A PICTURE OF NEW LIFE

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

            It’s a wonder we let little Sunday school children sing about Zacchaeus.  (You remember:  “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.”)  He’s made out to be this nice short man who climbs up a tree to see Jesus as he goes by.  What we don’t tell our Sunday school kids is that Zacchaeus was a wee little crook, a wee little crook was he.  Zacchaeus, you understand, was a kind of contract worker for the Romans.  His contract called for him to collect prescribed taxes, tolls, tariffs, and custom fees in his area.  A “chief tax collector,” like Zacchaeus, was required to pay his contract in advance.  In other words, whatever Zacchaeus was expected to collect in his territory, he had to pay up front.  To regain his investment and to make a living, Zacchaeus hired others to help collect the taxes.  He and the other tax collectors had to gather those taxes and tolls and fees from their fellow citizens.  It may go without saying that this “arrangement” was open to abuse.  The more tax one could collect, you see, the greater the profit for oneself.  These people were traitors who worked for the enemy.  You can bet they were despised.  Certainly they were outcasts.

            Well, don’t you ever experience yourself as an outcast?  I do sometimes.  Feeling like an outcast is isolating and depressing.  You don’t feel like you belong around people.  And if you are around people, when you feel like an outcast, you still feel as though you are alone.  It happens when an adult child treats you with contempt.  On the other end of the phone you hear complaints about how you raised him, and he tells you that you neglected him, when what you did was love and care for him.  It happens when that son cuts himself from all contact with you.  It happens when a group of people rejects you.  It happens when a spouse or a best friend betrays you.  It’s even worse when it is both of them at the same time.  It happens when others won’t let you participate.  It happens when you try to do the right thing and your friends oppose you.  It happens when someone belittles you to your face in front of others.  And, speaking for myself, it happens when I’ve done wrong and I’m feeling guilty.  It happens when I remember old wrongs I’ve done long ago and I feel guilty all over again.  It happens to many of us.  We feel like outcasts.

            Of course, that’s when we especially reach out to God.  Maybe at least God will accept us, we think hopefully.  Even when we’re afraid it will do no good, we cry out to God, looking for acceptance.  When I was young, I became afraid that God wouldn’t accept me.  What’s so strange about that was the fact that I believed God was a merciful and accepting God.  It made no difference to me somehow that I was certain that God would accept someone like me.  I believed that God would forgive those things I had done, if it were someone else.  While it made no sense, my emotions had a warning light flashing “NOT ACCEPTABLE.”  “NOT ACCEPTABLE.”  And I felt like an outcast.  I prayed to God for mercy.  No!  I cried!  I shed tears.  I trembled in fear.  The outcast will do anything to reach God.  Zacchaeus, that wee little crook, was an outcast.  As Jesus was coming by, Zacchaeus ran and scampered up a tree.  Two things a man of importance in those days wouldn’t do.  Running and climbing trees were not dignified.  Even now, we wouldn’t expect important people to do such things.  But Zacchaeus was willing to humble himself by running ahead of Jesus’ entourage and climbing a tree just to see him.  You would do that, if you believed that Jesus was the presence of God on earth and you wanted to reach out to God.  When we feel like outcasts, how especially then do we reach out for God.

            But look back.  Notice.  At the same time you were reaching out to God, God was already reaching out to you.  Maybe you didn’t notice it at the time.  But look back now.  See, God was there reaching out to you all along.  While you were seeking God, God was seeking you.  There it was in the gospels where you read, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  Before you reached out to God, God reached out to you.  There it was in that sermon on Zacchaeus, where the preacher seemed to be talking directly to you.  He pointed out that, while Zacchaeus was reaching out to God through Jesus, through Jesus God was already reaching out to Zacchaeus.  There it was at the Lord’s table, as you were reminded that God reaches out to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners.  There it was at the baptismal font where you were reminded of how God reaches out to us long before we ever think about reaching out to God.  All the while you have been reaching out to God, God has been reaching out to you.

            Think of it!  That changes everything.  You see it yet?  The divine verdict overcomes the human verdicts rendered upon us.  Both the internal and external verdicts.  God overcomes them both.  “Sinner!” we have pronounced upon ourselves in judgment.  “Forgiven!” the divine Judge declares through his Son, Jesus Christ.  “Outcast!” we tell ourselves, when we feel our own judgment and that of others.  “”My beloved child!” God declares through his Son, Jesus Christ.  “Unworthy!” we acknowledge to ourselves and to God.  “My friend!” Jesus communicates to us through bread and cup.  And so what happens?  I don’t know about you, but when the good news of God’s grace, the good news of God seeking me in Jesus Christ penetrates my fearful heart, depression lifts like fog before the hot sun.  In its place—joy!  The joy that comes from knowing that Jesus is the friend of sinners.  The joy that comes from knowing that I am forgiven.  Has that happened to you?  It can if you reach out to the God who has already reached out to you in Jesus Christ.  When the divine verdict overcomes all sin and guilt, the result is joy, sheer joy!

            Now see!  See what God has done.  God’s grace transforms sinners into what the apostle Paul calls “a new creation.”  Forgiven, we are free from our old patterns of behavior, and we are free to set new ones.  After Jesus exalted the humbled Zacchaeus—humbled by his running and tree climbing, you remember—after Jesus exalted the humbled Zacchaeus by accepting his hospitality, Zacchaeus promised that he would bear fruit worthy of his repentance.  “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor,” he pledged, “and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”  There it is!  A picture of new life.  Zacchaeus became a new creation.  A story is told about a machinist who worked for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit back when Henry Ford himself was running it.  This employee, it is said, lifted tools and automobile parts over the years.  One day the machinist reached out to the God who had already reached out to him in his Son, Jesus Christ.  He was baptized.  The day after his baptism, we are told, he gathered up all the tools and parts he had collected over the years, loaded them into his pickup, took them to the Ford plant, and presented them to his foreman.  He confessed his sins and asked for forgiveness.  There it is!  A picture of new life.  This machinist had become a new creation.  The foreman, we are told, was so overcome by his honesty that he cabled Henry Ford, currently out of the country.  Upon hearing all the details of the machinist’s change of life and his act of restoration, Ford cabled back:  “Dam up the Detroit River and baptize the entire plant.”  And there you are, living new life as a new creation.  You’re the one forgiving someone who has made you feel like an outcast.  You’re the one making restitution.  You’re the one working to restore a crumbling marriage.  You’re the one joyfully helping neighbors.  You’re the one who is working for wholeness wherever you have caused brokenness.  There you are!  A picture of new life!