A Fourth Church Sermon by Keith C. Harris

August 29, 2004 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Out on a Limb

Keith C. Harris
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 66:13–20
Luke 19:1–10

"So he ran out ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him,
because Jesus was going to pass that way."

Luke 19:4 (NRSV)

Spiritual dryness, if that is [God’s] will at the moment,
is as much to be loved and obeyed as spiritual fervor. . . .
It takes repeated aridity . . . to bring home to us
that our own so precious feelings contribute nothing to our salvation;
that, in fact, they generally stand in the way of our perfection.
Spiritual dryness can finally lead us, after much pouting,
actually to give thanks that it is not because we see God that we have joy.
It is because God sees us.

Gale D. Webbe
The Night and Nothing

Holy God, I ask that in your mercy and love
that you would reach out and touch us all in those secret places
where we hide our brokenness and confusion and anxiety.
We ask, O God, that as we worship you this morning,
that by your Spirit in Christ we might hear a new word proclaimed
and that we might be changed by your love and your grace.
We ask, O God, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts
might be open, holy, and acceptable to you, O Lord,
our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The boss of a big company needed to call one of his employees about an urgent problem with one of the main computers. He dialed the employee’s home telephone number and was greeted by a child’s whispered, “Hello.” Feeling put out at the inconvenience of having to talk to a child, the boss asked, “Is your Mommy home?”

“Yes.”

“May I talk with her?”

To the surprise of the boss, the small voice whispered, “No.”

Wanting to talk to an adult, the boss asked, “Is your daddy there?”

“Yes.”

“May I talk to him?”

“No.”

Knowing that it was not likely that the young child would be left alone, the boss decided that he would just leave a message with the person there watching over the child. “Is there anyone there besides you?”

“Yes,” whispered the child “a policeman.”

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee’s home, the boss asked, “May I speak with the policeman?”

“No, he is busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

“Talking to Mommy and Daddy and the fireman,” came the whispered answer.

Growing concerned and even worried, he heard, through the earpiece, what sounded like a helicopter flying through the air. “What is that noise?” he asked.

“A helicopter,” answered the voice.

“Well, what’s going on there?” asked the boss, now alarmed.

“The search team just landed the helicopter.”

Alarmed and even more concerned, the frustrated boss said, “Well, why are they there?”

The young voice replied, “They are looking for me.”

The good news to us this morning is that whether we are hiding or not, whether we understand ourselves to be found by God or not, the truth is that God is looking for us. You see, there’s a reality that sometimes we feel like we’re out on a limb, by ourselves, alone, just waiting for the limb to break. There are times when we feel so confused and filled with anxiety that we wonder whether anyone is looking for us—much less whether anyone could find us.

In our text this morning, we are introduced to a man named Zacchaeus. His name means “righteous one,” and how ironic that is, for he was a dishonest tax collector. He was, you might say, the first member of the IRS: I’m rich and short. (It took you a minute, but that’s all right.) Tax collectors in Jesus’ day were little more than government-sanctioned crooks. As you read through the Gospels, you’ll see that they are mentioned most often with sinners and prostitutes.

In Israel, taxes were collected at three places inland: Capernaum, Jerusalem, and Jericho. So we know that by being called the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus had one of the big three. If tax collectors had a cartel, then Zacchaeus would have been the kingpin, for he was not, as mentioned, just a tax collector but was in charge of many other tax collectors.

Some might say that, as a tax collector, Zacchaeus had it made. You see, what the biblical scholars tell us is that as Rome took over different countries, they would gather the best and brightest leaders and say, “You’ve got a choice: you can do backbreaking work for the rest of your life or you can bid to become a tax collector.” The highest bidders became the tax collectors.

There was a little catch, though: these tax collectors weren’t paid directly from the Roman government. Their salary came from the extra taxes that they charged. So, as you might imagine, they were not loved any more than the tax collectors of our time. In fact, they were despised, because the tax collectors were required to meet with Roman officials often, making them ceremonially unclean. To our Jewish brothers and sisters of that time, that was even added insult to injury.

But as you look at Zacchaeus’s life, as you look at the things that he achieved by that time, you might say that he achieved what we would call the American Dream. He had wealth; he had status; he had power. He had everything—but perhaps was missing it all as well. We know this, because in the story, when he hears that Jesus is coming, he runs ahead so that he can get a good look. But he can’t because of the crowd. In that society, if you were important, you didn’t run anywhere, yet Luke clearly tells us that because of the crowd, Zacchaeus runs ahead and climbs a tree. In a painful way, this might remind us that we, too, at times are the crowd, that we as the people of God sometimes decide who is worthy to see God and who isn’t. And so in ways that we’re both aware of and unaware of, we decide someone’s gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation or whatever it is that we come up with in our spiritual arrogance is enough for us, as people of God, to let some people in but keep most out.

I ask you this morning, who is it in your life that are the “unworthies”? Who are those folks in your life that you aren’t welcoming? Zacchaeus is not to be daunted by this unwelcoming crowd; he runs ahead and finds a sycamore tree. I want you to imagine, as much as you can, me trying to climb a tree in this robe, and after you get done laughing, just imagine that, in fact, it would be a hard thing to do in one’s middle age—not to mention the robe part. But he climbs up there, and as he climbs up there, he waits for Jesus. Now it might be interesting why, if he’s not met Jesus, he would go to so much trouble just to see him. Some Bible scholars believe that Zacchaeus might have been a friend of Matthew, who you might remember was called to be a disciple but before that was a tax collector himself. In fact, there are many Bible scholars who believe that when Jesus was calling the first disciples it wasn’t just an immediate “We’re leaving and not leaving a note or anything,” but that he did give them time to go back and let their families know of their change of location—and, in fact, maybe even to have some farewell gatherings and parties. Maybe Zacchaeus caught a glimpse of or heard Jesus at Matthew’s. Maybe he had just heard rumors that this one Jesus treated those that were outcasts differently than anyone else. Whatever it was, we know that Zacchaeus must have been desperate. And so he climbed. And the parade came by, and Jesus stopped and said, “Zacchaeus, come down, for I must come to your house today.”

Now it’s easy to read that and think, “What a nice story,” and move on. But for us to fully grasp this, I want you to imagine that you’re at the Thanksgiving parade and it’s going down the street and, as you know, it’s lined with thousands and thousands of people, and usually at the beginning of it is the grand marshal. I want you to imagine that the grand marshal stops the entire parade, all the floats and bands, right in front of you and turns and says your name and says, “I want to come to your house today.” More than likely, you would be shocked. You’d be very afraid, and you and all those around you would wonder what is it that you had done that someone so important would be wanting to come to your house.

I remember that—as may some of you who were in Vacation Bible School—this was the second song that I ever learned. First was “Jesus Loves Me,” and the second was “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” It was the first time that I had ever seen motions to a happy song in church.

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man,” and you’d get down really low, “and a wee little man was he,” and “he climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord, he wanted to see.” And my favorite part as a young child was the part where you got to shake your finger. “Zacchaeus, you come down”—it was the only time that I got permission to use an “outside voice” inside the sanctuary—“Zacchaeus, you come down, for I am going to your house today.” In the original Greek, however, there’s not a connotation of an angry tone, but of a loving, caring, compassionate tone. “Zacchaeus, come down, for I must come to your house today. Zacchaeus, I want to come to your house today, not to give you a lecture, but because I know you.” And in case you missed it, they hadn’t met yet, but Jesus stops and calls Zacchaeus by name. That had to be a little startling, but maybe no more startling for us, for God knows our names.

You see, this text today points out an important truth: that Jesus knows who we are. We don’t need a name tag. We don’t need a biography. He knows it all. And for some of us, that’s kind of scary. Because we, like Zacchaeus, try to put on a good front. Everything looks good on the outside, but on the inside, we feel out on a limb. It also, this text this morning, points us to another truth: that Jesus not only knows who we are, but he knows where we are. Jesus saw that short little man up in a tree, and he sees where we really are as well, despite our best attempts to hide amidst busyness, amidst addictions, amidst the confusion that is often our lives. This text also points to a third truth: that Jesus knows what we need. He knows that Zacchaeus doesn’t need a lecture on what it means to be a tax collector and to cheat the people. He knows what Zacchaeus needs, what all of us ultimately need as we struggle to make sense of what life is, that confusing pain.

Several weeks ago, I rewatched one of my favorite movies, City Slickers, a movie about a man going through a midlife crisis. For those of you who have seen it, you may remember that he’s asked to go to his son’s class on career day and tell about what it is that he does. He’s just been demoted at work and is feeling confused and perplexed about life and what’s real and what he really needs. Billy Crystal’s character, Mitch Robbins, then shares with his son’s class this funny, yet sarcastic overview of life. He says to them,

Value this time in your life kids, ’cause this is the time in your life when you still have choices. It goes by so fast. When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Thirties, you raise your family, make a little money, and you think to yourself, what happened to my twenties? Forties, you grow a potbelly and you grow another chin; the music starts to get too loud; one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Fifties, you’ll have a minor surgery—you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s still surgery. In your sixties, you’ll have a major surgery; the music is still too loud, but it doesn’t matter, ’cause you can’t hear it anyway. Seventies, you and your wife retire to Fort. Lauderdale and start eating dinner at two in the afternoon. You have lunch around ten, and breakfast the night before. You spend most of your time wandering around the malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering to yourselves, “Why don’t the kids call? How come the kids don’t call?” The eighties, you’ll have a major stroke and end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse your wife can’t understand, but you call Mama. Any questions?

That’s what it feels like to us. Where are we? What are we called to do? What’s happening? Does God really know me? Does God really care? What’s it all for? And we find in this text that the answer’s a resounding yes, because in addition to Jesus knowing who we are and where we are and what we need, Jesus sees whose we are. He doesn’t see all the mess and confusion that we make and that others make for us. He sees us as God’s child. Before, as I affectionately call it, being drop-kicked into ministry, I remember thinking that I could never be in ministry because the ministers that I always liked best told great stories and those stories seemed to be true. I remember thinking, “I could never have that much cool stuff happen to me.” I’m also continuing to learn to never say never to God.

As I close, I share this story that happened about four years ago when I was still living in Kansas City. I took my children to an amusement park called Worlds of Fun—which I discovered was only worlds of fun for the children and not for the parents who are paying five dollars for a small coke and ten dollars for a slice of pizza. Needless to say, I went as a caring and dutiful parent with my two boys, Nathan and Joshua. And we went to the kiddieland, because they weren’t tall enough or big enough to ride the other rides. That weekend the park was celebrating Walt Disney and his achievements. Some of you may know Walt Disney had an apartment in Kansas City for a while before he made it big. As a part of the children’s area, they have this kind of smaller IMAX theater that’s in a large dome kind of thing. And what I understand the fun purpose is, is that you go in there and you stand up and they put on a big screen “First Person View of Awful Roller Coasters and Going off Cliffs and Gliders” and you try not to fall down. My kids enjoyed it thoroughly. I did not. Toward the end of it, there is a celebration of Walt Disney heroes and heroines, and so there were flashed clips from different movies, ending with Beauty and the Beast. As the lights went up, the door opened from where the screen was, and out came this really oversized person in an alarm clock suit and a really large fork, opening and making the way for Princess Belle.

I’m surprised we didn’t pass out from the lack of oxygen as all the kids gasped at the same time. “Princess Belle! She’s here!” And they began to crowd her—to mob her, you might say. Everyone wanted to see and be seen and to touch the new royalty that came into the room. I and the rest of the fraternity/sorority of parents, out of no desire to get caught up in the mob, stepped back, so the kids could go forward. Surprisingly, my two children looked at me for permission first and then ran forward and joined the throng, wanting to see and touch Princess Belle.

As I made my way to the back, I noticed that there were two boys there at the back of the room. I found it strange that they weren’t up with the others. One boy must have been thirteen or fourteen, I guess. He was kind of smiling and looking from a distance, holding the hand of a kid—it must have been his brother—who couldn’t have been much older than my son, Nathan, five or six. And as I looked, I began to realize why, perhaps, they were back there. The younger child was deformed. He had kind of a hump on his back, and his face was misshapen, and he had to walk with a really small crutch.

It was weird to me how it could go from the joy of the celebration of what my children were experiencing to such extreme sadness, thinking that already, at this young age, this young boy understood perhaps what it meant to be pushed out on a limb. What it meant to be rejected. What it meant to feel like you didn’t fit in or belong. So he held his older brother’s hand tightly and looked wistfully at Princess Belle and all the kids around her. I remember thinking to myself, “It would be really neat if this young, beautiful woman in the flowing gown and the crown would notice this little boy over here and come over.” And I experienced my little miracle. As she was midway through this crowd of hands and hearts, she looked over and noticed this little boy. I watched her motion to the large alarm clock and the fork to make a way for her to get over there. And when she walked over, she did this amazing thing: she kneeled down so that her face was level with the young boy’s and asked him what his name was. I think he told her, but by then all the other kids had arrived and were mobbing and making all sorts of noise. They visited there for just a moment, and she gave him a hug and then got up and, with mush assistance from the alarm clock and fork, made her way out of the room. I felt my eyes get misty as I realized that I was witness to an uncommon miracle in a very common place.

But the truth is that that miracle is not limited just to that theater in Worlds of Fun. In ways even more powerful, royalty has come to us—the Son of God even. And not just for a moment, but a lifetime. And you know he doesn’t even have to ask us our name, because he already knows it. He knows who we are. He knows where we are. He knows what we need. And, most importantly, he knows whose we are.

You know there are many people with whom we can identify in our text today. Some of us might identify with Zacchaeus, lost and confused and not sure about where we are and desperate for anything. Painfully, some of us might identify with the crowd. We, too, have judged who is worthy and not worthy, and we have not been welcoming to the least of these. Some of us this morning might relate to the disciples: we’re excited, we’re glad we’re with Jesus, we know what’s going on, and we’re a part of the parade. But I say to you this morning, that maybe God is calling us to identify with something else in this story. Maybe instead of all of those things we are called to be sycamore trees to and for each other. To be a place where we help lift others up, those who are hurting, who need a glimpse of the one who knows us and loves us and claims us. Perhaps, after all, that is our calling: not to keep the good news to ourselves but, whether we understand ourselves out on a limb or not, to raise God’s people, in God’s world, to a place where all can see the grace and mercy that flows from God.

Take our lives, God, and let them be concentrated and consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take our lives, Lord, and use them for you.

Amen.