NOT the God we Expect!

I'm a little slow in posting sermons.  Here's the one I preached on October 30.

NOT the God we Expect!

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator Christ and Comforter.  Amen

Today is a hallmark day at CLC!  It’s the culmination of our Stewardship drive, Reformation Sunday AND we started worship 15 minutes later!  In working with the texts for today, ALL of the texts for today, I found myself drawn to the story of Zacchaeus – which is the appointed text for this Sunday in the regular lectionary.  I am going to exercise a bit of the evangelical freedom from John’s gospel – plus my hero, Barbara Lundblad challenged us to do this from my time at Theoasis last week. 

I think Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus has been told too often as a story of repentance…which goes kinda like this: Jesus seeks out Zacchaeus, a notorious chief tax collector; and Zacchaeus, who is overwhelmed by the presence of Jesus, immediately repents of his sin and promises that he will make amends; acknowledging Zacchaeus’ repentance, Jesus declares that salvation has come to this house.  Sound right to you? 

There’s one small problem with this interpretation.  Neither Jesus nor Zacchaeus say anything about sin or repentance for that matter.  When Jesus decides to go to Zacchaeus’ house, those looking on grumble, upset by Jesus’ choice of companion (not a new theme in Luke!), and THEY call Zacchaeus a sinner.  This is what prompts Zacchaeus protest!  Zacchaeus doesn’t actually make a promise to give half his possessions to the poor or repay anyone he has defrauded in the future.  He says he is already doing that, a claim he probably makes in light of the crowd accusing him of being a sinner.  The verb tense in Greek is present, you see, not future.  So it’s not “I will give” and “I will pay back” but rather “I give half my money to the poor” and “I repay.”  Zacchaeus is saying that this IS his current practice.
The key to this story is not sin and forgiveness but about sight.  Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus.  And, because he was short and couldn’t see him, he climbed a tree.  When Jesus comes his way, Jesus looks up and sees him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house.  Why?  Because he has seen Zacchaeus.  Really seen him, when so many in the crowd despise and ignore him – even cross over to the other side of the street NOT to see him.
Of all the gospel writers, Luke is the one most sensitive to issues of money but he rarely offers us neat theological categories.  In the first century (as well as our own – sorta) it was fairly common to assume that wealth was inherently good and a sign of God’s blessing.  Jesus undermined that notion when he said that it’s very difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Lk 18:25).  In our time, it’s easy – especially for church leaders to act and say that wealth is bad (except, of course, when you give it to the Church!).  Yet…in this story Jesus declares that Zacchaeus, this wealthy chief tax collector despised by his neighbors, is a child of Abraham, beloved of God, and a recipient of God’s salvation.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t care so much about how much wealth we have - as about what we do with our wealth… and Zacchaeus does good things!  Just like you do good things with your wealth on this Commitment Sunday. 
Jesus cares about those who are on the edge, even more than wealth.  Jesus encounters those who society has declared unfit and outcast…we ignore.  Jesus always sees them, recognizes them, seeks them out, spends time with them and in all these ways honors and blesses them.
And this is not what those around Jesus expect him to do.  It is not what any self-respecting messiah should do.  God, after all, has standards, and if God isn’t going to stick to those standards and punish sinners and reward the righteous, then what can we count on?  I mean, how can God just forgive sin?  If God is holy and just, then shouldn’t sin be punished?  Or at least repented?
Isn’t it wonderful that God we encounter in Jesus doesn’t care about our sense of justice or fairness or the ways we seek to order our world?  The only thing God cares about is seeing – and seeking out – is the lost and bringing them home again. God’s love in Jesus trumps earthly justice and God’s compassion overrides our sense of fairness…
Which can be unsettling and upsetting!  –  Whether to the crowds of Zacchaeus’ day or to us.  Until we are the ones who are down and out, until we are the ones made to feel invisible  (whether it be our actions or those of others, or because of illness or loss, or because of our gender or race or age or sexuality or whatever).  Whenever we feel on the outside, abandoned, invisible…that’s when we need a God who sees us, seeks after us, and brings us home.  And that’s the God we have in Jesus – who looks for us – even when we are in the most unlikely of places! 
At the heart of the Reformation movement was the recognition that Martin Luther, that German Augustinian Monk,  had been worshiping the wrong God!  Luther was taught to see and fear a God of holiness and justice, a God who expected righteousness, and who punished those who could not meet that standard.  Jesus, from this point of view, was little more than a whipping boy who stood in our place and took the beating we deserved.  Luther, agonizing over God’s righteousness, finally realized that righteousness isn’t the standard God sets for us, but is the gift God gave to us.  Righteousness isn’t a requirement but a promise.  The God Luther expected was all about justice; the God he met in Jesus was all about love.  Jesus, it turns out, didn’t die to make God forgiving but died to show us how forgiving God already is.  
Little wonder that Luther would later describe meeting this unexpected God by saying it was like having the gates of heaven opened to him.
A pastor recently shared that when one member of her youth group asked her friends what they imagined Jesus thought about them, the overwhelming answer was disappointment.  That is, they assumed Jesus , God and the Holy Spirit, were disappointed with them.  Why?  Because somehow, even as agents of God’s amazing grace, we still define God in terms of righteousness, sin, punishment and the like.
Surprise! 
Zacchaeus and Luther remind us that it’s not about that!  It’s all about God’s unexpected salvation and grace found in Jesus.  
Surprise!  
God sees us, God accepts us, God loves us, and God brings us home.
No one is left out – not even you!