Manchester, New Hampshire

Northern New England Presbytery, PCUSA

Manchester First Presbyterian Church

To contact us:

Phone: (603) 669-2440

Church E-mail: Firstpres@minister.com

Webmaster: Robert Neil

Sermons

They say “politics and religion don't mix.” I say this campaign can't stop talking about religion. They say “separation of church and state.” I say politicians sure been preaching a lot of sermons lately. You might be able to separate the state from the church but you sure can’t separate the politician from the pulpit. They say, “I’m not going to force my values on others.” I say, what is faith without values?

And so I ask you: What is the state without the church? What is a politician without visible values? What is life without faith? To borrow the words of Paul, “It is nothing.” It is a resounding gong, a clanging symbol. Zacchaeus recognized this. He could not be in the presence of Jesus and not be moved. Moved to right the wrong in his life. He was a tax collector who took advantage of many people. Lied to them. Swindled them. And beyond all this, he had ignored the poor.

 

Separation of who’s church and who’s state?

October 31, 2004

Luke 19:1-10

WHO YOU GONNA VOTE FOR?

ILLUSTRATION A man on vacation was strolling along outside his hotel in Acapulco, enjoying the sunny Mexican weather. He heard the screams of a woman kneeling in front of a child. The man knew enough Spanish to determine that the boy had swallowed a coin. Seizing the child by the heels, the man held him up, gave him a few shakes, and an American quarter dropped to the sidewalk. “Oh, thank you sir!” cried the woman. “You seemed to know just how to get it out of him. Are you a doctor?” “No, ma’am,” replied the man. “I’m with the Internal Revenue Service.”

 

This was Zacchaeus. A shake down artist. He could get the last quarter out of you.

 

Now it’s Tuesday morning for Zacchaeus and he has to walk in the election booth and pull the lever. He is either going to stand for the state or for a life of faith. He is either going to vote for himself of for those he has defrauded. He will either continue with Rome or make a change for Christ. Come Election Day, the day Zacchaeus was called down out of that tree, he had to make a choice. Let’s put it in Tuesday’s language: He has to cast his vote. Who will he vote for?

First, he could…

Vote for the Tax Collectors He could decide to continue his life as it always had been. This way he would retain his wealth, but what would it cost him in the end? Nothing in first century Judea was quite so hated and despised as was the Roman tax. It not only reminded the Jews that they were a subjugated people; it also represented a theological affront. To the Jew there was only one King, and that was God, not Caesar. Paying tribute to an earthly non-Jewish monarch was something that the Hebrews had opposed throughout their long history.

But there was more. The dirty work of collecting the tax was done not by the Romans, but by collaborating Jews. To make matters worse, some of the money that they collected off the backs of their fellow countrymen stuck to their own fingers. We are told that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. That is the only time in the New Testament that that term is used. It meant that he was over an entire district. Zacchaeus may have been short in stature, but he had wealth and wealth means power, so, in a manner of speaking, people looked up to him. Zacchaeus was the little man with the big reputation. According to Luke, he was rich.

ILLUSTRATION - There was a little boy who got separated from his parents in a large shopping center. The Security Department quickly located the child, and took him to an office while the frantic parents were paged over the public address. One of the security guards got a large ice cream cone for the boy, so when his parents arrived at the office, there was their little son happily eating his ice cream.

Suddenly, as his parents embraced him, the child burst into tears. One of the security guards said, “Gosh, I guess he didn’t know he was lost until he was found!” Zacchaeus was like that.

 

In many ways Zacchaeus was as poor as any man in Jericho. For all of his money he was a lonely man, he was an empty man. In the world of the flesh he had everything; in the world of the spirit he had nothing.

The people, of course, looked upon him with complete contempt. He was a dog. He was cut off from communion with the community of God. There is symbolism in his title chief tax collector. It is another way of saying that he was chief among sinners. Therefore, he was prevented from seeing Jesus not only by the press of the crowd, but also due to social and religious ostracism.

It is here that we find our lesson for this morning. This is not just a story of Zacchaeus; it is the story of what it means to be a lost person. We have over oversimplified this in America and said that their soul is lost, but it can be much more tragically real than that. Zacchaeus lost his self-respect, his dignity, his reverence, his character, his conscience, his conviction, his friends. His story reminds all of us that we can stand in danger of losing everything in life that is rich and real to us.

 

Man’s biggest problem is that when he has lost his relationship with God, his relationship with all others will go wrong.

The first thing Zacchaeus could do is nothing. He could retain his wealth and position and so cast his vote for himself.

 

Or, he could follow his heart and..

Vote for Jesus The master’s presence at his dinner table pricked his conscience. He had opened his home to the Christ and now Christ has opened his heart to his sins. And what were his sins? He had regularly cheated the people he tasked, stole from them, and perhaps lied to the state on how much he had collected. But perhaps worse than his miscalculations was his disregard for the poor. Luke tells us that Zacchaeus stood up at some point during the meal and announced to his guest, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

There is a lot here. First, he makes his announcement before a Rabbi and before his friends. This is as good as an oath. He cannot retract it; he must follow through. Second, it is interesting to note that he does not give all his possessions away to the poor, only half. Third, he retains part of his wealth so that he can repay those who he has cheated. But he goes the second mile here and pays back a healthy interest rate, four times what he defrauded them out of. This is incredible. Jesus’ response is to announce, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

But when we first meet Zacchaeus where is he? He is up a tree. An appropriate place for a man who is confused and lost. Put before anyone of us which path would we take? To continue with the wealthy life style or to turn our resources toward the poor and right the wrongs we have committed. Let me tell you what I have observed over the years. The greatest obstacle to our salvation is not the act of giving away our wealth or our possessions. It is seeing our wrongs in the first place. This is as difficult for the wealthy as it is for the poor. Husbands and wives find it hard to admit wrong to one another. Brothers and sisters find it hard to say, I was wrong, I am sorry. Businesses suffer because parties won’t let go of their agenda even though they know there is a better course. We will not; we cannot, both the wealthy and the poor, admit our error and confess our sins.

 

That is why I think the point of the Zacchaeus story is not that we must get rid of our wealth. We certainly should use it for good, as much and as often as we can. Nor do I think the point of this story is that Jesus only cares for and saves the poor. Isn’t Jesus after all eating at the home of one of the wealthiest men of that community. The point of the story is Zacchaeus’ face to face encounter with the Christ. Zacchaeus does not become an illustration for the evil of money or the righteousness of the poor. Zacchaeus is a model for repentance, for turning our lives around, for righting the wrongs we have committed. It is a story of Jesus’ love for the rich man and the poor.

I think it for this reason that Zacchaeus sought to see Jesus. You can be sure it was not the excitement and thrill of a parade that captured his imagination. In fact, a large crowd filled with religious and nationalistic fervor was precisely not the place for him to be. He could easily become the focus of a mob scene. Yet, he went. Why?

I’ll tell you why. He was drawn by the magnetism of grace. You see, I have this theory. My theory is that one does not seek acceptance and forgiveness from an individual, if he knows from the start that he will not receive it. If one wants forgiveness, he will not go to an individual who will lecture him on his poor morality. People don’t set themselves up for that kind of a situation. So Zacchaeus comes to Jesus because he had heard the stories of how the Master had received adulterers, publicans, the crippled and the blind--the outcast of society--people just like him. He came because of the drawing power of grace. Its the same kind of grace that caused John Newton, a converted ex-slave trader, to write those immortal words: Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!

 

Zacchaeus, being of short stature, could not see for the press of the crowd. So he climbed into a tree to get a better view. His inaccessibility to Jesus was more than literal, it was also symbolic. It is hard to know what drove Zacchaeus to turn on his kinsmen. Desire for power, love of money, revenge upon Jewish leadership, or just plain greed. He could have been blocked in so many ways.

The Scribes and the Pharisees criticized Jesus because he was going to be the guest of a sinner. They were so hypocritical and depraved that they neither understood the lost nature of man nor the mission of Jesus. They had forgotten that Moses was a murderer; Jacob was a con man, and David an adulterer. None of us are above the need for grace. All are in need of God’s saving power--from scum like Zacchaeus to pious religious Pharisees.

 

Yes, Jesus went to be the guest of a sinner and thank God he did. For if he had not we would not know him as savior today. This is a story of the saving act of God. Jesus said there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than ninety-nine people who think that they need no repentance. Zacchaeus, come down, I’m going home with you today.

 

And now a most remarkable thing happened. Faith instantly transformed into works. “Half of all that I have I give to the poor,” exclaimed Zacchaeus. He didn’t give 10% he gave 50%. Oh, easy for him to do, you say, he was a wealthy man. Well, Jesus once told of a poor widow who entered the temple and didn’t give 50% but l00%. She gave all that she had. No tear jerking, emotional appeal here. Zacchaeus was a genuinely changed man. The Law said to give 10% but Zacchaeus wanted to go beyond that. It’s what Jesus called the second mile.

The story of Zacchaeus is a story about what it means to be lost. Not simply a lost soul but truly lost. Ostracized by the crowds, by the leadership, and by your very own people. A person is lost when he has wondered from God so far that you turn on everyone around you. You betray you’re your very own. But thanks be to God, that Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost. That is what his mission was all about. So the infamous Zacchaeus truly was now a big man--not because he had grown in stature, but because he had grown in grace. Amen._____________________