before. This experience by the way reminds me of an
experience in my seminary days when a world-renowned Swedish New Testament
scholar and bishop of the Church – once the Archbishop of Sweden – shared with
us Seminarians that in spite of how many times he may have read a passage of
the Scriptures, there was always something new that he discovers that he never
saw before. This by the way was a man in
his 80’s.
Remember as we think about the Scriptures that there is great significance
in names. The Bible describes moment
after moment in which a child was given a name because the meaning of that name
contained the very hopes and dreams of the parents for their child. On other occasions in the Bible we find that
when the characters of the stories are named we also find the definition of the
name. But then there are other moments
when the Bible itself names a name but says nothing whatsoever of the
meaning. Today’s Gospel is one such
place where no meaning is given us for the name of this Chief Tax Collector who
climbs the sycamore tree in Jericho.
We may need some help understanding the name of the short chief tax
collector. Don’t think for a moment
though that the Jews who crossed paths with Jericho on the most ordinary of
days and certainly on this very extraordinary day when Jesus called this man
and invited himself into this man’s home didn’t think about the meaning of the
name of Zacchaeus! It was a moment of
irony at best, contradiction at worst, in the ears of the crowds. This name means “righteous one or pure one.”
Think back to last week. You may
recall that I shared with you then that in the generation of the disciples the
tax collectors were viewed as “lesser than a Samaritan.” Popular opinion was that there was nothing of
purity or righteousness in tax collectors.
And this short man who couldn’t see over the crowds was the chief of tax
collectors! If the collectors in general
were considered the scum of the day, how much more so were the leaders of the
tax collectors. And yet here is
Zacchaeus the Chief Tax Collector, bearing the name that points to purity and
righteousness.
So what is going on here? Is this a
wonderful example of irony for us also?
Trust me when I say that there have been plenty of sermons preached on
Zacchaeus that would seem to point in that direction. Even more make of the tax collector the image
of conversion and repentance. But there
is something in this text that is hidden from us in the translation in most
translations from Greek to English, including this one we have heard in our
midst.
Jump ahead past the sycamore tree and into the home of Zacchaeus for a
moment. In that home Zacchaeus speaks to
Jesus about the giving of alms (charity) and a commitment to honest, integrity,
and fairness in collecting taxes. The
reading as we have heard it (from the New Revised Standard Version of the
Bible) translates these words as a future event. We are left then with the impression that
there is a moment of conversion and repentance in this encounter with
Jesus. Zacchaeus is shown as saying to
Jesus that he will give to the poor and he will repay whatever he took from
others that he did not need to take in collecting taxes, and will do so at a
rate of four times greater than what was taken wrongly by him.
This by the way was a powerful statement.
Chief among the reasons why the people hated tax collectors so much was
that the taxes were cloaked in secrecy.
Only the Roman government who set the taxes and the collectors who
gathered them knew the established tax rate.
Moreover the Roman government actually set up a perfect breeding ground
for corruption and fraud. The government
didn’t actually pay the tax collectors a dime!
They simply told the collectors from whom they were to collect and how
much they were to submit to Rome. They
were given some advisement on how much to take and keep for themselves, but ultimately
the collectors were not paid a salary nor given a set figure to keep as their
own livelihood. The collectors could
keep as little or as much as they wished, and since the taxes were secretive,
those who paid Rome through them had no way of knowing if they were or were not
being robbed blind.
Now let’s jump back to Zacchaeus. I
must admit that in this past week I was shocked to read in my studies that when
Zacchaeus speaks on the matters of almsgiving and reparations of fraud, he is
not speaking of what shall be but rather of what already is. Only the most literal (and often times most
difficult to read because of their commitment to being literal) reflect the
fact that in the Greek this tax collector whose name means righteousness and
purity is telling the Lord that his present commitment is and has been that he
gives charitably to those who have less than does he and that if he discovers
that he has stolen from someone he pays back in extreme generosity in order to
make the wrong right.
Now keep in mind that he is saying this to Jesus! If it were a matter of irony that he bears
his name, we could make the argument that he is at best exaggerating the truth
if not outright lying about his conduct.
That might work with some. But
remember that we acknowledge at every liturgy that Jesus, along with the Father
and the Holy Spirit, is the one “to whom all hearts are known and from whom no
secrets are hid.” If Zacchaeus were
trying to fool Jesus, Jesus would have known it, and Zacchaeus would not have
gotten away with it.
And how does Jesus respond? “Today
salvation has come even to this house!”
Salvation is found there because Jesus is there in that place. He came not to call Zacchaeus to repentance
in order to bestow salvation. Neither
did he come because Zacchaeus had shown himself to be pure and righteous and
worthy of a reward. Jesus stands in that
house to show that Jesus loves this Tax Collector, and all tax collectors, and
all people. But more importantly Jesus
longs for those who witness this moment to take a second look at Zacchaeus.
Here my friends we find the true intent and purpose for this Gospel being
handed down to us. Jesus is challenging
us to look beyond the cover. The crowds
in the disciples’ generation only looked at the outside of this short man who
climbed a tree to see Jesus. Had they
known that he was there to see and hear Jesus, they would have wondered why he
had any interest in hearing Jesus speak.
They thought there was nothing desirable or redeemable in the man.
God forgive us, how many Zacchaeuses are there in the world about us? How often do we only look at the surface and
perceive that nothing of quality is to be found? Today Jesus calls us to look deeper than the
surface and come to know the depth of character in the persons whose paths we
cross. We might just be surprised at
what we find beyond the surface. But we
will never know unless we look, trusting in Jesus’ direction.
All those not present in Zacchaeus’ house, in other words most of Jericho,
missed out on knowing the true character of the man they knew only as a tax
collector and whom they assumed to be a thief and a crook, a man beyond hope or
desire. Jesus pulled a select few
inwards and invited them to see that there was far more to the man. From that day on hopefully these ones
continued to reveal this true character in all of its beauty to others.
What are we missing? What is Jesus
begging for us to see and behold in Zacchaeus in our midst and in our
generation, in our city and our neighborhood?
What can we see that we might show others a vision that exceeds the
limits of our sight; a vision in which Jesus is at work in us showing us worth
and value, beauty and faith, in the very last places and persons among whom we
would expect to find these good things.
May Jesus open and transform our eyes that they might be like his own
eyes that saw Zacchaeus hidden in the tree and called him to come forth and be
known, not as the man whom others thought he was, but rather as the man that
Jesus knows and loves beyond measure.
Father
Timothy
Alleman
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