Luke 19:1-10
Experiencing Love, Sharing Love
James Sledge November
3, 2019
I
read an article the other day about recent research on partisanship in America.
It said that 9 in 10 Americans say they are “frustrated by the uncivil and rude
behavior of many politicians.” But at the very same time, 8 in 10 Americans are
“tired of leaders compromising my values and ideals” and want leaders “who will
stand up to the other side.”[1]
It
would seem, at least the case of partisan divides, that Americans decry the
political boundaries that divide us into camps, recognizing that these
divisions are caustic and destructive. And yet, these same Americans want
“their side” to fight against the other. We lament our divisions while, at the
same time, encouraging them.
And
in case you haven’t noticed, politics is just one of many things that create
“us and them” dynamics. We divide by race, income, gender, age, education
level, and more. Some boundaries are more rigid than others, but we learn at an
early age how to navigate and deal with them. It doesn’t take long for school
aged children to recognize divisions between rich and poor, in and out, cool and not so cool, athletes and nerds, and so on.
Religion
gets in on the game, too, with all sorts of boundaries, some clear, some
subtle. Are you a member? Are you saved? Do you believe the right things? Do
you fit in or not?
We’re a liberal church. We’re a conservative
church. We’re a liturgical church. We like highbrow music. We like praise
songs. I suppose that some such preferences are unavoidable, but we often take
it a step further. It’s not really church if it doesn’t have the right kind of music, right kind of liturgy, right political stance, or, perhaps, no
political stance. And if you don’t think such boundaries fence people out here
at FCPC, serve at one of our Wednesday Welcome Tables and observe the hundreds
of people there. Then observe how nary a one returns for worship on a Sunday.
They know that they don’t belong.
As
a pastor, I tend to communicate on social media with lots of other pastors from
various denominations. One of the things I learned from this over the years is
that pastors often get themselves in trouble when they inadvertently, or
intentionally, subvert the boundaries of style, class, politics, and so on that
congregations have erected over the years. Those pastors who are adamant about
subverting these boundaries tend not to last too long.
Some
of those whom I’ve admired from afar probably have a bit in common with Jesus.
Jesus was forever upsetting and offending the good, religious folks of his day,
the ones who worried the most about boundaries. They constantly accused Jesus
of ignoring boundaries, of spending way too much time with those folks, even
enjoying their company.
Once,
when Jesus was accused of hanging out with sinners, he told some stories about
a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son, and I have a feeling that the writer
of Luke expects us !to remember those parables when we hear this morning’s reading.
In it, Jesus enacts the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin, taking the
initiative, reaching out and practically demanding that Zacchaeus welcome Jesus
into his home. Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector who became rich working with
the Romans to collect their taxes plus some extra for himself
No surprise, the good, religious folks
are upset. There goes Jesus again, crossing the boundary between good and bad,
respectable and shady, member and outsider, classy and crass. If people like
Zacchaeus really want to reform, they can come to church.
__________________________________________________________________
If
you’ve spent much time at all around church, you’re likely familiar with the
moniker, “the body of Christ.” In his letters, the Apostle Paul uses this
metaphor for the gathered community of faith, each of us bringing different
gifts and abilities, different manifestations of the Spirit. Joined together,
these allow us to be Christ in and for the world.
Of
course churches struggle with this. We’re not all that good at letting the
Spirit work through us because that usually means giving up control. And I
suspect nowhere do we struggle more to embody Jesus than in the area of
crossing boundaries and seeking the lost.
If
Zacchaeus, or someone as unsavory as him, showed up at our worship, we wouldn’t
run him off or anything. People who knew who he was might look at him a little
funny or choose not to sit too close. But we would “welcome” him if not be all
that hospitable.
But
we would never go looking for Zacchaeus. We would never spot him on the street
and say, “Zacchaeus, I’m from Falls Church Presbyterian and I’m coming over to
your place so we can chat.” No, if folks out there want to be a part of what we
do, they need to come to us, learn how to act like us, and like things the way
we like them.
Now
in fairness, some of this is rooted in assumptions that used to be more true
than they are now. It was once safer to assume that the culture was herding
people toward the church. It was once safer to assume that people like
Zacchaeus had already heard the good news of God’s love for them in Jesus, but
those are woefully faulty assumptions now.
And
it’s not just about faulty assumptions. Church has always struggled to cross
boundaries and seek the lost, to embody God’s love in Jesus. It’s difficult,
holy work, and we are a human institution. We struggle to be like Jesus, to
give ourselves radically for others.
You
can see this in how we share, or fail to share, our time, our energy, our privilege,
our money with and for others. This often gets highlighted each fall for
congregations such as ours who still do annual stewardship campaigns. Fall
campaigns are a relic of agricultural times when farmers didn’t know what they
could give until after the harvest. But now, such campaigns are often
indistinguishable from a Public Television fundraiser. “Do you like our
programs? Then help pay for them.”
But
at its core stewardship is a theological issue. Giving radically of ourselves
to others, giving of ourselves to serve neighbor, to glorify God, to ensure
that God’s love in Jesus shines brightly for all and especially for the lost,
the broken, the oppressed, is what separates mature Christian faith and discipleship
from some vague beliefs or notions that are supposed to get us something from
God or make us feel better spiritually.
I’ve
never been completely clear on why radical self-giving is so rare within the
body of Christ. Have we simply decided that following Jesus is not for us, but
we’ll hang around the edges anyway? Or, perhaps, have we never really
experienced God’s radical, self-giving love for us, never encountered the Jesus
who loves us so deeply he would die for us, the sort of encounter that converts
and transforms the money loving Zacchaeus so dramatically?
For
if we do encounter that love, surely it would transform us, would inspire us to
love and share extravagantly, crossing all sorts of boundaries so that everyone
could experience and share in that love.
[1]
Dan Balz, “Americans hate all the partisanship, but they’re also more partisan
than they were” in The Washington Post,
October 26, 2019
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