The Undressing

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Sarah

John 20:19-22[i]
Lauren J. McFeaters
April 19, 2020
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As we meet Jesus, he comes to stand among his friends on Easter night. He comes through bolted doors to stand among the ones who feel dead themselves; entombed in their own grief; buried in their own hell; interred with their lifeless dreams.

Jesus arrives. A tomb can’t keep him in. A bolted door can’t keep him out. He undresses. He reveals his damaged body: his injuries, his lacerations, where he was impaled, torn hands, shredded feet.

We might expect that the disciples would be celebrating by now. Instead, we find them huddled behind locked doors in fear. They are afraid for their own lives, afraid of very uncertain futures. But I think the disciples are also afraid of Jesus. They’ve failed him miserably. Peter has denied him, they’ve deserted him; they’ve abandoned him. Perhaps the last person they want to meet is Jesus, risen from the dead to confront them with their failures. [ii] So they’ve locked themselves in and him out.

Have you ever met anyone who is locked in?

You don’t have to knock very hard on any door of any heart to find someone who won’t let themselves out.

Have you ever been locked in? These are inexplicable and strange days, these COVID-19 locked in days. Locked in, locked out. We have a totally new way of existing and except for those on the front lines of care, most of us are supporting people from afar.

Have you ever been fully locked in or locked out?

Apparently, Jesus hasn’t.

There are no walls thick enough to block the entry of the Risen Christ. Joining the disciples in the safe house he comes to them as no apparition, no ghost, no vision who pops in for a visit to say all is well.[iii]

He comes to his terrified and panicky friends with a healing salve; a restorative balm, a simple: “Peace be with you.”

It’s also translated as “Shalom.” Shalom is a rich word. Rabbi Adam Feldman taught me about Shalom. He said Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health. Shalom is a spirit is of wellbeing, safety, soundness. Its heart is fullness, rest, and harmony. Its root is to be perfect and full.

“Shalom be with you,” Jesus says.

The Peace that passes all understanding, be with you.
Shalom will keep your hearts and your minds in me.
Peace and I give you rest.
Shalom and you will find rest for your souls.
My Peace I leave with you. My shalom I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you…”

These first words of shalom are no mere band aid for fright; they’re no mere medicine for terror. His words of peace are a healing, a strengthening; an establishment of joy. He gives peace that provides solace in the face of persecution, a promise of new possibilities, and confidence in his ability to overcome “the world.” [iv]

You see the disciples came together in fear; but they will go out together in faith.

And that kind of Shalom, the kind that Jesus breathes on us brings a healing, a strengthening; an establishment of joy. It’s so much like the vulnerability Jesus brings to the locked house. He undresses before us. He reveals his damaged body: his injuries, his lacerations, where he was impaled, his torn hands, his shredded feet. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says. My shroud is gone, now take off yours. Come out of your cave. No more hiding, no more being locked in and locked out, no more burial, no more tomb, no more shame, no more guilt, no more regrets.

I want to tell you about my Grandfather Ivan Hillman. He grew up on a farm in Wexford, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. It was a tough life without much affection or tolerance. He grew up hardened to emotion, completely self-contained, and showed little warmth. I loved him very much. He didn’t make it easy. But much later in life he had a stroke and it changed him.

The stroke was a gift.

In those last months of his life, he gave our family a gift. And it is this: throughout his last days he became vulnerable; vulnerable in the most beautiful ways. Most probably because of the stroke, his reserve fell away, his sweetness was let loose. He laughed. He let us celebrate him. We held his hands, wrapped arms around him. We prayed, shared, and created a bond. No more intolerance, no more sternness, no more austerity.

He wept more. Smiled more. Shared more. And most of all, most important of all, through the gate of his vulnerability, he allowed us inside; welcomed us; made room for us, he enfolded us.

At the center of the Easter Gospel, At the core of this New Season, is a great vulnerability that Jesus Christ comes looking for us.

And when we allow ourselves to be found;
When we take off our shrouds and come out of our graves;
When we let go of the shame, the guilt, the regret;
When there’s no more hiding, no more resistance,
No more being locked in;
Then the walls come crumbling down;
And the One who bears our every weakness is there with compassion,
The Good Shepherd comes to his friends, his sheep, his flock:

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

“You are free.”

Thanks be to God.

ENDNOTES

[i] John 20:19-22, NRSV: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After Jesus said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

[ii] Elisabeth Johnson. Working Preacher “Commentary on John 20:19-31.” April 27, 2014, www.workingpreacher.org.

[iii] Alyce M. McKenzie. “Locked In and Locked Out: Reflections on John 20:19-29.” April 1, 2013, Patheos.com.

[iv] Elisabeth Johnson. Working Preacher “Commentary on John 20:19-31.” April 27, 2014, www.workingpreacher.org.

#Nassau At Home

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Sarah

We miss seeing you every week! Share with us what you are doing at home, how you are staying connected to your Nassau Church family, and what is bringing you joy these days! Here is a little of what #NassauAtHome looks like!

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Have images to share with us? Use this link!

Death to Life

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Sarah

Luke 24:1-12
David A. Davis
April 12, 2020
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I remember one Easter when I was a child, I had to walk the last half mile or so to the church because our car was stuck on a hill at a stop sign and the roads were icy. That might have been the same Easter the choir mom spit in her hand and rubbed my hair in the back to calm my raging cowlick. I remember sitting in a crowded Easter service next to Cathy when we were seminarians and getting the giggles as an ant was crawling on the collar of the man in front of us and I couldn’t decide where to ignore it, tell him, or just go ahead and swat if off without warning him. I remember the Easter when our daughter Hannah was very young and Cathy made matching Easter dresses for her and Hannah and a tie for me to match. I remember just last year when we were hosting Easter dinner for 22 people and our refrigerator stopped working on Saturday only to come back to life (temporarily) on Easter morning. What do you remember?

A traditional family menu item? Gatherings with friends? Getting dressed up in all the Easter finery? All the flowers? The crowds at church? The brass? The sanctuary of the church when you were young? Our sanctuary at Nassau Church? My office at the church has the best view maybe of any office in Princeton. A window right onto Palmer Square. I usually have to keep the blinds closed at the bottom because it can be so distracting, so tempting just to look out on the world. But I remember every Easter morning I leave the blinds wide open so I can watch folks coming from every sidewalk and every corner, coming to Easter worship. People “streaming” in.

Remember. Remember. Easter has always been about remembering. This morning, how many preachers do you think are telling congregations that this Easter, that today, that this morning will be the Easter Day of our lifetime that is closest to that first resurrection morning. The Risen Christ being made known to his followers, just a few of them as they were together. As the brothers of Taizé community in France sent pilgrims from around the world home a few weeks ago, they reminded people that the Risen Christ appeared to the disciples when they were secluded, hiding, and behind locked doors. One of my colleagues told her congregation that at first she was disappointed that Holy Week could come at a time like this. But she went on to tell them she had changed her mind. We need a week , she said that helps us to remember that our Lord and Savior is acquainted with suffering, sorrow, and death. And a week that helps us to remember that suffering, sorrow, and death are not the end of the story.

Remember. Remember. “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee” That is what the two men in dazzling clothes said to the women who had come to the tomb that morning. The women who followed him from Galilee, who stood at the foot of the cross when he died, who were there when they laid him in the tomb. The women who came to continue the ritual of death and mourning. The two told them to remember. The first thing the men said when the women of sorrow so suddenly found the two there beside them came in the form of a question. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen…Remember” Luke doesn’t label the two men in dazzling clothes “angels”. The “dazzling clothes” brings to mind that description of the mountaintop scene in Luke chapter 9 when Jesus’ own face changed and “his clothes became dazzling white” before Peter, James, and John. And then Moses and Elijah, the two of them appeared there next to Jesus. Luke doesn’t refer to the men as angels. Which makes sense because what they do NOT say to the women what angels always say: “Do not be afraid.”

When the women first arrived, Luke tells that they were “perplexed” at the stone rolled away and the open tomb with no corpse. When the two men suddenly appear beside them, and before the two say anything, “the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.” They were terrified. It seems to me that “bowing their faces to the ground” is something of an understatement. They must have planted their faces in the ground., falling down in fear. They were terrified. Some would argue that bowing the head toward the ground is a form of greeting and respect. But that doesn’t pair well with being terrified. At the empty tomb in John’s gospel, Mary wept. In Mark the women were “alarmed”. In Matthew they leave the tomb with “fear and great” joy”. Here in Luke they are just terrified. Who could blame them? They had just witnessed Jesus’s crucifixion. They had just witnessed what Luke called “this spectacle.” This torture, this murder, this death of an innocent man before a crowd gathered to watch. They had witnessed humanity’s worst and the death of someone they loved. Of course, they were terrified.

“‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember…Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words.” They remembered his words. They remembered. One scholar suggests that the chaos of the arrest, the trial, the torture, the spectacle of it all blocked their memory. The trauma of Jesus’ death, the terror of being confronted by humankind’s lust for darkness and suffering blotted out their memory. I would think not just their memory of handed over, crucified, and on the third day rise again. But their memory of all that Jesus said, all that Jesus taught, all that Jesus did. Their memory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and all of his promises and the very shape of salvation offered in him, their memory was ripped away by death’s magnitude.

They remembered. As they remembered, according to Luke they returned from the tomb and “told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” They remembered and they returned without fear to tell. Remembering took their terror away. Remembering that he said that he would rise on the third day. Remembering that day in the temple when he read from the scroll of Isaiah; “good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free”. Remembering how he fed the hungry with loaves and fishes. Remembering how when he healed those who were suffering, he took on the forces of evil. Remembering after the Parable of the Good Samaritan when he said “Go and do likewise”. Remembering that he said “The Son of Man came to seek and save the Lord.” \

They remembered and they told the eleven. I wonder what they said first. “He is Risen” or “Remember how he told us?” They told the eleven and all the rest. All the rest. Yes, all the rest of the followers of Jesus that day that surrounded the eleven. Yes, Luke foreshadowing the mission to the Gentiles charted out in the Book of Acts. All the rest. Yes, to the followers of Jesus ever since; to the church, to you and to me. The followers of Jesus now taking up the task of those foremothers of proclamation. All of us, the church, telling all the rest. Proclaiming resurrection then, now, and forever. Proclaiming resurrection for the long haul. Not just on glorious Easter mornings when the pews are packed shoulder to shoulder. But on an Easter morning when the Risen Christ comes to you and your household right there at home. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! And remember all that he told you.

I have to tell you I am not sure I can wrap my head around the notion that officials are predicting Sunday as the highest number of deaths across the country. Today. Easter Day. But I can tell you this about Easter Day, about proclaiming resurrection power and hope on Easter Day, it is a Holy Spirit inspired, grace infused, God given way to not let your memory of all Jesus said be ripped away by death’s magnitude. Remember all he said and remember Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! As Brian Blount, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary puts it “Jesus came back. And the figurative and literal power of Life came back with him. With Jesus, in Jesus, and through Jesus, Life is coming hard after death…even in the midst of literal and figurative death, Life is coming…Fight the resurrection fight” As Dr. Blount exhorts his listeners, “Paul declares that the resurrection fight is a fight we have been given the ability and obligation to join.”

Christ is Risen! (He is Risen indeed!) Suffering, sorrow, and death are not the end of the story. Christ is Risen! (He is Risen indeed!) Neither the reality of death nor humanity’s thirst for power and victory keep him down. Christ is Risen! (He is Risen indeed!). It is the Risen Christ who embraces those brokenhearted with grief and comforts the dying. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!) The Risen Christ, the Lamb upon the throne who promises to wipe away every tear from the eye.

It is the Risen Christ who shall lead us through these present days. It is the Risen Christ who will give us the strength. It is the Risen Christ who will take our fear and empower us to cling to hope. In Jesus Christ, God didn’t let death win then and God won’t let death win now.

Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed!

April 19, 2020 Worship

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Sarah

Maundy Thursday

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Sarah

John 13:1-14
Andrew Scales
April 9, 2020
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The Gospel of John says that Jesus showed the fullness of God’s love at the Last Supper. Throughout the Christian tradition, the Church has
typically imagined that the twelve disciples were the only guests at the table with Jesus. Think, for example, of Da Vinci’s famous Last Supper
mural in Milan: twelve men gathered around Jesus at the center. A close reading of John, however, invites us into a fuller imagination of the Last Supper: who was around the table, and whose feet Jesus washed. Catholic New Testament scholar Raymond Brown observes that John never gives a complete description of who was at the meal. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that many more friends from Galilee were present. It could be that the women who went to the empty tomb on Easter morning were also there at this meal: Jesus’ mother Mary, Mary’s sister, Mary wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. Still others, whose names we never learn from the Gospels, may have eaten with Jesus on the night before his arrest and crucifixion.

When Jesus fills a basin and ties a towel around his waist, he washes the feet of every guest at his meal. It’s a symbolic act that says that anyone who follows him should serve and love their neighbor. Jesus is saying that this is what we should do for one another until he comes again. During this Holy Week, all of us are separated from one another while we continue to remember the Lord’s Supper. This year’s Maundy Thursday is an opportunity, in our physical absence from one another, to reflect on fellow guests at Jesus’ table whom we often do not see. For example, at Nassau’s online coffee hour last Sunday, my friends Francisco, Brandy, Oliver, and Max reminded our breakout group to pray for migrant farmers who harvest the crops that fill our grocery stores. Many of them do not have adequate protective gear or access to healthcare for themselves while they make sure that we have enough food to eat.

There are many children in our school districts who have relied on school lunches as part of their own food security. In Princeton Public
Schools, 12% of enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced lunches. As they stay home because of school closures, many are at risk of going hungry when their parents face the most severe repercussions of our present economic crisis. There are also the countless non-essential workers who are without work right now, and essential workers who put themselves at risk so that others can practice social distancing and flatten the curve of the virus’ spread. Healthcare workers; grocery store employees; truck drivers; first responders like firefighters, paramedics, and police officers; we often overlook the depth of how they are caring for others. When we expand our imaginations to include the people we do not see as guests at Jesus table, it’s also an invitation to understand Jesus’ act of washing people’s feet in a new way. We call this night of the Last Supper “Maundy Thursday” because of an old Latin phrase, novum mandatum, “a new commandment.” It’s what Jesus says later in John’s Gospel, in John 13:34-35, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In her book The Amnesty of Grace, the Mexican theologian Elsa Tamez describes how the Lord’s Supper is a sign of God’s radical inclusion of every single human being, especially people whom we typically overlook, forget, or pretend not to see.

As we draw near to the end of this Holy Week in the midst of a global health and economic crisis, I invite you to imagine Jesus washing the
feet of the unseen fellow guests in our midst: children in danger of going hungry, migrant farm-workers, healthcare professionals, first responders, volunteers with groups addressing local needs. Who are some of the people who come to mind for you when you imagine other guests at Jesus’ table?

Even though many of us are staying home as much as possible to flatten the curve, we can imagine what it looks like symbolically to wash
one another’s feet as Jesus did. If you are able, you can give to groups like Arm in Arm or Princeton Children’s Fund. Arm in Arm continues to address hunger and housing issues locally. Princeton Children’s Fund, which in the past has supported enrichment opportunities for children enrolled in Princeton Public Schools, is collecting donations for a Coronavirus Relief Fund for local families that have been affected by work stoppage.

So much of our lives has changed in the past month, but the opportunities to love others remain. When we give to help our fellow guests around the Lord’s table, we are living out Jesus’ new commandment to love one another, just as he has loved us.

April 12, 2020 Easter

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Sarah

April 10, 2020 Good Friday

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Sarah

April 9, 2020 Maundy Thursday

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Sarah

Hymns from “Glory to God” the Presbyterian Church (USA) hymnal. Musical streaming and print rights granted under OneLicense #A-730100 and CCLI#11457258.

When the Messiah Weeps

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Sarah

Luke 19:29-41
David A. Davis
April 5, 2020
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“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” That’s what they shouted. The whole multitude of the disciples as Jesus road down the path from the Mount of Olives. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” That is what they shout in Luke. They go and get the colt like Jesus told them to do. They bring the colt to Jesus. Some throw their coats on the colt that Jesus is about to get on. Others toss their coats on the road. They begin to “praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

Blessed is the king. The king. The messiah. The savior. The Son of Man. The Son of God. The one they had been waiting for. The messiah who would save them. The king who would bring victory to the people of Israel. Triumph over Rome. Jesus and his “Triumphal Entry”. That’s what the tradition has called this parade pretty much forever. Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. The whole multitude of disciples are trying to make it as triumphal and royal as they can. Cloaks tossed as regal cloth to ride on, to march on. Lots of cheers and shouts. Loud enough to annoy the Pharisees. The followers of Jesus are doing their best to create a scene fit for a king. While Jesus doesn’t stop them and Jesus knows he could make the stones shout, you have to wonder if Jesus was sort of shaking his head inside or heaving a sigh. Not because the disciples’ efforts seem sort of pitiful, even ridiculous when compared to a staged entrance of Caesar Augustus. Not because of the ironic paradox of it all…a Triumphal Entry that takes Jesus to the cross. No, you have to wonder if Jesus heaves a sigh because he knows the disciples still expect him to be a victorious, conquering, power wielding kind of king.

The disciples expect triumph and try to create the aura of royalty. Maybe Jesus doesn’t stop them because he knows the whole scene is a mockery of earthly royalty, triumph, power, and victory. After all he started it all by sending for a young little animal. By the way, you can walk down from the Mount of Olives and up to the city of Jerusalem in about 30 or 40 minutes. What on earth Jesus would think of the tradition’s label now stuck forever. Triumphal Entry. It is as if the whole multitude of disciples, the tradition, the church never does get it. Jesus the king, the savior, the Messiah. The followers of Jesus forever shaping a messiah of their own making. The followers of Jesus creating a god they want rather than trusting the God of our salvation. The God who sent us our salvation in the One who mocks and transforms the very power and triumph humanity lusts after. “All men want to be rich, rich man wants to be king, king ain’t satisfied till he owns everything.” Bruce Springsteen, 1978.

Shaping the God you want rather than trusting the God we know in Christ Jesus. That’s is what seems to be going on back in Luke 13 in the verse I read to you a moment ago. Pilate killing the Galileans, desecrating their sacrifice to God with their own blood and the fall of the Tower of Siloam. That’s the passage Professor Barreto is teaching this morning in adult education. Not surprisingly, I can tell you it is a passage I have never preached on! Those who ask Jesus about those tragedies are wanting to believe in a God who punishes people through their suffering. They want to shape a God who keeps score, a God whose judgement miraculously matches their own judgement, assumptions, and view of others. They want to have some kind of religious idol, a concept of God that explains the unexplainable and makes up answers to the unanswerable. They demand a divine explanation for unspeakable human suffering.

It is an incredibly puzzling passage tucked into a few chapters of Luke where Jesus is teaching and preaching with the apocalyptic language and style. Apocalyptic biblical texts; yes incredibly puzzling. But an ancient literature, nonetheless, is less about giving answers and more about trusting God. In that apocalyptic framework, Jesus’ response to the few is much a less a threat and much more an acknowledgement of the inevitability of death and the reality of human suffering. And ashes to ashes, dust to dust kind of thing. A reminder that Jesus embodies not a God of answers but God of comfort, salvation, and resurrection power and hope. It is a foreshadowing of a God whose own Son plunged the depth of human suffering. Rather than the notion that God wagged a finger at those who died at the hands of Pilate or when the tower fell, rather than the idea that God said “I told you so”, it is the belief in a steadfast, loving God who wept in response to such suffering and death.

If there are days that feel apocalyptic, we are living them now. No, not in a rapture and end of the world way. But in the sense that we are confronted by a magnitude of death and the reality of all kinds of human suffering around us. Physical, emotional, spiritual struggle and suffering. Some may demand divine explanation. Most of those will shape their own answers that reflect an idolatrous god created in their own world view and imagination. You and I, we turn to our God of mercy. We cry out to our God of steadfast love. We don’t ask for answers. We ask for strength and wisdom and peace and calm for our fear. We do what we have always done: We pray for others. We try to love our neighbors as ourselves, and work for justice and love kindness. We strive to praise our God joyfully and worship our God with the faithfulness of our lives. We do so with the confidence and assurance of Jesus who promised to be with us always. Jesus who promised that God would give us the Holy Spirit, a Spirit that would be with us forever. Jesus who promised us abundant and eternal life.

The same Jesus who road on that young colt down from the Mt of Olives and up to the city of Jerusalem. Jesus and the “anything but” Triumphal Entry. Maybe you noticed there are no palms in the reading of the Palm Sunday story in Luke’s gospel. There are no shouts of “Hosanna” either. Just cloaks and “Blessed is the king”. But there is one piece of Luke’s story that only happens in Luke. It’s just Luke. Here is the very next verse after Jesus tells the Pharisees that the stones will cry out if the disciples are silent. “As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it.” Jesus goes on to lament the lack of peace in the city and describe the violence and destruction that would come to the city. Jesus is pointing to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The suffering and death described by ancient historians is hard to fathom. Over the years when I preached about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, most often, I would preach about him weeping over the city of his own death. The sinful violence of the city and of humanity that would result in his crucifixion. But I read it differently this week. My encounter with the weeping messiah this week is different. He’s is not weeping at the thought of his suffering. He is weeping at the reality of humanity’s suffering and death. The Son of God, our Savior, loving God who weeping in response to such suffering and death. Emmanuel, God with us, weeping in response to such suffering and death. The Weeping Messiah.

It is yet one more way to shatter the expectations the disciples had about their triumphant, victorious, powerful king. Jesus may have wept at the news of the death of Lazarus, but no one, no one, no one would ever have expected a messiah who weeps. On that night in the garden in the face of his own suffering and death, according to Luke, Jesus prayed in his anguish and “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (22:43) Here, as the procession ends, Jesus stops. And faced with the magnitude of humanity’s suffering and death that only he could see, he weeps. A weeping messiah. Who could have ever imagined that? No one. No one.

Friends in Christ, as you and I walk through these days of Holy Week together, when there is so much to take in and try to comprehend and you’re not sure what to think or whom to believe, when some of our most sacred worship traditions will happen but be different, please remember and know and believe deep in your heart, the timeless affirmation of the preacher in the Book of Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) And proclamation in the Apocalypse to John, the Book of Revelation “I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty”.

In Holy Week we often tell of walking with Jesus to the Garden, to Golgotha, to the Empty Tomb. This Holy Week, our Messiah walks with us. Our Weeping Messiah. Our Savior. Our Messiah. Our King.

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

Belonging

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Sarah

Luke 19:1-10
David A. Davis
March 29, 2020
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I was taking an early morning solitary walk with my dog one day this week on one of the back roads in my neighborhood. (Okay it was this morning. Thursday. The day of this recording!) Day was just breaking. The milky white sky was turning blue as the sun was rising. Not another soul in sight (which was good). Just me and our black lab Rooney. Signs of spring were all around me. It was a beautiful morning and I found myself listening to the new day. All I could hear was Rooney’s claws on the street and the singing of the birds. The birds were singing a springtime symphony. I smiled to myself and thought about how the birds were so oblivious to the world’s plight. Maybe they were and maybe the weren’t. Maybe they were just determined to sing a song of creation despite the world’s plight. I smiled. I thought of all of you and the I started thinking about Zacchaeus again.

Zacchaeus was…. Zacchaeus was….Zacchaeus was….Zacchaeus was a misunderstood man. Zacchaeus was not a well thought of man. Zacchaeus was an isolated man. A chief tax collector and rich Luke tells us. It’s kind of a triple whammy. Tax collector, chief tax collector, and rich. The people, of course, had a negative view of tax collectors. They worked for the Roman government. They made money by inflating the tax bill and skimming off the top. In the gospel, however, tax collectors are not condemned out right. Early in Luke Jesus calls Levi the tax collector out of the tax booth and told him to follow him. Earlier than that, when John the Baptist gives his fiery “Brood of Vipers” sermon, Luke records that “even tax collectors came to be baptized.” It doesn’t say John refused to baptize them. No, he simply told them to “collect no more than the amount prescribed to you.’ You will remember the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector in the chapter just before Zacchaeus. It was the tax collector Jesus praised for his humble, contrite piety.

Contrary to the ancient court of public opinion, Jesus and the gospels do not portray tax collectors as all bad. But Zacchaeus was also rich. And we all know that when it comes to Jesus, the gospel of Luke and the rich, well that’s a different story. Think “woe to you who are rich” in Luke’s sermon on the plain. And the poor widow who put in all she had to live on. And the rich just giving out of their abundance. And the whole rich person, kingdom of heaven, and the eye of the needle thing. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and… he was rich. So yes, both the people and the gospel are highlighting how the reader is supposed to view Zacchaeus. Come to think of it, it couldn’t have been all that easy to live in Zacchaeus house either. His spouse getting nasty looks form others. His kids. Think how they would be treated on the playground. Especially the son built like his dad. Zacchaeus and his family and the scorn of their community.

“Zacchaeus! Zacchaeus!” Jesus said “You come down! I’m not just coming to your house today…I must stay at your house today! I am not just coming over. I’m staying. I am not just staying. I must stay” Must stay. Must. Not just a coincidence. Not just a passing by drop in. A must stay. Jesus signaling to Zaccheaus, to those who are with him, to those in the crowd, to Luke’s reader, and to you and me that there is something to pay attention to here. Something big and important going on here. It’s a “must stay”. The intentionality of Jesus is not to be overlooked. Like when Jesus intentionally crosses to “opposite side” of the Sea of Galilee after calming the storm and steps out of the boat in Gentile territory. Like when Jesus intentionally chooses to dine in a Pharisee’s house the night the woman called a sinner came to anoint his meet. Like when Jesus “sets his face to go to Jerusalem” from Galilee and intentionally heads through Samaria instead of going down along the Jordan River. “Zacchaeus…I must stay at your house today”. And everyone should lean forward, watch, and listen.

Lean forward and listen to what Zacchaeus says. As I lean forward, I realize I can never hear Zacchaeus the same again because of what I have learned this week from New Testament Scholar Eric Barreto. If you haven’t clicked on this morning’s Adult Education here on the Sunday morning page, you absolutely have to now. Listen to Eric’s compelling and convince argument for the present tense in Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus. His response to Jesus and in response to the grumbling crowds. The translation I read earlier: “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.” Dr. Barreto and others suggest that the translating from the Greek in the present tense is just as acceptable. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much.” I give and I pay back. Well, that changes everything when it comes to how we have all read this story since 1^st grade Sunday School!

It has always been read as a story of repentance in the presence of Jesus. Salvation is bestowed by Jesus upon Zacchaeus and his house because the eyes of Zacchaeus are opened to the power and grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he transforms his own sinful practice of tax collecting. But when you read it with a change of tense, you come upon a whole other story of salvation. Zacchaeus hears the grumbling from the crowd about Jesus going to stay with such a sinner. It was not the first time he heard it. After all, he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. So he turns to Jesus and says loud enough for the crowd to hear: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much.” Look! Listen! Please! I am not the person you think I am. My family and I. We are not scoundrels you all think we are. Of course, Jesus already knew that. That’s why he called up to Zacchaeus. That’s why he told him to come down. That’s why it had to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. That’s why it was a “must stay”. Jesus knew we were all wrong about him and his family.

“Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.” Yes, salvation is in the house in the person and work of Jesus. Yes, salvation is also in the house because Jesus is telling Zacchaeus and his family know they are not outcasts. Indeed, not only are they not who all the people think and say they are, they are children of Abraham. Children of the promise. Heirs of salvation. Sheep of his fold. And yes, Jesus is telling the crowds, the readers, that the salvation in this house is the restoration and welcome of the Zacchaeus household into this community. That the community of the people of God was incomplete, not as God intends when the man who was chief tax collector and rich was ostracized and judged by their humanity. Jesus on the way to Zacchaeus’ house announces this community has been transformed today. “For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.” And it might have been the community, not Zacchaeus who was lost that day.

Early at the break of day on my walk, when I thought of you, I found myself imagining sitting in my seat in the chancel in the front of the sanctuary. You know that I know where you sit. I saw individuals and children and choir members and families and young adults and couples and yes even visitors whose names I don’t know yet. At first I found it helpful to prepare myself to preach to you from this spot and in this way. Then I started to think about how our community will be different when we gather again. How grateful we will be to be together! What we would have learned about our community and our experience of it. And how, even now, in these days, our community can share the transforming power of salvation in Jesus name. Our community can be transformed; striving to more complete in the way God intends. And maybe learning from Zacchaeus and Jesus today, this fifth Sunday of Lent, that by God’s grace and in God’s spirit, we can see each other, we can see everybody as God sees them. As Jesus sees them.

I often close a committee or Session meeting at church with the words, “Bring us back again on the Lord’s Day to worship you in Spirit and in truth.” We are worshiping together today. And God will surely, one day, bring us back together again in the sanctuary at 61 Nassau Street on the edge of campus and in the heart of town. Regardless of that the President says, we won’t be there in two weeks on Easter morning. We will be here. But when that day comes, when we are all together again, what an Easter celebration that will be. Singing. Shouting. Crying. Laughing. That Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

Until then, church on the edge of campus and in the heart of town, keep proclaiming God’s love in word and deed! Proclaim God’s love in word and deed like never before. Live in and share the love of the Son of God, our Savior in creative ways like never before.

“For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.”

Seek out and save you and me.

Author: Sarah