Salvation has Come
Luke 19:1-10
Our story takes place in the city of Jericho. It is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world. For thousands of years humans have walk through its streets. It is the city of Palms along the fertile plain of the Jordan River.
This city was so beautiful that Mark Anthony presented it as a gift to Cleopatra. It was here that the royal household of Herod built a magnificent palace.
In the air lingered the perfume of roses and on the streets tax collectors and courtiers rubbed shoulders with fanatics and wandering hermits; with traders moving in along the great caravan route from North Africa and the Far East; with robbers and soldiers; with priests from Jerusalem and pilgrims. It was a great city.
And the greatest man who ever lived walked through Jericho. It would be his last visit to Jericho. He was on his way to Jerusalem and the cross. He would never pass this way again.
For two men in Jericho, it was now or never. For blind Bartimaeus and for Zacchaeus this was their hour of visitation. As William Shakespeare put it
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
For Zacchaeus it was a make it or break it moment. He had to catch opportunity by the forelock. It was now or never. Perhaps it is such a moment for someone in this service today. I do not know. What I do know for sure is - Jesus is passing our way.
The name Zacchaeus means pure and righteous. And that’s a laugh because as you read this story you discover that Zacchaeus was anything but pure and righteous. Zacchaeus had a wonderful name but that’s all it was – a name. He was a cheat and a bully.
Tax collectors have never been beloved people but in Jesus’ day they were despised. These men personified the yoke of Rome. Most people in Israel had never seen Caesar but they had all seen a tax collector. Zacchaeus was a constant reminder that they were not a free people.
And the tax burden was heavy. There was a poll tax and an income tax; property tax and a road tax; vehicle tax; import and export taxes. The yoke of taxation was overwhelming.
To collect these taxes Rome appointed local men – men who would jack up the tax and squeeze excess money out of the people to line their own pockets. As far as the Jews were concerned tax collectors were in the same boat as thieves, murderers, and harlots. A tax collector was barred from the synagogue. He was not allowed in Church. He was an outcast.
And Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. He oversaw a group of these rascals. And he, this dishonest, quisling of Rome wanted to see Jesus.
But Zacchaeus had a problem. Two problems really.
Problem # 1: There were too many other people who also wanted to see Jesus.
Problem #2: He was short
Have you notice that many of our problems come in pairs? If Zacchaeus had been tall the crowd wouldn’t have been a problem OR if there hadn’t been a crowd his shortness wouldn’t have been a problem.
But these two facts taken together kept this man from Jesus.
Zacchaeus’ main disability was he was short. Most of us here this morning don’t have the same problem but there are many ways of being short. Most of us have been short of something in our life.
Dr. James Dobson in one of his books points out that North Americans have been programmed to value a person’s worth in terms of three things:
• Looks
• I.Q.
• Money
And some of us are short. Some of us are short on looks; some of us are short on brains; some of us are short on money and alas, alas, some of us are short on all three!
And sometimes when a person comes up short in one of these three areas, he or she starts to blame God. And this kind of attitude will keep us from Jesus. Zacchaeus was short but he said to himself, I will not let this disability from birth keep me from Jesus. I will do what I can. I must see Jesus.
It says in verse 4 that he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore – fig tree. How many business executives have you seen climbing trees lately? You see, Zacchaeus became as a little child so that he might see Jesus.
We can get so sophisticated and complicated in our approach to God, but Jesus says: Come as a little child. Come with your grubby hands and your tear-stained face. Come with your hurts and questions. Come to me just as you are. Come.
So, there he is up in the Sycamore tree and when Jesus reaches the spot, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus: Zacchaeus come down immediately, I must stay at your house today.
So how did Zacchaeus react to Christ’s call?
The Bible says that Zacchaeus joyfully received Jesus and then he said to the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will restore it fourfold.
And Jesus said: Today salvation has come to this house.
The rest of my sermon hinges on the question: How did Jesus know that Zacchaeus was saved? I would have thought Jesus might have asked a few questions like:
• Do you believe in the Holy Trinity?
• Do you believe Christ died for your sins?
• Has Jesus come into your heart?
• Have you been baptized?
There was none of that. The turning point in Zacchaeus’ life was when he said: the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will restore it fourfold.
That is the point when Jesus knew this man was saved.
And that is how the Early Church functioned in the first 300 years of our existence. It was behaviour not belief that was most important. I have just finished reading ‘The Patient Ferment of the Early Church’ by the Mennonite scholar, Dr. Alan Kreider. The sub-title is ‘The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.’
We are looking at the 300 years between Pentecost and the Emperor Constantine. This rag tag group of Christians started off in a back water part of the Roman Empire. They were a reviled sect of Judaism. They were but one of hundreds of small religious groups in the Empire. There were all sorts of disincentives to becoming a Christian. They were marginalized, they were misunderstood, they were marked off for death.
And yet they grew. Sociologist, Dr. Rodney Stark has calculated that the Church grew over the first three centuries by 40% per decade. The Lord kept adding to the Church daily those who were being saved so that by the time of Constantine at least 10% of the Empire was Christian.
And all this happened without the normal things we associate with Evangelism.
• In the 300 years of Church history there was no Billy Graham.
• No efforts to get people to come to Church
• No books written to win the lost.
• No door to door witnessing.
• No Church summer camps to entice the pagans.
So how did this small group of Spirit filled people turn their world upside down? How did these ordinary people make an extraordinary impact on world history?
As Bishop Cyprian said: We do not speak great things, but we live them. These early Christians really believed that God’s mission to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth was unhurried and unstoppable. These ordinary people went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. They embraced the words of James: that faith without works is dead. They quietly moved out of their worship centres to make their world a better place. They would marry like everyone else and have children, but they would not expose unwanted infants on the local landfill. They would share their food, but they would not share their sexual partners.
Like Jesus himself, they went about doing good. They did good works. Let me tell you about three of these deeds that set them apart from all their neighbours. One of these good works came at the start of life, one was in the middle of life and the last was at the end of life.
In the Roman world the father had the power of life and death over his newborn child. When he first saw the child, he would give a signal (thumbs up or down) and the child would be kept or taken under cover of night to the town square and left to die or picked by a slave trader. Well, It wasn’t very long until the Christians were in the shadows of the night as well. They would pick up these unwanted babies, take them home and raise them to the glory of God.
Christians were also there in the middle of life. As most of you know the Roman Empire ran on the backs of 60,000,000 slaves. These early believers knew slavery was wrong. Not only did they speak out against slavery they put their money where their mouth was and spend tens of thousands of dollars buying untold numbers of slaves their freedom.
Christians were also there at the end of life. Proper burial of the dead was a rare thing in the Roman Empire unless you were a member of an exclusive club and had lots of money. Most poor people when they died were simply dumped in the town garbage ditch. But Christians had a high view of the human body and soon were providing burial services not only for Church members but for anyone who asked. And they did this without any charge to the family.
Small wonder the public began to ask who are these Christians. What makes you tick? We have never run into a religion like this one. I think I would like to become a Christian. So, polytheistic pagans by the scores and then by the thousands went to their Christians neighbours and said: How do I become a Christian?
Let me briefly walk you through the steps a pagan had to go through to become a full-fledged Christian in these early days.
1. They were not brought to a Church service. No one was allowed into the worship service who had not gone through a yearlong catechism. They had two deacons stationed at the Church door like bar bouncers who would make sure that only fully accredited believes were let in.
2. These pagan seekers were taken by a sponsoring Christian to a discernment committee made up of the leadership of the Church. There they were asked behaviour type of questions, not theological questions. The committee were looking for the things Jesus saw in Zacchaeus.
a. Do you pay your bills?
b. Do you go to the gladiator games? And if so, are you willing to quit?
c. How do you treat your wife and kids?
d. If you are a solider, are you prepared to give up violence?
e. Are you prepared to give some of your money and goods to care for the poor?
3. If they passed this test, they were then enrolled into a catechism class for one year where they were taught mainly Christian behaviour. How is a Christian supposed to live? If they survived the year they were allowed to attend Church to hear the Bible taught by a priest or the bishop. But they had to leave the building before Holy Communion until they were baptized. Then and only then once they were baptized were they fully welcomed into the Family of God.
I’m not sure how much of this would work in today, in a culture and time far removed from those dear brothers and sisters of long ago. But I suggest there are couple of things worth thinking about this coming week. A couple of suggestions I gather from Jesus’ reaction to Zacchaeus and from this look at the early Church.
I take it that while beliefs are important our behaviour is most important. What we do reflects what we really believe. If there is a contradiction between what we say and what we do people will always believe what they see.
Did you read the article in the Kelowna Daily Courier this week? A quarter of a million people live in the central Okanagan. 54% say that they have no religion. That is 20% higher than the national average. This is not the Bible Belt, friends. How are we going to impact those thousands of people? It will not be our creeds; it will be our deeds they will notice.
Have you read Matthew 25 recently? Have you noticed what Jesus said the test of a real Christian is? At the final judgment the King will say to those on his right: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me.
And the people said: when did we do this? And the King will answer them: Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it unto me.
Ordinary Christians can build the Kingdom of God by doing good works right where you are. You don’t have to be well educated. You don’t have to travel far and wide, you don’t have to have a lot of skills. All you do is pray the Lord’s Prayer “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. You can help answer that prayer in your own circle of influence.
Every morning when we wake up, we can pray: Good Lord, who can I bless today? And God will show us what to do. In your home, in your circle of friends, in your community, in your Church, to a total stranger, whatever! God will make it clear to you by the Holy Spirit. One of the strange things about the ways of God is that these early Christians pushed ahead with good works without any grand plan. They had no organizations that kept these things going. They just grew like Topsy. They heard the voice of God and obeyed.
I believe that is already happening in our church. But I encourage us to be patient and faithful, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For in due season, we shall reap if we faint not.
Good Lord, you know how deeply I have been moved by this fresh insight into the early years of Your church. Now Lord, show us all how we might embrace the principles laid down in those early years. Help us to go about this week doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil.
Even in this service may we ask what can I do to bless someone here today? What can I do to bless others in the hours remaining of this day?
Thank you for guiding us this day. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
