St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
October 30, 2022
Year C, Proper 26: The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 119:137-144
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
Getting and Giving a Good Look at Jesus
As many of you know, I spent last week at a monastery in Kentucky on a silent retreat (yes, I could do it, no problem!) and, while I have a whole backlog of things to talk about, I just want to say a few words about today’s wonderful gospel lesson.
We’re told Jesus is passing through the historic city of Jericho where he has attracted a large crowd.
A man named Zacchaeus was there. He was the chief tax collector and was very rich.
Now, in most times and places, tax collectors are never the most popular people but Zacchaeus and his colleagues were especially despised because they were Jews who collaborated with the hated Roman occupiers.
But for whatever reason, Zacchaeus is drawn to Jesus, so much so that he climbs a sycamore tree to get a good look, because, we’re told, “he was short of stature.”
Jesus spots short Zacchaeus up in the tree, and promptly invites himself over to the tax collector’s house - freaking out absolutely everyone, except the happy and hospitable Zacchaeus.
And transformed by this encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus gives away much of his wealth to the poor and anyone he “may” have defrauded (cough, cough).
So, what does this wonderful story have to say to us today?
Well, at this point, I wonder how many people are even trying to get a good look at Jesus.
So many of our neighbors and family members have been turned off by Christianity for reasons well known to us all: the institutional church itself, its seeming irrelevance, its complacency and self-absorption, its many scandals – the fact that the loudest “Christian” voices in our country spew so much hate and ignorance – the truth that there are lots of nice ways to spend our Sunday mornings, and plenty of meaningful ways to help others, that have nothing to do with church or faith.
And yet we believe – we know – that Jesus is the way of new life, just as he was for Zacchaeus long ago.
So, especially in this time of much trouble, it seems to me that our job, with God’s help, is to show Jesus to the world again – to help them get a good look.
We do that by being a community where all are welcome, where we offer ourselves in loving service, where there are no benchwarmers, where we all contribute: by praying, by caring for one another, and by giving not just from what we have left over, but giving in ways that really cost us, just like a certain short tax collector did long ago.
We need to give people a good look at Jesus.
Posts
