October 30, 2016 – Luke 19:1-10
Lectionary 31C – Luke 19:1-10
Re-formed and Re-blessed
Reformation Sunday/Lectionary 31C – October 30, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
When I was on the plane coming back from Vernon last week
a very interesting thing happened to me.
On the flight from Kelowna to Calgary a middle aged woman was sitting next to me.
I was working on my sermon, doing some reading and thinking.
I was reading an article about the preparations for a friendly worship service involving
both Lutherans and Roman Catholics as part of the celebrations surrounding the
500th Anniversary of the Reformation next year.
Lutherans and Roman Catholics have come a long way in becoming much more friendly and
understanding of one another since Martin Luther’s time.
Or so I thought.
Because while I reading about this and thinking about this, I try and sneak and peek at
what the woman beside me is reading.
Imagine my surprise when I look down and see a picture of . . . Martin Luther!
Intrigued and happy I try and see more.
I read the headline of the article she is reading.
It says, “How the Devil Martin Luther Inaugurated the Apocolypse 500 Years Ago.”
Aha! Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
She is reading a very conservative Roman Catholic magazine that is, to say the least,
not very friendly toward Martin Luther and the Reformation.
The article quotes, sadly, some of the very harsh things Luther said about the Pope and
the Roman Catholic Church – things we have repented of.
But the article is also very hard on the Roman Catholics working hard to create
better relationships with Lutherans.
I really wanted to say something to this woman but was unsure of where to begin.
“Hi there. I’m a Lutheran pastor, Handmaid of the Devil. Did you want to change seats?”
In the end, I just made sure to try and make her a little uncomfortable by pulling out a
recent worship folder with “FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH” prominently displayed.
How sad though, really, that this woman did not really have a chance when it came to
understanding who I was, what I really thought, and my view of the Reformation of
the Roman Catholic Church 499 years ago.
Among other things I would loved to have told her that Martin Luther believed he was being
a good Roman Catholic, died believing that, and would not be happy to know that
he ended up starting a whole new church with his name on it –
when his goal was reforming the existing Roman Catholic church of corrupt practices and
making sure the Gospel of God’s love without limit and without condition
for all people was proclaimed as clearly as possible in all its churches.
The legacy of the Reformation is, well, reformation – re-formation:
constantly reforming the church so that it better proclaims and reflects in its life
God’s unconditional love and grace for all people and all creation.
We are not celebrating something that happened 499 years ago today.
We are celebrating something that the Holy Spirit continues to do even today, even this morning:
the re-forming of us over and over and over into more nearly being the people
our loving God calls us to be.
Zacchaeus was a re-formed person which makes this Gospel story perfect for today.
This is my theory about Zaccheus – and while it is mine alone I continue to stick by it!
First: our translation in the New Revised Standard Version is wrong:
Zacchaeus does not promise Jesus in a future tense that he will from now on
give half his possessions to the poor and that he will pay back
anyone he has defrauded four times as much.
It says, literally, that he already customarily does this!!!
He is already doing this before he encounters Jesus in Jericho!
See: he has clearly met Jesus before – Jesus clearly knows who he is!
Where did they meet? Well: this is what I really think.
I think they met on the banks of the Jordan River when John was baptizing people and
re-forming them and calling them into a new way of living and being. (Luke 3:1-14)
We know Jericho is very close to the River Jordan!
We know bad-type tax collectors went there!
And we know what John said to them: he said, “You can do better, people! Come on!
Quit taking advantage of others! Be a force for the common good!” I quote John:
Share half of what you have with those who need it – which is exactly what Z-man is doing!
Tax collectors – don’t take more than you’re supposed to! And don’t defraud anyone!
See, I think Zaccheus is happy to see Jesus so Jesus can continue to encourage Zacchaeus to
keep on keepin’ on in his reformed ways.
I’m sure it wasn’t easy – the people still hated him and labelled him a nasty tax collector.
The people put him in a box and were content to keep him there.
Like the literature the woman on the plane was reading – it stuck me in a box.
We do it all the time and don’t make allowances for the fact that people can change.
I don’t know why, but maybe if we acknowledge others change – even our enemies –
maybe it means that we will have to change too.
And so we resist it. I don’t know. But I think that is what is at work.
In any case, Zacchaeus is happy to see Jesus because, I think, he needs encouragement in
what he is doing. Maybe no one else in Jericho is doing it – it’s hard swimming upstream.
He needs to know it’s worth it – he needs blessing.
And that is why he is so happy to see Jesus.
He doesn’t change in this story – he has already been changed.
Like most of us sitting here this morning, he just needs encouragement and blessing in
the changes and the way of life he had already committed to long ago.
So Jesus does indeed bless Zacchaeus by coming to his house.
Jesus looks up and says, “Yo! Zacchaeus! Bromigo! Glad to see ya! Come on down!
I’m comin’ over to the Bro-Cave tonight! We’ll catch up!”
And then after Zacchaeus tells Jesus what he continues to do for the poor and defrauded,
Jesus blesses him and tells him that what he is doing is part of something much larger:
You, Zacchaeus, are a child of Abraham, you are a member of the people of blessing.
You have been blessed, materially, in order to be a blessing,
just like God blessed your ancestor Abraham all those years ago in Genesis chapter 12.
We, like Zacchaeus, are a people re-formed –
reformed by the Holy Spirit to be people of blessing.
We have seen, like Paul Kalanithi, that without God and without Jesus all the best parts of life –
love, honour, sacrifice, forgiveness, and mercy – do not exist.
Each of here has been so blessed to have been able to see that, to glimpse the possibilities of
a new world that God is bringing in, just like Zacchaeus glimpsed it in
the words of John the Baptist at the River Jordan all those years ago.
Like him, maybe we were excited about it.
Like him, maybe we committed our lives to it – to ministry to the poor, to respect for all people,
to forgiveness to those who have wronged us, to sacrifice, to regular worship,
to community-building; but this – this is hard work.
And our re-forming is never done – we need to be re-formed by God’s love for us in Jesus
week after week after week.
And so we come, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus, hoping to be called down,
and invited to a meal where we will find encouragement and blessing to this
thing we have committed to here:
to be active, willing, eager participatns in God’s loving mission to love bless heal and
Set free this whole world and every person in it.
Is it worth it: is it worth it, like Zacchaeus, to invest half your income in ministry,
like Zaccaeus did: Or a tenth? Or even a fifth?
Or is it just crazy?
Jesus assures us that it is worth it, for in this ministry we are part of
God’s ongoing Reformation of the world.
That in our ministries of caring for one another we are part of this ongoing reformation.
That in our ministries of caring for the poor and feeding the hungry we are part of
this ongoing reformation.
That in our ministries for youth and children we are part of this ongoing reformation –
and let me tell you, I received such powerful affirmation from Jesus on the
youth gathering trip this summer that all the money and all the time and
all the intentional care we have lavished on children and youth
ministry at First Lutheran Church is totally and without question
absolutely worth every penny and every moment.
You have enabled, in the words of Paul this morning, their faith to grow abundantly and
their love for one another and for you to increase beyond hope or measure.
I have never seen such clear confirmation of that – and I’m begging you to continue to
give generously and increase your giving because it is so worth it and
not to take it for granted; we must be so vigilant in our giving.
Fill the flagon – because something amazing is happening here.
Like Zacchaeus we are inheritors of a promise made to Abraham to be blessed by God so that
the world might be blessed by us in our sharing of that blessing.
Luther’s fundamental insight about the nature of God and the nature of this church is that
God comes down to bless us freely with love and grace and food and income and all we need
so that we can take these gifts and bless the world and every person in it with them.
Friends, like Zacchaeus, you are part of something much larger than yourselves.
Your generous investment in ministry – like Zacchaeus’s – is making a huge difference.
So Jesus comes again this morning to affirm and encourage us in that by sharing a meal with us.
Jesus comes again to re-form us to continue to be God’s people.
Jesus comes today to restore our zeal, to give us his love, to honour us with his presence.
Jesus comes today to give us not half of himself but all of himself.
Jesus comes to this house today. So be re-formed by his coming, and together let us say, Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
