Does anyone here know the official mission
statement of the United Methodist church?
It’s okay if you don’t. We don’t talk about it a
lot. But here it is. “To make
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”
Now that sounds good and everything, and I really don’t
mean to criticize it. But I was reading an article recently where the guy
said, you know, we really did not say that very well. Because when you
hear that, that it’s the mission of the United Methodist church to make
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, it makes it
sound like making disciples is something we do. Like transforming
the world is something we do.
And it’s not true. If
disciples of Jesus Christ are made, it’s God who makes them, not us. If
the world is transformed, it’s God who transforms it, not us. God may choose to work through us, and that’s
cool when it happens, but it’s still God doing it, not you and me. We
have no power to transform the world without God. And if we did transform the world without
God, it would probably not be transformed in a very good way.
I bring this up because in our
reading for tonight, we have an example of someone who did become a disciple of
Jesus Christ. And maybe he did not transform the world, but his own life
was transformed. I’m talking, of course,
about the tax collector, Zacchaeus.
This story of Zacchaeus is one
we learn in Sunday school. Maybe some of us still remember the song: “Zacchaeus was a wee, little man; a wee,
little man was he.” But because some of us have heard this story so many
times, it’s easy to miss what an amazing, incredible thing this was.
Jesus is walking through the
town of Jericho. Now, by this time, Jesus was pretty well-known. He
was kind of a celebrity, really. I don’t
know just how comfortable Jesus would be with that description, but there’s
truth in it. He was a star. People
wanted to be close to him, wanted to see him.
Today, he’d be someone people would want to take selfies with. When Jesus came to town, it was an Event.
So Jesus comes to
Jericho. And everyone knows he’s there. Including this tax
collector named Zacchaeus.
And Zacchaeus decides he wants
to see Jesus. We’re not told why.
But you know, tax collectors were not known as particularly good
people. They routinely overcharged people on their taxes and kept the
extra money for themselves. That’s how
they paid for being tax collectors. And since Zacchaeus was a chief tax
collector, and because he was wealthy, we assume he must have done this a lot. In fact, not only did he overcharge people on
their taxes, he probably took a share from all the minor tax collectors who
worked under him.
So why does he want to see
Jesus? Was he just curious about him?
Was it just because Jesus was a celebrity? What might he have
heard about Jesus? That he healed
people, maybe. That he fed people.
He might have heard that he was kind of a rebel, that he sometimes broke the
Jewish religious laws. He might have heard about some of Jesus’ speeches. Maybe he’d heard some of the parables that
Jesus told.
You know, it’s interesting that
shortly before this in Luke’s gospel, in the previous chapter, in fact, Jesus
tells a story about an arrogant tax collector and says that God will humble
that arrogant man. Could Zacchaeus have heard that story? Could it have stirred something in him? Maybe Zacchaeus was starting to feel guilty
about his lifestyle. Maybe he was
starting to realize that what he’d been doing was wrong.
But anyway, Zacchaeus wants to
see Jesus but he can’t, because there’s a big crowd and he’s short. So,
he runs on ahead, to where he expects Jesus to be coming by, and climbs up a
tree, where he’ll be able to see Jesus over the crowd.
And Jesus comes by, and he sees
Zacchaeus. And this is interesting, too, because if you were walking
along, and there was a big crowd on either side of you, you probably would not
look up into the trees. But Jesus did.
Did someone tell him Zacchaeus
was there? If they did, did they tell him who Zacchaeus was? Or,
was Zacchaeus well-known enough--he was a chief tax collector, after all--that
Jesus knew who he was? Was this Jesus using his divine power? Did the Holy Spirit have a hand in this? Or was it just a coincidence? Did Jesus
just happen to look up at the right time and see this short guy up in a tree?
The way it reads, or the way I
read it, Jesus knew he was there. And he clearly knew, somehow, who this
was, because Jesus calls him by name. He says, “Zacchaeus, come down
immediately. I must stay at your house
today.”
Zacchaeus comes down, and right
away the people around start muttering, gossiping. Why is Jesus going to
go to this guy’s house? This guy’s a
sinner.
Zacchaeus heard them. And
the thing is, Zacchaeus knew they were right. He was a sinner. And he knew he had to do something about
it. So he says, “Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the
amount.” And Jesus responds, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
Think of that amazing
transformation. From a man who routinely cheated and overcharged people
to a man who was willing to give away half his possessions. And on top of
that, to go to all the people he’d cheated and not just pay them back, but pay
them four times more than what he’d taken from them. That’s pretty
incredible.
And it happened because of the
power of God. Were there other people involved? Maybe.
We don’t know. Zacchaeus could’ve had friends or relatives who
told him he was headed down the wrong path and needed to change. There
could’ve been people in his life who were telling him to stop doing what he was
doing, telling him that he needed to turn his life around. Maybe that was
part of the reason Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. But nothing actually happened to change
Zacchaeus’ life until Jesus showed up.
And when Jesus showed up, everything about Zacchaeus’ life changed.
So does that mean we should not
try to do anything to change people’s lives? No, of course not. We need to do all we can to help people. After all, Jesus said loving others is the
same as loving God Himself. And loving others means not just helping them
with their physical needs, although that’s part of it. But when you think about it, what’s more
important? Helping someone with their physical needs on earth? Or helping someone receive salvation and
eternal life? Of course we should do
whatever we can to help people change their lives and come to faith in Jesus
Christ.
But that’s the thing. We
do what we can. And then, we pray.
We pray that they will hear things about Jesus, at least enough to get them
curious. We pray that God’s Holy Spirit will stir something in them. And we pray for God to show up for
them. We pray that God will come by and call them by name. And we pray that, when God does that, they
will hear and they will respond.
By ourselves, we cannot do
anything. But God can do everything.
You and I cannot save someone. But God can. You and I cannot change someone’s life. But God can. You and I cannot give
someone eternal life. But God can.
Do you know a Zacchaeus?
Not necessarily someone who’s cheated and stolen from people, but do you know
someone who does not have God in their life? Someone who just seems to be
headed down the wrong path? The chances
are you do. It might be someone in your
family. It might be someone who’s a
friend. It might be someone you used to know, but from whom you’ve
drifted apart. But the chances are, if
you really think about it, you can think of someone you know who has pretty
much forgotten about God and is living their life with no concern for God.
What should we do? Well,
we can be there for them. We can let them know we love them. We can
let them know God loves them. Maybe we can do more for them. Maybe we can have a conversation about
faith. Maybe we can tell them the ways God has helped us and what’s
happened to convince us of God’s love.
But no matter what else we do,
we can pray for them. We can pray that God’s Holy Spirit will stir
something in them. We can pray that they will be open to hearing about
God and thinking about God. And we can pray that God will show up in
their lives. We can pray that God will
make that transformation, and that God will make a new disciple of Jesus Christ
where there was not one before.
God can transform anyone’s
life. Even the life of a chief tax collector like Zacchaeus. Even a
life like mine. And even a life like
yours, too.
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