Come, risen Lord, and
deign to be our guest; nay, let us be thy guests; the feast is thine. Amen.
Last month, we took the girls to the Renaissance Festival
and had a really good time. I had never been that event before and didn’t quite
know what to expect. It’s a 25-acre village that’s set up in Huntersville that
mimics an English village in the 16th century. There’s an assortment
of food and entertainment options including a blacksmith, jousting, and all
sorts of shows. But this is a sermon, not an infomercial for the Renaissance
Festival. What absolutely fascinated me as a preacher and someone who has an
eye on the culture is how this event isn’t just something you attend, it’s
something you participate in.
Sure, I expected the staff and volunteers to be dressed
in Elizabethan clothing, but a good number of those attending were also dressed
in costumes. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I was underdressed for the occasion.
For one, it tells me of the importance of dress-up and play, even for adults.
We all need to engage our imaginations more. But that’s not my point. The experience
of attending this event showed me just how hungry we are to participate in an
alternative story to one we are currently living in.
When you transport yourself into another realm, you can live,
even if only for a day, with a different set of values and priorities. When you
put on a costume you can leave behind the expectations of being the person that
the world expects you to be. When you dress up like a knight or princess you can
forget about the burdens of life.
Speaking of casting off your burdens, “Zacchaeus was a wee
little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for
the Lord he wanted to see.” Last Sunday when we read Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee
and tax-collector, I mentioned that tax collectors were hated because they were
seen as collaborators with the Romans who were occupying the Promised Land and
they were extorting money from the people. Now, Zacchaeus wasn’t just a
tax-collector, he was a chief tax collector. One commentator has said that
Zacchaeus had the moral standing of a mob boss – the worst of the worst.
Now we can’t get inside his head, but it’s reasonable to
think that he was burdened by the rejection he faced in his community, the
snide comments made as he walked by. He may have been burdened by loneliness or
the moral dilemma of how he made his living. Whatever the specific burden may
have been, it drove him up a tree. He had heard of Jesus – how he had been
healing people, restoring them to their communities, preaching an alternative
way of being in this world, and he was intrigued enough to climb up that
sycamore.
It’s interesting that while Zacchaeus was trying to get a
better look at Jesus, it’s actually Jesus who seeks him out. Sure, there may be
things we can do to position ourselves to get a better view of God – things like
serving the poor, partaking of the Eucharist, practicing generosity, reading
Scripture, saying prayers – but it’s always God who does the finding. We don’t
find God because God has already found us. Jesus locks eyes with Zacchaeus and
says, “Hurry and come down.” And then he hurries down. It’s interesting that
this word “hurry” is used one other time in Luke’s Gospel, and in that other
place we know it as “and they went with haste to see the babe lying in the manger.”
Like those shepherds, Zacchaeus climbs down that tree with joy, wonder, and anticipation,
as he is about to see the salvation of God in the flesh.
If someone asks you to do something, they might say “I
don’t mean to impose, but…” Well, God is in the imposing business. Jesus doesn’t
wait for Zacchaeus to say anything, he doesn’t wait for an invitation. Jesus is
an imposer. He invites himself into Zacchaeus’ home. And Jesus has imposed
himself on us. In some churches, they talk about needing to invite Jesus into
your live or accepting him in your heart – but that’s not how Jesus acts. Jesus
doesn’t wait to be invited, he imposes on us. And in making that imposition, he
lifts the burden from us. We don’t have to find the right words to invite
Jesus, we don’t have to make ourselves worthy to approach him, we don’t have to
clean up our lives in order to receive him. No, Jesus isn’t interested in
whether or not we’re worthy or ready, he just goes right on and imposes on us
and invites himself in.
And Zacchaeus responds with haste because he realizes the
offer that Jesus is making to him – to release those burdens he has been
carrying. He knows he’s been offered the opportunity to live in a new reality
because he has been invited by Jesus, and he takes Jesus up on the offer. But
those watching the scene unfold grumble, “Look, he’s going to eat with that
sinner, Zacchaeus.” Zacchaeus, unprompted, offers to make full reparations for
the damage done through his exploitative economic practices.
Yes, words matter and it’s important what we confess and believe.
But faith is not an intellectual exercise, it’s an incarnational one. Faith isn’t
so much what we think about God but rather how we trust God and how we love
ourselves, our neighbors, and our enemies. Zacchaeus realizes that. He knows
that faith isn’t about accepting Jesus into your heart, it’s about having him
rule your wallet, your calendar, your relationships. Bear in mind that the
invitation from Jesus comes before this show of repentance. Zacchaeus does not earn
his salvation by making these reparations, instead his salvation is manifest in
them. And the same is true in our lives. God’s love isn’t just to give us a
sense of peace, but it’s intended to transform our lives.
Jesus then reminds everyone that Zacchaes is a son of
Abraham. Nothing that Zacchaeus has done can change the fact that he is a child
of Abraham and a part of God’s promises to Israel. Was Zacchaeus a perfect
example of righteousness, was he following the law of Moses, was he an upright
citizen? Of course he wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love him
or that God’s grace isn’t for him. God’s grace is for us all because God’s
grace is about God’s graciousness, not our deservingness.
And speaking of things that can never be taken away from
us: Baptism. Baptism is the Sacramental act in which we remember and enact that
God washes over us with mercy, love, and empowerment. Baptism names the fact
that you are worthy, you are enough, you are loved and nothing can take that
away from you. One theologian has put it this way, “Jesus did not come to
reward the rewardable, improve the improvable, or correct the correctable; he
came to raise the dead.” Whatever the burden that you are carrying, whatever is
killing your joy, whatever you don’t think is possible is what Jesus has come
to bring salvation to. Jesus’ final remark in this passage is a summary of the
entire Gospel in just fourteen words: “For the Son of Man came to seek out and
to save the lost.”
That is very Good News, because we’re all lost in one way
or another. We’re lost because of addiction, depression, selfishness, anxiety, isolation,
aimlessness, doubt, fear. The world is a dizzying place that disorients us all.
But Jesus’ imposing invitation to us calls us back to the story that saves us
and Baptism is the means by which we claim this story as our own.
In just a few minutes we’re going to Baptize Marlee into
this story, into the story of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection which shows us that
light conquers fear, that love is stronger than death, and that you belong, you
are forgiven, and, above all, you are loved. Those burdens that you have, you
can let them be because Jesus has imposed his way of grace, flourishing, and
peace on us. And it is our joy to immerse Marlee into this story of love.
As we were leaving the Renaissance Festival, I was
thinking that we’d definitely plan to go back next year, and maybe it would be
fun to dress up and play the part. Of course, my first thought for a costume
would be to go as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the composer of the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549. And I
thought about what I’d wear and how it would be an easy costume to pull off
because I already own everything that he would have worn 500 years ago and it’s
all sitting the vesting room.
My brothers and sisters, that’s the amazing thing about
our faith – it’s a living and timeless tradition. Those things that Zacchaeus
encountered and people are hoping to find by dressing up and going to a Renaissance
Festival are the things that we have in abundance. Our faith frees us from our
past, it gives us a future where all things are possible with God, it gives us
a present in which we can be in this world differently.
As fun
as it might be to put on a costume and pretend to be in an English village, we
don’t have to go to such lengths or pay admission to participate in a story
that captures our imaginations, frees us of our burdens, unites us to others,
or gives us a new life. We have been imposed upon by the grace of God which
claims us as the beloved children of God. Let that mercy, purpose, and grace be
the clothing that you put on each day. You are loved by God; let that be the festival
of your life.
