Welcome to our visitors today, especially our guests from this last week’s VBS “Avalanche Ranch!” God is Real! (Yehaw!)

As a child I learned some of my bible stories from the songs I sang in Sunday School and VBS. My favorite?

Joshua and the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho…Joshua and the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.

The great walled city of Jericho stood in the way of Israel and its quest for the Promised Land. For 7 days (according to Joshua 6) Israel marched around this city, skeptical but obedient to God’s command. On the 7th day, with a trumpet blast, the walls collapse (seemingly under the weight of Israel’s faith in God).

The great walled city of Jericho stood against God and lost.

It’s a great story and if there’s a moral to this it might be something like when our obedience and God’s faithfulness work together, big things are bound to happen.

It’s back to Jericho, the city of the tumbling walls, where the Gospel takes us this morning.  Only this time the seemingly impenetrable walls come in the form of an unassuming little man who incites great fear and hatred in the community. Many consider him their enemy; deserving of a fate similar to Jericho’s original inhabitants.

The story however takes unexpected turn challenging our assumptions about God and what God requires of us.

Our reading comes from the Gospel of Luke 19:1-10. Please stand for the reading of the Gospel.

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ 6So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ 8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ 9Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

The Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer: O Lord, open our eyes and our ears, that we may see, hear, and turn and be healed. Amen.

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.” Makes you wonder what this “little” man did to make him so despised by his own community.

He is identified in the biblical narrative as a Chief tax collector.

We know that tax collectors in 1st century Palestine were notorious for their greed, extracting money from their neighbors for the benefit of their Roman overlords, while enriching themselves in the process. Zacchaeus was despised for good reason.

That Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ home to eat is not only poor etiquette but challenges our assumptions about the kind of company God is willing to keep!

Verse 7, All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.

In fact, Jesus confers a special honor on Zacchaeus by offering to receive hospitality from him. Zacchaeus’ response betrays just how unexpected Jesus’ invitation to Zacchaeus is, and how much moved he was by it.

Verse 8  "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

Care for the poor and a commitment to right living…are evidence that something radical has happened here.

No longer defined by his work or his possessions, Zacchaeus defines himself by his new found relationship with Jesus.
Something happened that day in Jericho, to borrow words from a U2 song, “Love came to Town…” and suddenly walls came a tumbling down!

And that’s the story of Zacchaeus. Recently his story took on a much deeper, more personal and challenging meaning for me.

I was visiting one of our Twilighters, one of the members of our older group when she mentioned that something had recently happened in her neighborhood that upset her.

Her next door neighbor had all this work done on his house and there was stuffed piled up at the curb for pick up. Paint chips and other stuff were being blown into the street. A family down the street, father and son were walking by and picked up stuff that had fallen into street and were stacking it back on the curb when the man walked out of his house and shouted at them, “Get the off my property or I’ll blow your heads off.”

Here’s the deal. I know this family who was verbally threatened. They live just a few homes down from our member. The young boy is my son’s friend. They are in Scouts together and Chris has had his friend over many times to play and vice versa. I know the family. They are Americans of Filipino descent. They are kind and gentle and generous.

At least a couple times when I’ve picked up Chris at his friend’s house, the father has invited us to stay and join his family for dinner. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never taken him up on the offer or returned the gesture.

I want to do something for this family to make it better for them; to apologize for this man’s actions. This immigrant family could teach him a thing or two about the American Spirit. Better yet, they could teach him about the Christian spirit, about what it means to love your neighbor as yourself…and I don’t believe they are even Christians! Isn’t it sad when people outside the Christian Church have to teach those inside it how to behave?

Can you imagine anyone being so calloused, so hateful, so mean spirited that they would do this? Make a child afraid to take a walk in his own neighborhood; to perform a random act of kindness? Every time I think about what this man said to that little boy and his daddy, it makes me so angry I don’t know what to do with myself. And let me tell you, it’s a good thing it wasn’t my child that man threatened (because I’m not sure I could have had the self-control to simply turn and walk away).

And here is where God spoke to me; here that God confronted me; that God chastised me in the words of verse 9:

Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 

Did you hear it? God speaking?

Here is what I heard God saying to me, “This angry, spiteful, bitter man is my beloved little child, too. Something happened a long time ago to hurt that child; to demoralize and embitter that child. To make him afraid to live in his own neighborhood and so he sets up walls of anger around himself; closes himself off from the world. With bitterness he threatens anyone who trespasses his sanctuary and its killing him, sucking the life from his soul and he doesn’t even know it. And it breaks my heart to see him suffer in this way!”

Wow! That hit me like a brick wall! Here is a child of God just as much in need of love, grace, hope, mercy, affection, and forgiveness, as the child and father he had verbally attacked. 

We want to choose our neighbors, don’t we? And God says, no deal. You love the people I put in your life… That is the great adventure! That is the daily challenge. That is how they will know God is real! This kind of obedience brings down walls!

But God isn’t just telling me to love my neighbor. Something much harder. God is telling me to love my enemy; the person who upsets me, angers me, who hurts the ones I love.

Verse 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." 

It is those who need God the most (the lost) we are sent to love. This Christian Spirit is really hard to stuff to put into practice and I’m not sure I’m capable of loving hateful people like this. God, are you sure this is the only way?

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew 5:43-46:

43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same?

Okay God, I get what you are trying to tell me. I haven’t been listening and its time I did something about it! You want me, us, to change the world one life at a time. And that means going beyond what is expected. It means loving others as you love them unconditionally…like Zacchaeus!

As one writer puts it, “It was the affection of Christ, not the brutality of a town, that healed Zacchaeus.” (IBC) Now that’s the power of love!

“What does love look like? wrote Augustine. “It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”

When our obedience and God’s faithfulness work together, big things are bound to happen. And  let the people say? No, not Amen but Yehaw!