Scriptures: Haggai
1:15, 2:1-9, Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,
13-17, Luke 19:1-10
I’ve encountered a phrase recently, sometimes in dealing
with other pastors or with seminarians aspiring to be pastors. The phrase is “I felt really seen” – seen,
S-E-E-N, past participle of the verb “to see”, for the grammarians among
us. As with any new phrase, this
unfamiliar phrase “to be seen” made me scratch my head at first – no
comprende. After all, I’m not invisible,
and neither are you. But as I’ve
encountered this phrase, “to be seen”, it seems to mean that someone really
took the time to see you, not only physically, but at a deeper level. In this sense, to be seen is to be
understood, or at least that someone took the time to try to understand. It’s sort of like if I see someone in passing
and say, “How’s it going?”, and they respond with the usual, “Fine”, and I stop
to say, “Yes, but how are you?”
Like I actually want to know. And
this phrase made me reflect on how often we see people but don’t really see
them, how often we’re seen but not really seen.
We may think of people primarily in terms of their occupational roles –
the mail carrier, the bus driver, the elementary school teacher, the pastor –
or even our family roles – grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, sister, brother,
daughter, son. And when we relate to
people in terms of their roles – in terms of what they do for us as part of
their jobs or as part of our families, we may fail to really see them, may
instead take for granted that they’ll always be there. And in so doing, we may miss the ways in
which they may be changing.
For example, I visit my mom up in Reading once or twice a
month to look in on her, to empty the cat boxes and take out the trash – have
been doing so for years, since my mom had a heart attack and a quadruple bypass
fifteen or twenty years ago, I forget how long ago exactly. My mom has always been quite independent,
has lived alone for years, and at age 84 still drives and still manages her own
affairs. And yet, mom is at an age at
which I can’t take for granted that what she could do in the past, she’ll be able
to do indefinitely into the future. In
the past year, she took several bad falls, got into a serious traffic accident
at a red light that totaled her beloved Subaru, and between the falls and the
accident, her balance is noticeably not what it was – and she herself tells me
that since the last fall, she hasn’t felt quite the same. Her development, for people over 55, has a
centrally located set of mailboxes, and she often doesn’t pick up her mail for days
at a time, because it’s too far to walk to the mailbox from her house – even
though it might be the length of a city block or two. So when I visit, I really have to take an
effort to see my mom, how she’s walking, what the house looks like, how well
her conversations are tracking.
In today’s Gospel reading, we meet Zacchaeus, the tax
collector who wanted to see Jesus, and got a closer view than he’d bargained
for. This story comes as Jesus enters
Jericho, one of his last stops before entering Jerusalem. Along his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus has been
telling parables about and reaching out to various people on the margins,
various outcasts – healing ten lepers and a blind man, telling parables about finding
a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son, about a widow seeking justice from a
crooked judge, about a Pharisee and a tax collector who prayed at Temple, about
a homeless man named Lazarus who slept outside a rich man’s mansion.
Zacchaeus is an interesting character. His name means “clean” or “pure” or “innocent” – but that’s
not his reputation. We’re told that he’s
a chief tax collector, and that he’s very rich.
We may need to unpack these words a bit. The Roman empire employed persons from the
local populations that they occupied to collect taxes for them. They would set a certain amount that the tax
collector was required to pay over, and anything the tax collector could
collect on top of that, he could keep.
As we might imagine, this system was a setup for abuse, for fraud and
extortion. But beyond that, as a tax
collector – a chief tax collector, no less, Zacchaeus was a Jew collecting
taxes that benefitted the Romans who were occupying Judea. From the standpoint of the population,
Zacchaeus had sold his own people out, and was working for the enemy. He was seen as a traitor to his people, as a
quisling….in a word, as a scumbag.
We’re told that Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus would be
passing through his area, and that Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. And we’re told that there was a crowd, and
that Zacchaeus was short. Given
Zacchaeus’ unpopularity, he couldn’t necessarily count on being safe in the
crowd. So we’re told that he climbed a sycamore tree. Sycamore trees were highly valued in ancient
times; the Egyptians considered it the Tree of Life, and among Jews it was a
symbol of regeneration.[1] Zacchaeus was hoping to see Jesus, while
being unseen by the crowd.
Half of Zacchaeus’ wish was granted. He did indeed see Jesus. But he couldn’t remain unseen; in fact, Jesus
looked up in the tree and pointed Zacchaeus out. In fact, Jesus invited himself to dinner at
Zacchaeus’ house, as he told Zacchaeus, “Come down from there this instant,
because I have to stay at your house today.”
And the crowd groans and grumbles:
why does Jesus always pick such scummy people to hang out with? Where does he find these people?”
And at this point, we have some ambiguous Greek and a
translation problem. Zacchaeus’ words
are usually translated, “Look, I will give half my possessions to the poor, and
if I have defrauded anyone, I will repay them fourfold.” The traditional understanding is that in
being seen – really seen – by Jesus, Zacchaeus had a conversion experience, and
turned from greed to extravagant generosity.
Passages such as Exodus 22 says that if a man steals an ox or a sheep, he should return
five oxen for the stolen ox and four sheep for the stolen sheep. Perhaps that’s what Zacchaeus had in
mind. But other passages – Numbers 5:6-7
and Leviticus 6:1-6 say that if someone steals another person’s property, they
should repay it and add an additional fifth, or 20% - but not four times as
much! So Zacchaeus’ restitution is
extravagant by Biblical standards or by pretty much any standard.
As I said, the Greek is ambiguous. The Greek actually has the words “I give” and
“I repay” in the present tense, not the future tense – and this is the way it’s
translated in the King James. That is to
say, another way to read the passage is that Zacchaeus is defending his present
tax collection policies, saying that he’s already been more than generous with
his wealth all along, and that he was getting a bad rap from the crowds. Personally, I have a hard time squaring that
reading with Luke’s statement that Zacchaeus was rich – I’d think it would be
hard for him to still be rich if he had been doing all that giving and repaying
all along. But it is another way to
read the text.
Jesus responds to Zacchaeus’ generosity – whether present
practice or future pledge – with the words, “Today salvation has come to this
house, because he too is a son of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek out and to save the lost.” I believe that for Zacchaeus, salvation is
not only about his destiny in the afterlife, but about being restored to his
own community in that moment. Remember
that Zacchaeus was hated by the crowds, and that the crowds grumbled about
Jesus spending time with him. But Jesus
reminded the crowds, “He too is a son of Abraham.” Perhaps it was not only Zacchaeus who was
converted, but the crowds.
Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. He would up not only seeing, but been seen, at
first superficially by the hostile crowds, but at a soul-deep level by
Jesus. And Zacchaeus responded with
extravagant generosity. It’s interesting
to compare the story of Zacchaeus to that of the rich young ruler, found in
Luke 18 just a few verses before today’s passage, in which the young man asked
Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, affirms that he kept the
commandments, but was unable to follow Jesus’ command to give his wealth to the
poor. The rich young ruler saw his
wealth as a life preserver, but Jesus saw it as an anchor that would drag the
young man down to spiritual death. What
the rich young man could not do, Zacchaeus did, at least in part. Both the rich young ruler and Zacchaeus were
seen by Jesus as a deep level, at a soul level. We could say that the rich young ruler could
not accept being fully seen by Jesus, but Zacchaeus accepted it gladly.
The UCC has designated the second Sunday in November as
Stewardship Sunday. And this has turned
out to be somewhat of a sideways stewardship sermon – I chose the hymns with a
stewardship theme in mind, but the sermon went off in a slightly different
direction. But I’d like us to think of
that idea of being seen, and to ask what it would be like to allow ourselves,
all of ourselves, to be seen by God. Of
course, God sees us in our fullness, and our attempts to hide from God are no
more successful than that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, covering their
private parts with fig leaves. But we
still try to hide parts of our lives from God, and even from ourselves. Our lives are like a house with many
rooms. Some rooms we’re comfortable
opening to God – particularly the room called Sunday morning – but there may be
other parts of our lives, other rooms – our finances, our employment, our
relationships – that we keep behind doors that are locked and bolted. To acknowledge and open up those locked rooms
to ourselves and to God, to be fully present to God, can be both terrifying and incredibly
liberating – to hear God say, “Yes, I know that about you, and I love
you.” And if we overcome the terror and
experience the liberation, our response will be love and generosity, to God,
but also to neighbor.
I’d like briefly to mention our Old Testament reading from
the prophet Haggai, because it’s the only reading we’ll have from this
prophet. He was speaking to the exiles
who had returned from Babylon, particularly Zerubbabel, the governor, and
Joshua, the high priest. They had
started to rebuild the Temple, but were bogged down by skirmishes with the
surrounding nations and their own discouragement. And so, as Haggai comments, the Temple site
looked like nothing compared to the glory of the Temple that had been
destroyed. It’s a feeling similar to
what many churches have experienced in recent decades; while our buildings may
be intact, our congregations are much smaller than we remember from the glory
days of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Haggai
counsels them to return to work on the Temple with determination, and not to
let their actions or inactions be driven by fear. He also reminds them that the resources to
rebuild are in God’s hands. Again, to
respond in faith to God is to leave fear behind, and to act with love and
generosity.
Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, and ended up being fully seen
by Jesus – and the experience transformed him, moving him from greed to
extravagant generosity. As we seek the
Risen Christ, may we also allow ourselves to be fully seen by God, allow God to
be present in all the locked rooms of our lives, that we may be healed and
transformed. Amen.
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