Luke 19:1-10
What
Salvation Looks Like
James Sledge October
30, 2022
Zacchaeus
was a wee little man, a wee little man was he; He climbed up in a sycamore
tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. Many of you are
likely familiar with these song lyrics. The song seems fascinated with
Zacchaeus’ size. I wonder why that is. Luke’s story does say that he was “short
in stature,” but it seems little more than a reason for him to climb a tree.
Zacchaeus by Ira Thomas
I wonder if calling Zacchaeus a wee little man makes him sound like a more palatable character. Wee little man sounds almost cute. What a nice little guy. I suppose it wouldn’t make a very good children’s song if it started, “Zacchaeus was a nasty crook, a nasty crook was he,” but it would perhaps be more accurate.
I mentioned in my sermon last week that tax collectors in Jesus’ day were no civil servants. They were key players in a corrupt system that filled Rome’s coffers and enriched those fortunate enough to buy into the position. By definition, tax collectors engaged in fraud. The only way they made money was to collect more tax than Rome required, keeping the excess. The more they could shake down from people, the richer they got. Chief tax collectors were even worse. They took a cut from all the collectors that worked under them.
It was a lucrative gig if you wanted to get rich, but it was also sure to get you hated and despised. Not only were you using the threat of Roman soldiers to extract money from your neighbors, but you were doing this for an occupying power in a land that longed to be rid of Roman control. When the crowd who sees Jesus go to Zacchaeus’ house complains saying, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner,” neither Jesus not anyone else disputes that statement. If ever anyone could be labeled a sinner, it is Zacchaeus.
Of course that means he’s just the sort of person Jesus came for. Says Jesus, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” And today’s scripture passage gives us a picture of what that salvation looks like.
The first part of the picture is God’s initiative. Jesus comes and seeks. He not only notices Zacchaeus up in the tree, but he invites himself to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. In Jesus, God makes the first move.
But Zacchaeus also responds. He joyfully welcomes Jesus into his home, and he clearly has some sort of epiphany. “Look, half my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”
This is what real, joy filled repentance looks like. Zacchaeus doesn’t simply say, “Lord, I’m so sorry for all I’ve done. I won’t do it again. Instead, Zacchaeus has a changed relationship with his wealth, and he takes action to correct the wrong he has done.
Zacchaeus now sees his wealth as something he can use to make the world more like God wants it to be. He will use it to lift up the poor. He will use it to show mercy to his neighbor.
But Zacchaeus does more than show mercy. He also seeks to enact justice. He will correct the wrongs he has done. He will engage in reparative action. And in response, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
Reparative is not a word I’ve often used, but it came up recently in the antiracism class that Megan mentioned in her sermon a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing the processes by which congregations become more antiracist, moving through several developmental stages. There were descriptions of the various stages, and this one comes from the stage that I hope we as a congregation might reach some day. “Understands that reparative action for the impact of its investments in white dominance, its values, and ways of being are not optional for institutions seeking to animate antiracism.”[1]
Reparative action. That means that churches who are becoming truly antiracist take concrete steps to enact justice, to undo the damage done by a society and culture that have long been and many ways continue to be white dominant and white normative. Like Zacchaeus they don’t just say, “We’re sorry for all that happened, and we won’t do it anymore.” No, they work to undo the damage. They work for justice. And there is no doubt that not only were great injustices done, but the impacts of those injustices are ongoing.
If your family is anything like mine, a great deal of the family wealth emerged from home ownership. For many Americans, their home is by far their largest investment, creating wealth that gets passed down from one generation to the next. Some of that wealth has been subsidized by the US government through FHA and VA loans.
Until the late 1960s, the FHA’s appraisal manuals actively encouraged something known as redlining. Neighborhoods that were largely black or mixed race were marked in red and banks could not get FHA insurance on loans there and so avoided writing mortgages in those areas. Over time, this helped created much of the blight that emerged in inner cities. Mortgages couldn’t be written; homes couldn’t be bought and sold; and the value of those homes plummeted. In a process actively encouraged by the US government, and one that often was continued by banks long after it was officially made illegal, wealth was systematically denied and stripped from black families, leaving little or nothing to pass down from one generation to the next.
Thanks to the Civil Rights movement, things such as redlining and other overt forms of racial discrimination have gradually been outlawed, but nowhere has anyone been repaid for the wealth stolen from them or the wealth denied them. In a very real sense, America has never really repented for its sin of racism. It said, “We’re sorry, and we’ll try to do better,” but it never said, “If we defrauded anyone, we’ll pay them back,” much less pay them back quadruple as Zacchaeus did.
As a white person, I’ve benefited from this unfair system, and I continue to benefit from it. Some of the wealth my family accrued came at the cost of wealth in black communities. And now I live in a largely white neighborhood where home values go up faster than they do in black or more racially mixed neighborhoods, a legacy of redlining.
So what am I to do about this? What is a congregation made up largely of people who also have benefited and continue to benefit from this systemic injustice to do? Can we repent on behalf of our nation? Can we repent for the role we have played in this? And does this have anything to do with salvation?
Perhaps Zacchaeus can be our guide. As he encounters God’s grace and loving embrace in Jesus, the warmth of that embrace causes him to view his wealth differently. His wealth now allows him to help others and to right wrongs. He is able to do mercy and to do justice, and I think we are called to do the same.
This congregation is pretty good at doing mercy. Many of you have generously supported the increased expense of Welcome Table during Covid, making additional donations to help purchase the gift cards whose cost far exceeded what was budgeted for that ministry.
But justice is something new for us. When we created a Justice Ministry Team a few years ago, it was largely an aspirational effort, and we are still learning how to do justice. But one thing is sure, doing justice costs money. Trying to shape the world more in the image of God’s new day invites us into a new relationship with our wealth, with how it might be used to set things right.
As you consider how to fill out your estimate of giving card this year, I encourage you to take a cue from Zacchaeus, responding with joy to God’s grace and viewing your wealth as a tool to do God’s work. And when we generously support God’s work in the world, we join ourselves to that great cloud of witnesses that came before us, stretching all the way back to Zacchaeus and beyond. And Jesus says to us, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
[1] Antiracist Practices for Faithful Leadership: A Recorded Series for Church Leaders, Session Three: “Assessing and Navigating the Terrain of Antiracist Transformation,” created for Next Church by Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training
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