Salvation Has Come to This House

November 2, 2025

Luke 19:1-10

            Over the last few months, we’ve talked about quite a few people whose stories from the Bible have made them famous.  Just last week we talked about the Pharisee and the tax collector, characters in a very well-known story.  We’ve talked about the persistent widow and the unjust judge and we’ve talked about the rich man and Lazarus, also all characters from well-known stories.  We’ve talked about Nicodemus, the other Lazarus, and Jairus.  All of these folks are people for whom their stories being in the Bible have made them famous over the millennia.  But you know what?  These people may be famous, but they aren’t “somebody wrote a song about me famous”!  But today we have the real deal.  This guy today is so famous that somebody actually DID write a song about him. 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he,

he climbed up in a sycamore tree, the Savior for to see. 

And as the Savior passed that way he looked up in the tree, and he said,

“Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.” 

And not only is Zacchaeus “somebody wrote a song about me” famous, but when they sing his song, his song has hand motions.  There’s this whole actual pantomime thing that goes along with his song.  Now that, THAT is famous!

            I would imagine that at least a few of us have heard the story of Zacchaeus somewhere along the line. (Other than the song, I mean).  Jesus is traveling through Jericho and Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, wants to see him, actually the text tells us that Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was.  But apparently, Zacchaeus was, umm, vertically challenged, and so, he climbed a Sycamore Tree to get a better view.  And just incidentally, in modern day Jericho, on the main road that goes past Jericho, there is a 2,000-year-old sycamore tree right by the side of the road that tradition tells us is Zacchaeus’ actual tree.  I guess it goes without saying that it is a big tourist attraction.  Anyway, Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the tree and tells him; commands him actually, to come down from the tree because Jesus MUST have dinner at his house tonight.  Zacchaeus, delighted at Jesus’ call, excitedly comes to Jesus and proclaims that he is giving half of his possessions to the poor and that, if he has defrauded anyone, he is repaying them fourfold.  Jesus proclaims that “Salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ household today”. 

            As we dig into this story, we need to remember that Zacchaeus wasn’t JUST a tax collector, he was the CHIEF tax collector.  He was the guy who the Romans had put in charge of all of the tax collecting for the district in which he lived.  Now, there is something that we need to understand about the Roman tax collector system.  The Romans actually didn’t pay tax collectors particularly well.  An honest tax collector would not be significantly better off financially than any of the other average inhabitants of Palestine.  But you see, tax collectors had the weight of a ruthless and brutal Roman army behind them.  And as a result of this very intimidating support, an opportunistic tax collector could inflate the amount of the taxes due and pocket the difference.  And the taxpayers had little if any recourse to combat this, let’s call it what it is: theft.  The bottom line is, if a tax collector was wealthy, he had to have been cheating people in order to acquire that wealth.  And ALL of the tax collectors were wealthy.  So, it wasn’t bad enough that the tax collectors were collaborating with the enemy, they were defrauding their own people as well.  Is it any wonder that they were despised?  And so, it’s not hard to imagine why our story today tells us that when Jesus invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house the people were grumbling about Jesus keeping company with such a man as Zacchaeus.

            When one studies Luke’s Gospel, one finds it to be quite well organized.  Luke has chosen to situate his stories in such a way that a preceding story will often set the foundation for the following story, or a following story will help to interpret or illuminate the previous story, and that is the case today.  Today’s story about Zacchaeus follows the parable of the rich young ruler.  In that parable a young, devout, and wealthy ruler of the Jewish people came to Jesus and said to Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus responds by telling the man to follow the Law and the man replies that he always has.  “One thing you lack” Jesus tells him, “Sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven, then come and follow me”.  The man walked away sad because he was unwilling to part with his wealth.

            And so, today, Luke tells us another story about another wealthy official.  One who very badly wanted to see who Jesus was.  So much so that he ran forward of the crowd and climbed a tree to get a better view.  In the culture of the ancient East, it was considered undignified for an adult to run, and we can imagine how even MORE undignified it would have been for an adult to climb a tree, especially when that adult is wealthy and is a high ranking official.  What a picture that must have been, a short man, almost certainly wearing fine, expensive clothes, scrambling up a tree.  But Zacchaeus wasn’t concerned with appearances.  He wanted to see who Jesus was.

            We don’t really know why he wanted so badly to see who Jesus was, but we can probably speculate.  Tax collectors were despised, and Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector and so his life was almost certainly filled with endless episodes of abuse and malicious treatment from the Jewish community.  And maybe he was tired of that.  Maybe he was tired of being branded a “sinner”, which was the common epithet directed at tax collectors.  Or maybe he wanted to see Jesus because he had heard some of Jesus’ teachings and Jesus’ words had moved him to decide that he no longer wanted to be participating in something that he knew was so hurtful to so many people.  The truth is, we really don’t know.

            But regardless of why Zacchaeus wanted so badly to see Jesus, this we do know… Without boring everyone with a long Greek lesson.  In English we modify words to indicate tense and voice by changing the words themselves (I’m going, I go, I went) but in the Greek, these things are indicated by using a system of different endings attached to the root words.  And in our story today, according to this Greek system of identifying tenses and voices, this passage was written in the present tense and uses an active voice.  Please allow me to re-read Luke 19 verse 8 from the English Standard Version: “And Zacchaeus stood and 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 restore it fourfold.”  Did you happen to hear the subtle difference?  The NIV says, “I WILL give”.  The EST says, “I AM giving”.

            This parable today is a wonderful picture of how Jesus changes lives when those lives are open to being changed.  How much money do we think Zacchaeus would have had left over after he gave half of everything to the poor, and then gave fourfold restitution to those who he had defrauded?  Probably not much, right?  In fact, he may very well have given away everything.  But you see, Zacchaeus had just found the pearl of great price.  In Matthew 13 Jesus tells this parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”  Everything he had!  For Zacchaeus, to give away all in exchange for being made right with God wasn’t a sacrifice to him at all.  And the text tells us that Zacchaeus was joyful.

            And here is where Luke contrasts Zacchaeus’ joyful response to Jesus’ call, with the rich, young ruler’s sad rejection of Jesus.  In these two stories we can see clearly how the way that we handle earthly things reveals the condition of our hearts.  When we cling to earthly things then those things become our master.  Our earthly possessions will dictate to us what we do and how we live.  And ultimately, our earthly possessions will define who we are.  Coble gave us a great explanation of this when he said, “In the New Testament, ‘the world’ represents that order of human life which consistently rejects or defies God and His claims upon [humans].  It is essentially a self-centered life.  Its primary traits are the giving of great effort to gratify appetites physical, mental, and emotional, and intense hatred of any who may resist or fail to cooperate in efforts to attain that satisfaction”.

            Those who are wrapped up in that pursuit of worldly satisfaction will neither have the ability nor the inclination to love others.  Our rich, young ruler friend walked away from Jesus, he walked away because he was unwilling to give up that pursuit of worldly satisfaction.  But when Zacchaeus climbed down from that tree, the only satisfaction that mattered to him was the satisfaction of a renewed and right relationship with God.  And this is the lesson that Luke gives us as he contrasts these two stories.

            N. T. Wright comments that, “The hardened old tax collector fits in to three of Luke’s regular themes:  the problem of riches and what to do about it, the identification of Jesus with ‘sinners’ and the faith which recognizes Jesus as Lord and discovers new life as a result”.  [1]  Indeed, Luke here gives us three quarters of a summary of the Gospel itself:  Jesus calls, we answer, and our lives are changed as a result.

            But there is more to this lesson than just that summery.  Zacchaeus wanted to know WHO Jesus was.  This was a curiosity that was born of the work of the Holy Spirit.  Before Zacchaeus ever climbed that tree, the Sprit was already calling him and preparing him for his encounter with Jesus.  Zacchaeus pursued his call with a sense of urgency, not walking but running so that he wouldn’t miss his chance to see Jesus.  Zacchaeus abandoned all concern about how his actions would be viewed by others, climbing that tree in full view of the community.  Undignified or not, Zacchaeus was not going to miss out on this opportunity.  And when Jesus called Zacchaeus by name, Zacchaeus responded with JOY at Jesus’ call and already had begun to exhibit the fruits of a transformed heart.  Jesus welcomed Zacchaeus without regard for the fact that the crowds seriously and loudly disapproved, a wonderful illustration of how Jesus accepts us exactly as we are, even though He never LEAVES us the way we are.  And where that crowd had excluded Zacchaeus from the fellowship of the temple and the community, Jesus embraced him and declared him to be a true son of Abraham, restoring him to his rightful place among God’s beloved people.

            Our story closes with the fourth and final quarter of that Gospel summary when Jesus said that “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”  Our social status doesn’t matter to Jesus. Whether we are wealthy or poor, popular or outcast, white collar or blue collar, none of this matters to Jesus.  The only thing that matters is… when Jesus calls, how do we respond?  Do we jealously guard our worldly lives like the rich, young, ruler?  Or do we recognize the fact that we have finally found that pearl of great price?  That we have found the one thing that is worth more to us than everything else?  And if we have made that discovery, are we allowing God to touch us with the power of His love and allowing Him to change our lives?  In a world that is full of rich young rulers, let us be Zacchaeus.

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[1] N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, Pg. 165

No Prophet is Accepted in His Hometown

February 2, 2025

            Every now and then we find some things in the Old Testament that somehow never quite made their way into mainstream Jewish theology.  One of those things is the relationship between God and gentiles.  As far back as Genesis 12:3, the Bible tells us that when God called Abram, God told Abram that “All the people of the earth would be blessed through him”.  Not just the Jewish people, all people.  In Isaiah 42 Isaiah, speaking the words of God to His Messiah, says, “I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles”.  In fact, there are quite a few passages in the Hebrew Bible that speak of God’s plan to reconcile all people and nations to Himself.  And yet somehow, the idea of Israel being a people who would call all of the nations into a relationship with God never appears to have been a central tenant of Jewish theology.

            In actual practice, the first century Jews looked down upon the non-Jewish world as being heathens, idolaters, and sinners, but even beyond that, gentiles were considered to be morally and intellectually deficient because, as the Jewish faith reasoned, no rational person would choose to worship an idol over the one true God.  So great was the disdain in which non-Jews were held that the Jewish purity laws were full of prohibitions for contact with gentiles in all manner of situations.  There was, and still is, no Jewish effort to proselytize, or to seek converts.  It’s not that gentile converts to Judaism are unwelcome, but they are not encouraged.  In short, the first century Jews tended to have little to no dealings with gentiles, and the Bible does not record any large-scale efforts for the people of Israel to attempt to be “a light to the gentiles”. 

            In order for us to understand this mindset, it might be helpful for us to take a moment to talk about the Mitzvot, the list of 613 laws derived from the Torah, because it is in the Mitzvot that we find the command to the Jews not to associate with non-Jews.  The command in question is Mitzvot 12, which commands Jews “To be with those who only worship Him.”  That is the command.  Now, while each of the Mitzvot laws finds their source directly in the text of the Torah, many of these laws are rabbinic interpretations of their source text, and Mitzvot 12 is a great example of this.  Mitzvot 12 lists its source as Deuteronomy 10:20 the translation of which I quote directly from The Jewish Study Bible, “You must revere the Lord your God: only Him shall you worship, to Him shall you hold fast, and by His name shall you swear”.  It is the phrase “To Him you shall hold fast” that rabbinic thought has determined to mean that Jews are to keep company exclusively with people who share their Jewish religious practices and beliefs, and they are to avoid those who do not worship God according to the commands of the Torah. 

            The central thought here is one of strengthening faith through community, which isn’t a bad thought.  The only problem is, I can’t see how the rabbis reconcile this thought with the clearly stated Biblical idea that Israel is to act as a light to the gentiles.  One needs to consider how effective their witness will be when those to whom they are witnessing feel a palpable disdain towards them.  This command, rather than leading to an effective witness of God’s love for the world, led instead to a separatist mindset that viewed non-Jews as less than deserving of God’s love.  To understand this, we need look no further than an old Jewish saying that “gentiles are fuel for the fires of hell”.  Among the Jewish people of the first century there was an animosity towards the non-Jewish people that pretty much negated their witness.  And we need to understand this mindset today, because this Jewish aversion to gentiles is going to figure heavily in today’s reading.

            Our text today may actually be a little bit perplexing.  On first glance it appears that Jesus’ audience goes from speaking well of Him and being amazed at His gracious words, to intending to throw Him off a cliff, in a heartbeat.  How did this happen?  To understand this, we need to understand that there were conflicting thoughts about Jesus to begin with.  Though Luke lists this event as Jesus’ first sermon, the text tells us that Jesus has already been active in Capernaum and presumably performing miracles there.  So, first there is the anticipation that Jesus might entertain them with a miracle or two.  Second is the fact that the Israelites are deeply resentful of Roman rule, and that Jesus choosing to declare the Year of Jubilee as being fulfilled that day in their hearing almost certainly brought a surge of hope as the common belief was that the Messiah would subdue Roman rule and return Israel to a place of prominence among the nations.  And third was the nagging feeling that this was just Jesus the local carpenter’s son, and what was HE going to do to defeat the Romans? 

            The congregation at Nazareth was hearing Jesus with their ears, but not with their hearts.  Their skepticism was impeding their ability to accept Jesus’ message on a spiritual level, and their desire to be shown a sign was in direct conflict with the choice that Jesus has made not to use miracles just for show.  Knowing their hearts, Jesus responds to their skepticism with the cryptic statement, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’  While there is some controversy over what Jesus meant by this, the consensus seems to be that the folks in His hometown believed that they were entitled to see what the other towns were seeing.  Jesus reinforced His thought by stating that the people would like for Him to do in His hometown what they had heard He did in Capernaum.  Did you happen to notice an undercurrent of a lack of faith in that statement?  It wasn’t “what you did”, it was “what we heard that you did”. 

            At this point it probably became apparent that the congregation wasn’t going to get to see a miracle.  This was probably the beginning of their turning against Jesus, but the worst was yet to come.  In hearing Jesus’ chosen passage from Isaiah, the listeners assumed that they were soon to benefit from what Jesus was about to do.  Jesus would restore Israel to what the Israelites believed was their rightful place, exalted among the nations.  But then Jesus chose to mention to them two passages, one from 1 Kings and one from 2 Kings, where God had shown extraordinary grace.  And in both instances this grace bypassed the Israelites and was instead showered upon gentiles.  Jesus’ message to the congregation at Nazareth couldn’t have been more clear.  Jesus was declaring, on no uncertain terms, that the heathen, idolatrous, sinful, unclean, morally and intellectually inferior gentiles would be recipients of God’s blessing; and would receive that blessing after that blessing was withheld from Israel.  To the Israelites for whom it was assumed that God’s grace and salvation rested on them as a matter of unbreakable promise, this was the final straw. 

            G. B. Caird says, “Elijah and Elisha provide scriptural witness to the inevitable conflict between God’s purpose and the human desire to make special claims to God’s salvation or place limits on its scope.” [1]  David E. Garland comments, “The illustrations from the ministries of Elijah and Elisha underscore that God shows no partiality.  Neediness abounds everywhere, and God wills to save all, not just a holy few.  But these incidents remind readers that ‘those who appear to be the least entitled to taste the benefits of” The Year of the Lord’s Favor” are the most likely to do so’. [2]  This reminder is galling to any who consider themselves to be the most entitled to receive God’s blessings.” [3]

            Simply put, Jesus did not say what the crowd expected to hear.  If the crowd had been more fully aware of Israel’s call to be a light to the nations, Jesus’ statements would not have surprised them… or irritated them.  If the crowd understood how God calls us to love others, Jesus’ statements would have made sense to them.  If the crowd wasn’t so thoroughly convinced of their superiority over the gentiles, they would have been able to accept God’s inclusiveness rather than rejecting it.  And if the crowd had believed Jesus in their hearts, the Jubilee would have come to them, and they would have been perfectly OK with the fact that Jubilee didn’t look anything like what they expected.

            And so, our question this morning is, what does the congregation at Nazareth have to teach us today?  They teach us that when misunderstanding and misinformation abound, there is one, and only one source for truth.  They teach us that when our faith has been tainted by forces that stand to gain from diluting or corrupting the Gospel, that we must turn to the Spirit for illumination and understanding.  They teach us that when the world is presented with a counterfeit gospel, we have the responsibility as believers to proclaim loudly and boldly the authentic Gospel. 

            The fact that the congregation at Nazareth didn’t hear what they wanted to hear, didn’t mean that what they heard was wrong.  Jesus brought a message of truth, and if the congregation disagreed with that truth, it wasn’t Jesus’ responsibility to make the truth fit their beliefs, it was their responsibility to make their beliefs fit the truth.  If the congregation at Nazareth didn’t agree with the principles of Jubilee, then it was the responsibility of the congregation at Nazareth to adjust their expectations so that they would be in agreement with God’s parameters for Jubilee.  The fact that the congregation at Nazareth was unable to overcome their familiarity with Jesus and accept Him for who He is meant that the congregation needed to re-think their perception of who Jesus is, in order to accommodate the reality of His role as Lord and Savior.

            And so it is with us.  When we read the words of the Gospel are we not hearing what we want to hear?  When we hear the truth about the need to love absolutely everyone, when we hear the truth about the need for social and economic justice, when we hear the truth about the depth of our need for a Savior, are these truths resonating with what we know of the Gospel, or are we in need of adjusting our perceptions?

            My friends, Jesus IS truth.  Jesus said that humans do not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that comes from the mouth of God.  This is why we are here this morning.  This is why we come to church, why we fellowship with believers, why we study the Bible, why we pray… all of this is about coming closer to God, through the work of the Holy Spirit.  All of this is about allowing the Spirit to match our perceptions to the reality of God’s truth.  All of this is about allowing the Spirit to transform us into the people that God has intended for us to be from the very foundation of the universe.  And all of this is about discovering our capacity to love… to love God and to love others, all others.  Last week I asked that we all learn to make our little corner of the world to be a part of the kingdom of God.  Last week I asked all of us to facilitate that by our sharing the mind and the heart of God.  Let us earnestly seek to allow the Spirit to align our thoughts and our beliefs and our actions with God’s plan for our lives.  And let us learn from the congregation at Nazareth, these lessons on how important it is to make that happen.

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[1] Caird, Saint Luke, Pg. 86-87

[2] Byrne, The Hospitality of God, Pg. 50

[3] Garland, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 209