Wow. It’s going to be
500 years. To be honest it’s hard to
know what to say. Like the anniversaries
of so many momentous events, whether they be of the birth of a nation, the
calamity and tragedy of an attack, or the commemoration of the actions of a
lone priest and Bible professor in Wittenberg, Germany, it is difficult,
indeed, I daresay impossible, to sum up in one 15 minute speech all the change,
all the emotion, all the personal meaning that would be found in four small
nails on the doors of that rather unassuming little church half a millennium
ago. I mean, what do we say? How do we even begin? Do we quote important speeches, do we go into
history and catechisms and confessions?
I don’t believe I could do all of that justice in a semester let alone in
just one sermon.
But as a Protestant, as a long standing fan of Mr. Martin
Luther, and as someone who simply tries
to embody the best of what the Reformation stands for, I believe all of the
Reformers, be they Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist or otherwise, would simply
say, “Don’t”. They would say, “We did
not fight for the Reformation … we did not fight for denominations, for
seminaries, or 16th century theology - we fought for the
gospel. We weren’t seeking something
new; new traditions, new ways of doing things; rather we sought the return of
something very old – something that existed from the very beginning. We wanted the Word unburdened and that is
all.”
As such, ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe I have it
within me to describe to you all that the Reformation means. I can
only take to heart its one true lesson: Preach the gospel … and do so by means
of a Pixar movie. Ok, I admit it. I made that last part up.
“Pixar?”, you may ask. What do the Reformation, our gospel lesson,
and Pixar have to do with one another?
Well, in this case quite a bit. Amongst
many of Pixar’s films, there is one in particular that has stuck with me over
the years. It is a film called, “The
Incredibles”. Now, if you are not
familiar with this title, “The Incredibles” details the story of Robert and
Helen Parr, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible.
They are not just normal every day people. They are superheroes, but they are forced to live
like normal every day people. In a
society that no longer values the miraculous, in a world that no longer wonders
at the impossible, Robert and Helen Parr must hide their incredible gifts - even if it means they can no longer help
others in the process. Indeed, instead of
stopping robberies and saving innocents from disaster, Robert now works in the
insurance industry of all places, and his boss is Robert’s opposite in every
conceivable way. Robert, of course, has
his problems, but overall he is a compassionate, selfless, and loving human
being - a big man with a big heart who is forced to exist in a world that’s suffocating
him with its smallness. Gilbert Huph,
however, is Robert’s supervisor. In
contrast to Robert’s big-ness, Gilbert Huph is a reprehensible little rat of a
man. He is greedy, underhanded; He is
the kind of man that only does the right thing when the law requires him to,
and he make’s Bob’s life absolutely miserable.
Gilbert Huph, you see, is a Zaccheus character. That is who Zaccheus is in the text. Zaccheus is not some misunderstood short-fellow
with a heart of gold. In the first
century he is a short, ridiculous little money monger, a chief tax collector
who got wealthy selling out his own countrymen - the very people he was
supposed to help. He is cold, He is uncaring,
… and he has all the power. No, in our
gospel lesson, Zaccheus is not the hero.
But this doesn’t sound like the Zaccheus we know at all does
it? Zaccheus isn’t supposed to be this
way. He’s the example we love to set for
ourselves. “Be like, Zaccheus!” we’ve
been told. Zaccheus did everything he
could to meet Jesus. Be bold and let nothing stop you in your quest to meet the
Christ. This has largely been the
message of American Protestantism. It’s a good message. As one of your pastors, yes, I implore you to
not let anything hinder you from meeting Christ. I guarantee you, you will not be the same
because of it. But while I would agree that
this message is good, as a believer in the Reformation and what it stands for,
I must be honest. The message is good,
but it is not accurate. Indeed, I would
not only call it inaccurate but a dangerous diversion from what Luke is trying
to say. It is not the first time the
Church has done such a thing. The Church
over time co-opts many of these stories and coerces them to mean something that
they don’t, something much nicer and easier to swallow. It is like the myth concerning Jesus’
statement about camels and the “Eye of a Needle”. As the myth goes, the Needle’s Eye was
supposedly a very narrow gate into Jerusalem, quite the squeeze for a merchant
to bring his camels through. Jesus
didn’t really mean that it was easier
for literal camel to go through the literal eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter heaven. That couldn’t possibly
be the case because I myself want to
be rich. So rather than taking Jesus
seriously, rather than coming to terms with the fact material wealth often has
spiritual consequences very few of us are born to handle, we believe something
easy, something convenient, and something entirely made up. In the same way we have taken this Zaccheus
story and made it more palatable to our own tastes.
No, Zaccheus in the ancient world is hardly someone to
aspire to. As a tax collector, indeed as
the chief tax collector he would be largely uncaring of the poor. The poor would have been how he made his
money, for the poor would be least able to fight him. Likewise, Zaccheus does not offer to pay back
those he robbed fourfold to show that his conscience is somehow clean but rather
because he really did rob people. That
Jesus lumps him in with the lost in need of saving shows Zaccheus is not
misunderstood by his fellow Jews. Zaccheus
is not the example, ladies and gentlemen, he’s the challenge. Like Mr. Huph from the Incredibles, Zaccheus
is the person who has literally been robbing and cheating others his entire
career, becoming very wealthy and powerful off of their suffering. In the first century, make no mistake, people
went hungry and may have even died because of people like him. He is the villain, and like Mr. Gilbert Huph,
he is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the system. He is not the man looking to finally show
people what a good person he is, Zaccheus is the black sheep of the Hebrew
family. He’s the guy who takes advantage
of people, never gives back, and then because of this one act wants to be
forgiven for a lifetime of misdeeds … and
Jesus gives it to him. Do you get
it?
Living in 21st century America we often forget that these
Bible stories are preserved for us, not written to us. There’s a difference. Luke, you see, didn’t know one drop of
English, and neither could Matthew Mark
or John have told you remotely what an American even was, let alone where to
find one. Our Scriptures speak to us,
that is part of their miracle, but we can’t confuse that with the fact that
these stories weren’t told to us. They were told to audiences with vastly
different cultures and vastly different worldviews. Luke was written to a first century Roman
audience and to a first century Roman audience Zaccheus is literally the most
ridiculous character they could possible imagine, and Luke just reported that
they have to be in fellowship with him. Jesus
was accepting him into the fold, it’s a done deal. To a Roman Gentile they would say to have the
same faith as a Jew was crazy enough, but now they not only have to be in
fellowship with the Jews but specifically this Jew. They have to worship with Gilbert Huph, this
little rat running a protection racket in Hill-Billy Judea because NOW he wants
to be accepted, NOW he suddenly wants to be part of the community? And Jesus says, “Yeah, Gilbert Huph, too.”
Ecclesia Semper Reformanda, my friends, Ecclesia Semper
Reformanda. The Church must always be reformed. Reformation is not something “they” out there
do. It is not done by strangers, it is
done by “us” and this lesson lies at its very core. The heart of all reform asks this basic
question of human compassion, “Who are we excluding?” I won’t lie to you, ladies and gentlemen,
Christianity reforms itself about every 500 years, and as a Church we are
showing every sign of it. Mistrust in
the Church’s institutions, irrelevance of theology, belief, and worship in the
surrounding culture - all of that was there in Luther’s time as it was several
times before and is again now. And I
will warn you, how believers look in every era is very different. Just as Roman Catholics believed the end was
coming with Protestantism, just as Christians before Nicaea were deeply
disturbed about Roman involvement both during and after Nicaea, in each era of
the church there is this question, “How can THIS PERSON be in the same worship
service … as me?” And so, I would not be
taking my duties as your pastor seriously if I didn’t warn you that the people
that come through those doors in the coming decades may not be who we imagine,
indeed they might not even be to our liking.
And so, this 500th anniversary of the
Reformation, as a Protestant myself who believes in the unburdened Word, I have
to ask you, who is your Zaccheus? Who is
the literally most ridiculous person you could imagine sitting in the pew next
to you? I mean, I could go on up here,
hitting every point the televangelists cover, but the fact is I love you too
much to do that. We could go on about
the need to forgive people with criminal records or other “sinners”, in
whatever easy way we wish to define that term, but truth be told I don’t think
that’s our problem as Middle Class Protestants.
So, I’ll ask again, who is your Zaccheus? Is he Saudi Arabian? An Iraqi?
Is he flamboyantly gay? Maybe she
wears spiked leather and black lipstick, maybe she swears a lot and is
disrespectful, maybe she is really a he.
Every congregation says it is welcoming, and every
congregation believes themselves when they say that Christ died for all, but no
congregation really ask themselves this question. Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be an
accepting church unless we’ve identified who our Zaccheus are. The fact is we can say we are a loving and
welcoming church until we are blue in the face, but unless we challenge
ourselves and really take a hard look at what we believe a believer looks like,
if we don’t work to undo our preconceived notions we will shoot ourselves in
the foot every single time.
But here is the good news.
We don’t have to be ready for whomever God throws at us, be it within
these four walls or out there in the world.
We don’t have to have plans for
every single contingency, nor do we have to spend hour upon hour trying to be
prepared. God does not require us to be
ready, for that is impossible, we just have to be willing.
Amen and Amen.
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