This week’s sermon continues working through the end of Luke’s gospel, as the lectionary year draws to a close, finding Zacchaeus by the shore of the Great Salt Lake.
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On our recent whirlwind trip to Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, Ginger and I were reading about the Great Salt Lake and I learned a term I had not heard before: “terminal lake,” which sounded like another way to say Dead Sea.
Both the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea are terminal lakes because they have rivers that feed them, but they have no outlets other than evaporation and percolation (meaning the water sinks into the soil in the floor of the lake. There are about three dozen terminal lakes in the world, according to Wikipedia, and they are all salt water because of all the sediment that has been deposited there. Rich, in a way, because of the minerals there, but dead because they are unable to share their wealth.
Ginger and I looked at each other and said, “Well, that’s going to make it in a sermon.” And here it is.
The city of Jericho, where our story takes place, was about eight miles from the Dead Sea and about eighteen miles from Jerusalem, which is where Jesus was headed. A crowd was following him. On the outskirts of the city, Jesus had encountered a blind man who had called out to him for mercy as he walked by. Jesus asked him what he wanted and the man said, “I want to see again.”
Jesus replied, “See again! Your faith has healed you,” and he kept moving. Luke says he was moving through the city, trying to manage the crowds, when Zacchaeus entered the picture. He also wanted to see Jesus. Luke gives us a few specific details about him: he was the chief tax collector, he was personally wealthy, and he was short—short enough to not be able to see Jesus through the crowd. In human terms, we might say Zacchaeus was the human equivalent of a terminal lake. He had made a life out of taking in and not giving out. Still, he wanted to see Jesus.
He must have been relatively young, or at least in good shape, because, when he couldn’t get through the crowd, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when he passed by.
Unlike the blind man, Zacchaeus didn’t call out; he just hung there, watching. Jesus is the one who called to him: “Zacchaeus, come down because I need to stay in your home today.” It is the only time in the gospels that Jesus asked for hospitality from someone, and the request appeared to make Zacchaeus not only see Jesus but also see himself differently.
Zacchaeus climbed down and Jesus welcomed him joyfully, unlike the crowd gathered around them who might have been victims of Zacchaeus’ tax collecting. They were quite sure he did not deserve to have Jesus in his house. Based on his response to both Jesus and the crowd, Zacchaeus then seemed to see the people around him in ways he had not before, even as they complained about him.
He told Jesus he was going to give half of his property to poor people and then he was going to repay those he had defrauded four times what he stolen from them. He wasn’t making up random amounts. He was following instructions from the Torah about how to repent and reconcile. He was no longer a terminal lake. He was a river of love.
Jesus said, “Today this household has been rescued. I came to look for and rescue those who were lost.”
But Zacchaeus wasn’t the only rich man who came to Jesus on this part of the journey. Just before Jesus healed the blind man, someone referred to as a ruler came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to get to heaven. Jesus quoted the Ten Commandments back to him—the rules they had both grown up with. The man was quick to say he had done all of those things. Then Jesus said, “Then there’s only one thing left to do: Sell everything you own and give it away to the poor. You will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Luke says,
This was the last thing the official expected to hear. He was very rich and became terribly sad. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and not about to let them go.
He couldn’t stop being a terminal lake.
What, then, is the difference between the two men? Commentators say what both shared in common was that they were relatively young and their positions and wealth were inherited. They also both came looking for Jesus seeking some sense of wholeness. They both knew their lives were not what they needed to be. And both of them heard that what it took to be rescued from themselves, what it took to be reconciled to God, to make things right with God and with the people around them was not to cling to their financial security as though it would save them, but to give it away so everyone had enough.
A good storyteller builds to a big finish, and Luke is a pretty good story teller.
After Jesus encounter with Zacchaeus, he told one more parable (which we will talk about next week) and then he gave instructions to his disciples about getting the donkey he would ride into Jerusalem for what we know as Palm Sunday. We are nearing the climax of the story, and Luke sets that up by telling Jesus’ parable about the persistent widow and the judge who had to learn how to listen; then he told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple, underlining that God listened to both of them; then a bunch of little children came to Jesus and the disciples scolded their parents, saying Jesus had more important people to see, but Jesus corrected them and said there no was no one more important that those little ones; then came the ruler who had a good question but wasn’t willing to live with the answer; then came the blind man who called out to be healed and Jesus told him his trust in God had given him his sight; and then came Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree and ended up seeing the world in a whole new way.
At the heart of all of these stories is a theme that runs through the whole gospel: God created us to take care of each other. Our piety is not enough, if we keep a death grip on our possessions. Just like the Great Salt Lake, we cannot survive if all we do is collect and we never share. If we need more examples, just pick up a newspaper, and we can see those consumed with holding their grip on wealth and power, and we can see how deadly it is.
Zacchaeus was changed because Jesus demanded hospitality. That sounds like a strong word, but Jesus said, “Come down at once because I need to stay in your home today.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling, the same way my mother insisted (well, demanded) us to sit down at dinner when it was ready. We did what she said because we knew she meant it. Jesus’ demand opened Zacchaeus’ heart to seeing his wealth as a way to build and heal relationships, to let things flow out of and through his life so he could thrive.
That same demand of hospitality applies to us, as well: either we share, or we die. We were created to be more than terminal lakes. May we open our lives like Zacchaeus did, not tighten our grips like the ruler. Amen.
Peace,
Milton