Higher Ground [Sermon]
I’m going to tell you the story of a man. At the age of 11 this young man went to sea with his father, who was a shipmaster. Then he signed on with a merchant ship.
He was later pressed into service in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of Midshipman. After he tried to desert, he was flogged and demoted to seaman.
He was transferred to a slave ship, but he didn’t get along with the crew, who left him in West Africa with a slave dealer, who gave the young man to his wife as a slave.
His father sent a ship to rescue him, and he had returned almost all the way home when a storm struck the ship off the coast of Ireland, and the ship was about to sink.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
In our Gospel reading today, there is a man who is, shall we say, not well loved among his people. He, Zacchaeus, is the chief tax collector in Jericho.
When we think of tax collectors in the USA, we think of government employees in the Internal Revenue Service. However we feel about the IRS, Zacchaeus is not exactly the same. Zacchaeus is not collecting taxes for Judea. He is collecting them for Rome, the nation which is occupying and governing Judea.
Imagine another country invading here and taking over, and then an American working to collect money from you to give to the country that invaded. That’s how Jews viewed Zacchaeus.
And he was short. Like it or not, there is a social bias based on height. Tall people are generally considered more attractive than short people.
But Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus, and can’t see past the crowds, so he climbs a tree. Not only can Zacchaeus see Jesus, but Jesus can see Zacchaeus.
Jesus calls Zacchaeus out by name.
That’s not necessarily miraculous: Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector. What’s surprising is that Jesus says “I must stay at your house today.”
Did I mention Zacchaeus wasn’t well loved?
“He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
In case you were wondering about my first story, and what happened to the man on the ship that was caught in a storm off the coast of Ireland:
That man began to pray for mercy. And the storm died down. He began to read the Bible. He became a Christian. He became a first mate on a slave ship.
He eventually rose to captain on slave ships, before a stroke ended his sailing, though he continued to invest in slave operations.
He eventually became a priest in the Church of England. And he began working for abolition of the slave trade.
And then he wrote a song called “Faith’s Review and Expectation” which begins
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound…
We sang it last Sunday, so I won’t sing it again today.
But he was a man who behaved poorly, and made his fortune at the misery of others, but turned his life around.
Zacchaeus, too, redeemed himself. He said
“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.”
Luke 19:8, NRSVue
And Jesus replied
“Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
Luke 18:9-10, NRSVue
There is no person, no matter how powerless, no matter how powerful, who cannot repent and live a better life.
I’ve recently heard that the President of the United States said
“I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound,”
Maybe. Maybe not. But it is not too late for him to make a change in his life.
The House of Representatives is still not in session.
The Senate still hasn’t acted to end the government shutdown.
SNAP benefits have stopped.
The cost of health insurance, especially for people on the exchange, is riding greatly.
Elon Musk is negotiating a one TRILLION dollar compensation package with Tesla.
Amazon is laying off workers, replacing them with AI.
It’s not too late. And the church, which is the hands and feet of Jesus, has a role to play.
We need to speak to the Zacchaeuses and say
“hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
Okay, maybe not stay at their houses.
But the church must call on these powerful people and let them know:
“You may feel you are on the mountaintop. You may seek higher ground by traveling on a rocket into space. But the higher ground you seek is not in the altitude in orbit of a planet, or in the arrival to another planet like mars: The higher ground you seek can be found in the amazing grace of God, and for extending that grace to the world.”
In a world where we throw away so much food, no one should starve.
In a world where people have multiple homes, no one should be unhoused.
In a world with so many miraculous cures, no one should want for healthcare.
For the church, higher ground is to call the powerful down from their trees and to remind them that their power may yet be used for the good of all and not held only to themselves.
Churches do a lot of charity work, and I imagine that to be Jesus feeding and healing people. But churches are also called to be a prophetic voice, and that, too, is Jesus.
So my challenge this week is to look up in the trees for Zacchaeus, and invite him into a grace-filled relationship with God and God’s creation.
We are a small church, but if we can call just one Zacchaeus out of a tree, we will be doing the work of Jesus.
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 311 Renew Your Church
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
#grace #power #repentance
Debbie The Bible.net
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