'C'   //   Pentecost 23   //   11-4-07   //   Celebration of Worship, Northside Presbyterian

Scriptures     Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4     Luke 19:1-10

 

Out on a Limb: Lessons from a Little Big Man

{Disclaimer:  For those of you who are movie buffs: No, this is not the abstract for a movie starring Shirley MacLaine & Dustin Hoffman.}

 

Many of us know the neurotic feeling. Being "less than" … for which we naturally compensate by feelings of being "more than".

Egomania with an inferiority complex, some call it. The incubus for passive-agressive behavior, in us all.

Feeling little ... compensated for by feeling big.

 

I imagine that little big man named Zacchaeus understood this feeling quite well. Zacchaeus was a small man. Yet, Zacchaeus was a big man. A tax collector – and not only that, the chief tax collector. A true symbol of Roman injustice, for all debt enslaved Jews.

 

A sellout, he was. A betrayer, of his own Jewish people. And we can at least speculate that his self-consciousness about being a betrayer – coupled with his short stature? Perhaps – added to his ruthlessness in dealing with his helpless, hapless subjects.

A little big man – who, though big now in the world's eyes, found himself too short to envision the kingdom, or commonwealth, of God, passing right before his eyes.  Lost – in a crowd – once again.

But Zacchaeus could run, and Zacchaeus could climb. Hadn’t he been running and climbing all his life?

 

So, we are told, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree, to see what he had been missing. To discover for himself riches untold, in the mere form and message of an itinerant rabbi.

It was a whole new perspective for this career-track CEO. Looking down at others, through the power of his life’s station, no longer. Instead, he was looking down at Jesus, through the poverty of his vision.

And, in order to do so, Zacchaeus had to go out, on a limb.

   
A totally new perspective, this was. Borne out of a new sense of persistence. There was no logical reason for him to climb that tree. He was the chief tax collector! He was rich! He could have hired several peons to lift him above the crowd to see Jesus. He didn't have to climb a tree, to see.

But he wanted to -- he had to -- see for himself, what he was missing.

 

And what Zacchaeus saw … Jesus saw even more.

Jesus called him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

 

"Zacchaeus, hurry and come down" from your limb – now that you've gained a new perspective, come down to your roots, and come home to meet me. Stop all your running and climbing – come on down, and welcome me on your own turf. If you are truly persistent, this is what I require.

And, we are told, Zacchaeus came down, and was happy – the Greek word means rejoicing – to welcome Jesus.

Those who witnessed this scene grumbled. The Greek antithesis of rejoicing is used here.

The crowd grumbled, for it knew that all of Zacchaeus' display of gratitude meant nothing, without action – amends – attached to it. A making of peace: not only in the home of his own soul, but to the people of his own soil.

Down from the sycamore now, Zacchaeus stood there. Not running. Not climbing. Not feeling little. Not puffed up big. No need to be out on a limb. No more.

He stood there, and said to the one true Lord, "Look, half of my possessions I will give to the poor."

 

Pretty good stewardship – wouldn’t you say? Half of his many possessions. If I was his pastor, I may have suggested ten percent!

 

Half of his possessions. But, wait: There’s more! For what came next was twice as good.

Zacchaeus vowed double indemnity, for all he had defrauded. He pays back four times as much he had defrauded: double the amount required by Jewish law – found three places in the Torah, in fact.
    
Who was it who once said that we cannot enjoy the presence of peace with the absence of justice? Let me introduce you to Zacchaeus: Chief tax collector-turned-peacemaker!

 

 

Through the tenacity, the great persistence, that certainly made this tax collector chief: It took a whole new perspective, out on a limb from his power base, for Zacchaeus to envision -- perhaps for the first time – what it means to be a peacemaker. What it means to be a participant in the commonwealth of God.

He couldn't stay up there on that limb, of course. None of us can. Jesus called him – and calls us – down. Inviting himself into our homes ... our comfort zones ... our safe places. Where we need not compensate our littleness with our bigness ... our sense of inferiority with superiority ... our fears of standing out with being outstanding ... anymore.

And then, once we revel in this new perspective – the joy of Jesus calling us down into our real and valued and valuable selves -- we find that we are called out. We find we have received a calling in life ... and not just a career. Even if our present career, guarded that we have one, may or may not be our calling.

William May of Southern Methodist University reminds us that the words "car" and "career" both derive from the Latin word carrera – "racetrack". And with both, we go 'round in circles, rapidly and competitively.

Also: A career is like a car, May shows us, in that it is an auto-mobile – self-driven.  For in a career, we are free from traveling with others, moving in glass enwrapped privacy, as we speed toward our own private destinations.

A calling, on the other hand, comes from the Latin word vocare -- root word of vocation. A calling is what a 17th century Puritan divine once defined as "that whereunto God hath appointed us to serve ... the common good."¹

Whatever happened to that higher calling of a common good: in a university setting in particular? Not to simply scale sycamore trees of postmodern knowledge and go out on research limbs for research's sake with the riches of science to back us up. But our true higher calling, which may be better described as our rooted calling:  to, if need be, scale those trees of knowledge to catch a glimpse of God's commonwealth, so that we may joyfully receive Jesus' invitation to descend from the towers to serve the common good.  Called from the limbs of research ... to the roots of commonwealth, if you will.  

I like the sign once spotted in a career placement office: "To Hell With Your Career ... What's Your Calling?" For ambition makes a good servant, and a terrible master.


So here’s the ultimate stewardship question Zacchaeus poses for us this morning: What, indeed, is your calling? Where is your treasure laid up? How may each of us best serve the common good?

Several of us, I know – regardless of state of employ – have struggled with that question mightily. Hardly anything else in life can make us feel more unworthy – or puff us up into a false state of worth – than the false sense of worth attached to the salaries that we do or do not make.

But here, in this sanctuary now, each of us is on level ground with one another. Each of us here – right now – is engaged in the stewardship of worship ... short for "worth-ship", a reminder of our intrinsic worth in God's eyes. No one is little. No one is big. No one is lost in a crowd. No one needs to scale a tree. Instead, we are called by Jesus to this safe place – this sanctuary – of our home, with him. Meeting him here, now ... face-to-face.

Grounded in the stewardship of "worth-ship". A reminder that comes to us in those who will join our church family next Sunday – and offering to them, and to us all, the opportunity to renew our baptismal covenants in the sight of God. Members, new ... baptisms, renewed. Our time and talents: A renewal of our stewardship of perspective and persistence.

Grounded in the stewardship of "worth-ship." A reminder that comes to us next Sunday in dedicating our 2008 pledges to God, and the opportunities these pledges afford for our congregation's one central calling: Doing mission ... mission ... mission. Our treasure: a renewal of our stewardship of peacemaking.


Having fulfilled his calling through embracing his stewardship of God's commonwealth in these three ways – a new perspective, a new persistence, a new way of peacemaking – Zacchaeus is told by Jesus that "Today” – today – “salvation has come to this house, because he (too) is a son of Abraham."

Let it come to ours, as well. For we too, are children of Abraham. And of Sarah. And on the heels of All Saints’ Day this Thursday past, of all the saints who have gone before us. On whose giant shoulders we presently stand.

 

Their treasure is ours, as well.

 

Let us go, and pass it on.


¹From William Sloane Coffin, A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007 – second edition), p. 76.