Lent 5 (Year 3) John B. Valentine
Luke 19:1-10 March 21, 2021

“A KINDER, GENTLER I.R.S.??”

Any of you perchance hear the news that April 15th isn’t Tax Day this year??

No ... this past Wednesday ... the Treasury Department and IRS announced that this year’s federal income tax filing due date has been extended from April 15th to May 17th ...

Because ... and I quote ... “the IRS wants to continue to do everything possible to help taxpayers navigate the unusual circumstances related to the pandemic” ...

Because somebody out there wants us to believe that we now have a kinder, gentler IRS ... that the IRS actually cares about you!

Actually ... hold that thought for just a minute ...

Because our shared incredulity that the Internal Revenue Service could EVER be thought of as “kinder and gentler” is at the very heart of this week’s gospel reading!

Let me see if I can explain .......

You see ... this week’s gospel reading from Luke 19 is all about a man named Zacchaeus ... right?

As in ....

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed him by, He looked up in the tree,
And he said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down!
For I'm going to your house today, ... for I'm going to your house to stay!

Now both that song and the text on which it is based remind us that Zacchaeus was short ... VERY short ...

• ‘Three statistical-deviations-below-average’ short ...

• Danny Devito / Joe Pesci-style short ...

SO short that ... just in order to see over the crowd and catch a glimpse of Jesus ... he’s got to clamber up into a tree!

+ + + + +

But what’s the other key detail that Luke share with us about who this Zacchaeus fellow was???

He notes that he was a tax collector ... a “chief” tax collector” even! ... and that he was rich!

Now that statement ... in and of itself ... may make you shrug your shoulders ... but it actually reveals a whole LOT!

You see ... back in the day ... back in Jesus’ day ... tax collectors were considered to be perhaps the lowest form of human life.

Tax collectors ... in 1st Century Palestine ... were people who purchased the tax franchise for a given community from the government ... in this case the Roman occupiers of the Holy Land ... and thus were given license to extort money out of that community.

Which meant that ... somewhere in his past ... Zacchaeus had bid the high bid ... and promised the Romans that he would pay “X” number of bucks to the local authorities ... and it had thus become his life’s work to shake that money out of the locals ... because he owed the Romans the purchase price of his franchise whether he was able to raise it or not.

• To say that Zacchaeus was a tax collector was basically to say that he was a state-licensed extortionist ...

• To say that he was a “chief tax collector” was to say that he’d been extorting his neighbors for a number of years ...

• And to say that he was “rich” was to say that he’d done a really good job of extorting his neighbors for that same whole number of years.

Zacchaeus had made his living off the backs of everybody else in town ...

He’d collaborated with the Roman occupiers whom everybody else hated ...

And he’d mastered the art of calling on the services of despised Roman soldiers to shake down the locals whenever and wherever he needed.

All of which ... we can only imagine ... meant that there was an inverse relationship between the amount of money in Zacchaeus’ bank account and the number of people whom Zacchaeus could call “friends”.

So when Jesus stops right under that tree ... and looks up at this old man in fancy clothes who’s engaging in some pretty silly behavior ... and proceeds to holler:

“Zacchaeus, get down here right this instant! For I’m going to your house today ... I’m going to your house today!”

Everybody ELSE in town rolls their collective eyes ... because they couldn’t imagine a ‘kinder, gentler tax collector’ any more than we can!

+ + + + +

Now ... just for a moment ... imagine that YOU were in Jericho that day.

Imagine what kinds of complaints you might have heard that day from the crowd had we been there.

Or maybe imagine what you might have wanted to say yourself!

• “Do you know what kind of a jerk that guy is ... Jesus???”

• “Do you have any idea how hard he has made life for us?”

• “Do you know how he ruined my aunt and uncle?”

• “I thought Jesus was going to evict the occupiers ... not collaborate with the creeps!!”

But while everybody else is whining ... Zacchaeus seems THRILLED to have Jesus over for a meal ...

And the two of them DO strike up a conversation ...

And ... ultimately ... Zacchaeus says “Look ... Lord ... half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything ... I will pay back four times as much.”

Which in turns leads Jesus to declare “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.”

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Now there is a whole lot to wonder about ... and a whole lot to love about that story.

But one of the things that strikes me every time I hear it ... is how prototypically Lutheran it is!

You see ... Lutheran Christians have always insisted that God is the instigator of salvation.

That the Creator of all that is ... in the person of Jesus Christ ... by the power of the Holy Spirit ... is the One who gifts us with salvation.

When we say things like:

• Grace alone ...
• Faith alone ...
• Christ alone ...

We’re acknowledging that salvation is something God ... and God alone ... can instigate and initiate.

And this story about Zacchaeus is nothing if it isn’t about Jesus instigating and initiating things.

I know ... there are some who have tried to make it about what Zacchaeus does ...

• how he climbed the tree ...
• how he welcomed Jesus into his house ...
• how he promised to give back what he’d taken ...

But ... if you pay close attention ... that’s not the way the story reads!

• Zacchaeus doesn’t climb the tree because he wants to become a follower of Jesus ...

He climbs the tree because he’s curious as to what this commotion is all about!

• Zacchaeus doesn’t welcome Jesus into his house because has come to an awareness that he himself is a sinner in need of grace ...

He welcomes Jesus into his house because he’s kind of shocked that anyone ... much less a celebrity ... would want to come to his house to eat!

• He doesn’t make this amazing declaration about what he’s going to do to make things right in order to get Jesus to come to visit ...

He makes that amazing declaration because Jesus HAS come to visit and has called him a friend!

You see ... Lutherans aren’t “if/then” people ... we’re “because/therefore” people.

We don’t believe that we cut some deal with God in order to ensure our own salvation!

We celebrate that God comes to the ungodly.

We don’t believe that we lost sheep get found because we’ve had a change of heart.

We celebrate that we have a Good Shepherd who is excellent at finding lost sheep.

If/then thinking ... and if/then Christianity ... is all about what I can do ... will do ... must do ... in order to make God happy with me.

Because/therefore thinking ... because/therefore Christianity ... is about what God does for me ... for us ... for the world ... even in spite of ourselves.

Because/therefore Christianity ... dare I say “authentic Christianity” ... is about a God who comes to save the last, the lost, the little, the least ... the despicable, the deplorable ... and the dead ... people like Zacchaeus ... and people like me.

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But the story doesn’t end there. The story doesn’t end with Zacchaeus being saved. No ... that’s actually only the beginning!

• Because Jesus has come into his house ...
• Because Jesus has become his friend ...
• Because Jesus has let Zacchaeus know that he cares ...
• Because the Kingdom of God has come into the very place where Zacchaeus lives ...

Zacchaeus ‘therefore’s one of the most amazing ‘therefore’s ever!

He commits himself to doing what?

Trying to undo all the ‘wrongs’ that he has done over the course of his life AND starting to do some ‘rights’!

Which ... in his case means paying back four-fold all those people he has strong armed for extra money over the years .... AND giving abundantly to the poor on top of that!

+ + + + +

I suspect that some of you have picked up on the fact in in our recent worship videos ... we’ve been ending our services not with the traditional “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord ... THANKS BE TO GOD” ...

But rather with the charge to “Go in peace, to love and serve your neighbor!”

Because the more of Doctor Luther that I read ... the more and more I’m convinced that the essence of much of what he wrote can be summarized in the statement:

“God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.”

In other words ...

We love and serve the Lord BY loving and serving our neighbors.

We give ourselves to the Holy One BY giving ourselves to our neighbors.

And while this week’s lesson says that Zacchaeus made amends to those whom he’d defrauded as a way of paying things back ...

But his giving abundantly to the poor is all about paying things forward ...

Because we can never pay back God.

You see ... WITH GOD ... WE CAN ONLY PAY IT FORWARD.