This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 30th October 2016; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
The readings for today are:
Habakkuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4 Ps 119.137-144 2 Thessalonians 1.1-4, 11-12 Luke 19.1-10
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When 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." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus 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." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
“Please join me in a short prayer from Psalms 19:14, and ” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Amen.
Introduction
This morning we have just heard the Gospel reading on Zacchaeus, and I am sure everyone here has heard this story many times before; it is certainly a particular favourite for Sunday School, in fact it is usually the emergency lesson when nothing else has been planned.
This then gave me a problem on delivering a sermon on a topic that has been literally flogged to death; that is until I hit on the fact that like Zacchaeus, one of our greatest needs in life, is to feel valuable or valued; … in that our own individual lives do matter, and that regardless of our circumstances, or our feelings, we do make a difference to this world. …
And this desire of value drives us much more than we think, and this is particularly true when we are alone, or we are struggling in some way, where we find ourselves saying … acht, why bother.
One way of dealing with these thoughts is to compare ourselves to other people; even though it is wrong, and I will give you an example. When I was in my teens, and I was about to join the navy, my father reminded me of the famous Rabbie Burns quotation, “to see yourself as others sees you”; and this to me was always a horrible saying, as it is a saying full of condemnation until it was revealed to me many years later that this saying depends, (not on the truth), but on what we and “others” think about ourselves. …
So we have to ask, who are the others that are judging us? … Well its simple, it depends on who we pick as the others, others whom we want to impress. In the extreme, we could choose people we love and respect, however, us Scots are more likely to pick the exact opposite, our worst enemies, or those keeping us at a distance.
You see, we are all different to different people, … and this quotation is so wrong on so many different levels, because it is not “a gift to gee us”, but more the curse of rejection.
Now to take this further, and I now this is not inclusive or exhaustive, but in today’s society, people tend to base their self-worth on the following four things, and we are all guilty of this to an extent: … the first is, … we judge ourselves by our appearance; “how do I look”, concluding that the better we look, the more value we are in the eyes of others. Yes, appearance is important, but it is not the be all and end all to our lives. Jesus said as much when he compared the fine clothes of solemn to the “lilies in the field”.
The second way we judge ourselves is by our achievements; “what have we accomplished”, concluding that if we are successful, then we will be accepted. … Now not that I have made many achievements in my live, but I have noticed that the more success I have shown, the nastier the comments I received. Just look at the comments today’s celebrities’ get, love them or hate them, most are not repeatable; all of them originating from jealousy.
The third way we judge ourselves is by how well other like us, concluding that if we are well liked, we must be doing well? Politicians are the worst for this, they can be obsessed by their public ratings, suggesting that if people like them, then they are doing well.
And the fourth way we judge ourselves, is by how much we are worth in financial terms, concluding that people will accept us if we have plenty of money, and we have all seen sycophants doing this, but in reality, … they are not respecting the person, they are respecting the money.
Summary / Conclusion on judging self worth by others.
The problem with these four standards is that none of them are stable, they are all transient, they all change with time. Our appearance changes as we get older, … others will soon surpass any achievements or success we have made, … how well we get on with others can change the blink of an eye by one bad deed; …. and our affluence can change with one bad choice or decision, or just shear bad luck.
You see, the trouble with letting things like these dictate our self-worth is that our self-worth is always changing, changing with our feelings, … and we will never know from one minute to the next where we stand. … And so that if we want to build or change our self-esteem, then we have to build it on something that won’t change, … and there is only one thing that won’t change, and that is our unchangeable God and what he thinks about us; as this would truly be a “gift to gee us”, because there is a very good example of this in today’s Gospels reading, and it involves a nasty little rodent of a man named Zacchaeus, a man who’s self worth was rock bottom, and yet one day, he met Jesus, and his life was changed forever.
Zacchaeus as you know, lived in the times of the Roman occupation, the Romans were the enemy, they were the Nazis if you wish, of the day; they had just invaded Israel, and there was nothing the Jews could do about it, other than hate them with a passion, but this obnoxious little Zacchaeus took a different stance, he sided with these Roman against his fellow Jews, … exploiting them, while making himself rich in the process. So you see, given the chance, the Jews wanted to kill Zacchaeus.
So let us look briefly at the four ways Zacchaeus evaluated himself, and why his self worth was so low. The first, his appearance, and we can confidently says that Zacchaeus had a complex, he was a little man, with a real chip on the shoulder, … and if I was to cast somebody in that movie role, Danny Devito at his worst, would be the very man.
Secondly, on achievement; well the only real achievements Zacchaeus ever had was on exposing and cheating his fellow Jews, … using standard bulling and intimidation tactics, typical for a Tax collector, … but a tax collector for the Romans, a sort of quisling, a traitor to his fellow Jews.
And on popularity, the third way Zacchaeus judged himself, was slightly more complex because while we are sure the Romans did not love him, they were happy to use him, … but this resulted in his fellow Jews hating him, and I am sure his own family and church disowned him. In short he was worse than a murderer or a child molester.
And finally the fourth way Zacchaeus judged himself was in financial terms, and as we read, he lined his own pockets with Jewish money, “he was wealthy”; but … we are also sure that he did not have the freedom to spend and enjoy this wealth in the way he would have wished. So he had money, but was limited on how he could spend it.
So you see, Zacchaeus knew the value of his own self worth, he was in a mess, and so we can understand his great excitement when he heard this great messiah called Jesus was to visit his town, it gave him hope, as maybe this great Messiah could help him, and Jesus does help him, and in doing so, … three truths are revealed, … and if we understand these truths, we will never have any problems with our self worth again.
1. Jesus notices us and relates to how we feel
The first truth is quite obvious to us, and that is, that no matter how bad we feel when things go wrong, we must always remember that Jesus notices us and relates to how we feel. … We live in a busy world, and when we do get a minute to ourselves, there is usually music or a TV on in the background; in fact most people today cannot live without something in the background, and that is bad, because we do not make the time to appreciate the silence, … and listen for the calming voice of the Lord which usually starts by him telling us that he “loves us, … and that we are not to worry because he has overcame the world”. Do we listen and respect these words, or do we listen to others, or even the TV?
Zacchaeus desperately wanted to meet Jesus so much that he did two things that no wealthy Middle Eastern man would have done, first he ran through the crowd, and secondly he climbed a tree. And if that was not shocking enough, what Jesus did next was even more shocking, Jesus walked straight through the city, walked past a crowd of thousands of people right up to that tree where Zacchaeus was, … looked up and said, “Zacchaeus! Come down quickly! For I must be a guest in your home today.” … Of all the people, … Jesus calls on this the most miserable of sinners, … to be a “guest in his home today”.
When we are alone, down, depressed, … and when we think everybody has deserted us, Jesus is there … why, because he was human himself, and he knows what exactly we are going through, because even he, the great son of God could not live on this earth without his Father and the Holy Spirit guiding and protecting him, and if Jesus could not do it, … what chance do we have on our own?
We might be so down trodden that we think we are of no use to God, but the truth is, He let His Son Jesus die for us so that we can call on him when we need him, and through Jesus, because he understands our plights, loves us, and looks after us.
2 Jesus lifts us up.
And this brings us to the second truth, that Jesus lifts us up. … All of his life, Zacchaeus had been ridiculed and rejected, and this would have a lot to do with him wanting that wee bit of power and respect, just enough to get back at his fellow Jews for belittled him, … so we can understand him turning to the Romans, … but this in turn created more problems than it solved, … however, Jesus broke this cycle.
Could you imaging Jesus walking into this church today, picking on one of us, and saying, “I am going to stay at your house tonight”? What would the rest of us think? … “How no me”, “what make them so special”, … “that one”, … the bible tells us, “that everybody was shocked”.
Many of us here today have had horrible things happen to us over the years, and really bad things said about us too, whether in lies or in truth, … things that have hurt us to the core, and in the same vain, we have done things, … things that we are ashamed of, things that make us feel useless and unworthy, things we would never say in public, and so the only way we can get over these things and to move on, is to receive comfort in believing what the Lord has said about us in his word, that we are brothers and sisters to him, and that he has made us joint heirs with him in his kingdom, and that we belong to him. …
I know this is difficult if not impossible to believe, but if the Lord was to speak to us, he would say, … “do not worry, God has forgiven all your sins, even the sins you cannot forgive yourself for. Let them go … receive my forgiveness, you are free, … free to love and worship me”.
That is what the bible says; those are the familiar words of Jesus, and those are the words that we need to listen to, … not the words of others, because if you think about it, if our sins are not forgiven, then what use are we to anyone. … You see the Lord needs to forgive us in order to set us free, however, by trusting in the Lord, he will change us so that we will never want to sin again, or put us in a position where we have sinned so readily in the past; Jesus truly lifts us up, … changing us as we go, … although this is rarely without pain.
3 Jesus still wants us.
And that moves us on to our third truth, and that is that no matter what we have ever done in our lives, God still wants us, … he wants to have a personal relationship with us, because he loves us. People made Zacchaeus feel their hatred because he was a horrible little man, and he did deserve to be hated, but Jesus went to his home and stayed in his house.
Verse 7 goes on to say, “But the crowds were displeased” they said, “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner, they grumbled". The truth is, and you won’t like this, we have some of the traits of Zacchaeus in our very nature; … we have all done things that have hurt others, … but Jesus is far more interested in accepting and changing us, … than he is in condemning us. So would at us and say, “I know you, I know your heart, I love you, … and I want you in spite of all that you’ve done. I want you to love Me like I love you, and I want a permanent relationship you that will last forever”.
These are words we have heard over and over again, because Jesus wants to teach us to overcome the world like he did, … and if he didn’t, … why then did he show us that it could be done? Why does he show us how to do it? …
Like him, Jesus wants us to commune with God, and use the power of the Holy Spirit, if only we would listen. John 10 verses 27 and 28 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: … And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, … neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”. …
Is that not powerful, …, what others think of us does not matter, neither anything we have gone through or done in the past. … God still loves us, and God still wants us, if only we could believe. … God deao have a plan and purpose for us all, even though it can be very difficult to see his plan, … but God wants us in spite of ourselves.
Conclusion.
To finish of, let us look quickly at the power of God in this story, … we see a nasty horrible little man with serious issues, but a man wanting to meet with Jesus. We see Jesus then accepting him despite his faults, and then somehow, … somehow, this man changes into someone completely different. Verse 8 says, “And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold”.
What I am getting at hear is that Zacchaeus was normally tense, he was always stressed; he was constantly on guard, … he had a large chip on his shoulder, … he wanted to prove himself, he wanted to assert his authority like the little Hitler he was; … driven by jealously, revenge and the need to be respected if not worshiped, … and yet after a few words with Jesus, he was calm, he was happy, he was relaxed but, … he was also excited and looking forward to the future. … He was at peace with the world; he was at peace with himself.
Zacchaeus’s drive to be respected, his drive to be the big man had completely gone, … in fact he is wanting to return money, meaning he is showing respect for others in stead of looking for respect for himself. And … we must also ask ourselves, what happened to his fear of being killed by his fellow Jews; … it too had all gone.
What kind of power does that to a man, (or woman)? … Only the power of God, but this power is not limited to this bible story, no, the point that God is making here is, that he wants every one of us to experience that power, to take away our worries and our vain attempts to impress the world. … God is saying that he wants us to be at peace with the world, he wants us to be at peace with ourselves in those quiet moments, … he wants us to be at peace others, … but most of all, he wants us to be at peace with him, forever.
What a wonderful Lord we have, so please join me in a short prayer.
Let us pray,
Father we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died to set us free. Father, we thank you that he walked this earth as we do, suffered the same problems as us, and so we can thank him for his understanding and relating to our cries when things get tough.
This morning Father, like Zacchaeus, we come to meet and worship Jesus, but we too need to see ourselves as he sees us, and not how the world sees us. We need to know the truth about ourselves from your prospective, and we need to hear from you that we are already valued in your eyes.
Father we ask that you put us at ease, … let us be happy with our lot, but full of hope and excitement for the future. Father we want to be at peace with you and this world, and experience that peace which is beyond our understanding.
Father we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
