Dinner with sinners

Scripture  Luke 19:1-10   CEB 

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through town. 2 A man there named Zacchaeus, a ruler among tax collectors, was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but, being a short man, he couldn’t because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.” 6 So Zacchaeus came down at once, happy to welcome Jesus.

7 Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 The Human One came to seek and save the lost.”

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Zacchaeus was a tax man.  That’s the title of the hymn we’ll be singing in a little bit and it is one of two things we are told about him, the other being his height.  (A bit of trivia for you - the average male height at that time was about 5’4”. Today the average is 5’9”.  So he was quite short by our standards.)  Being short he climbed a tree so he could see over the crowd and coincidentally, where Jesus could easily spot him.  And seeing him up in the tree, Jesus did something that not just the Pharisees had trouble with.  Everyone had a problem with this.  Tax collectors were collaborators with the Roman oppressors - often involuntarily, but still. . . They were known to overcharge and skim off the top, thus defrauding both the Jews who paid the taxes and the Empire that received them. Tax collectors were always classed by the people with the harlots, gamblers, and thieves, who lived promiscuous, lawless lives.  According to the rabbis there was no hope for the tax collector.  They couldn’t go to the Temple, associate with most other people in the community, even their money was refused by the Temple.  Tax collectors were even more unclean than lepers.  No one would associate with them.  But Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.”  Way to upset the crowd, Jesus.  Have dinner with someone everyone hated!  

And then we come to the interesting bit, and the reason we need to look at different translations of the Bible.  Because translators don’t always agree on how words are to be translated.

The CEB, which Charlotte read today, says:  Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”

The NRSV says:  8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

You will notice a difference.  In the CEB Zacchaeus speaks in the present tense, in the NRSV he speaks in the future tense.  Depending on which translation you read, either Zacchaeus was already behaving more ethically than the vast majority of tax collectors or he decided to change his behavior and begin to treat people more ethically.  Either he was an ethical man in a crooked business or he was reformed by Christ and would become an ethical man in a crooked business.  Typically this passage is preached from the second viewpoint, but let’s give the first some consideration.  

Ethical dilemmas abound in our daily lives, even when we aren’t engaged in questionable behavior.  

Kirk Franklin is a Grammy award winning Gospel Artist -  a singer and song writer.  He was named Best Gospel Artist at the Dove Awards on TBN twice!  But he is boycotting Trinity Broadcasting Network, the Gospel Music Association, future Dove Awards shows and all affiliated events after comments he made about a recent fatal police shooting were edited out of his acceptance speech.  It’s not the first time.  The same thing happened at a previous awards show.   It’s not like he said anything un-Christian or political or otherwise offensive.  He named the victim and said, ““I’m just asking that we send our prayers for her family and for his and I’m asking that we send our prayers for that 8-year-old little boy that saw that tragedy and we just lift them up and I’m asking that you pray with us … just pray grace and mercy over their lives in the name of Christ our king,”  He was asking for prayer for victim, and the shooter and both of their families.  There’s nothing wrong with that, that I can see.  It’s kind of classic “Love your neighbor” stuff.  But when his acceptance speech was aired, that portion had been cut out.   (https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/lori-arnold/kirk-franklin-says-he-s-boycotting-tbn-dove-awards-for-failing-to-acknowledge-diversity-concerns.html?utm_source=Jeeng)

Now I don’t know much about the Christian music world, or the Gospel music world, but I suspect that a Gospel singer who turns his back on TBN and the Gospel Music Association might just be doing something significant.   Kirk Franklin had to decide whether his career or his ethics came first.  He chose his ethics - he chose the harder path.   I have to wonder, too, about the ethics of the video editor at TBN who decided to cut this sincere prayer out of the acceptance speech.  But the entertainment business has never been known as the most ethical business around.  One would hope TBN would be different, but . . . 

While researching for today’s message I came across an outstanding quote about Christ’s transformative power.  But when I looked up the author of that quote I had to stop and decide whether I could, in good conscience, quote this person.  She is rabidly anti-LGBTQ who promotes all kinds of terrible, ugly conspiracy theories, and these beautiful words that I found were part of a hateful rant she had posted.  I could just use those words and not say where they came from, but that’s plagiarism and plagiarism is bad.  I decided that, no matter how perfect the words are when taken out of context, I could not in good conscience quote a person who hates so strongly in a message about the Christ who loves everyone, welcomes everyone, rejects no one.   

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Back to Zacchaeus . . . whether he was already doing the right things or made that decision because of Jesus, he was still a tax collector.  He was still working in and for a corrupt system.  A person no church going person would want to associate with.  His status as an outcaste as far as the Temple was concerned wasn’t going to change just because he behaved justly and ethically.  As long as he continued in this occupation he would be rejected. The attitude of the Temple and the Rabbis was, “You cannot be a tax collector and a righteous Jew at the same time.”    And it’s not like a tax collector for the Roman Empire could just quit his job - not and keep his possessions, his freedom, and his family.   In many ways it would have been like trying to leave a crime family, which (according to books and movies) is not conducive to a long and healthy life. 

Jesus didn’t see things quite the same way as the Rabbis and the Pharisees.  We already know that, of course.  He hung out with people the good church folks avoided.  After all, earlier in Luke’s gospel, when the Pharisees asked, ““Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. 32 I didn’t come to call righteous people but sinners, to change their hearts and lives.” (Luke 5:30b-32).  He spent his time with people on the margins, people on the outside looking in.  People who felt alone, unwanted.  There were way too many of those people in Jesus’ time.  People who couldn’t afford the sacrifices they needed to make to be cleansed after an illness or having a baby or whatever health condition made them unacceptable to the Temple - a man with a skin rash, or the woman with a hemorrhage.  People who fell into certain occupational categories - tax collectors, prostitutes, loan sharks, gamblers.  These were not allowed to come to worship, or make sacrifices, or tithe.  They were’t even allowed to hang out with people who did go to Temple for fear of corrupting them.  Even if they behaved justly and ethically, like Zaccaeus, the Rabbis and the Temple said they just weren’t welcome.   

Sadly, we know that is still a thing.  I was having a conversation online the other day about Christianity, and one of the people said, “I used to go to church.  I don’t anymore.  I miss it.  But I was told, “You can’t be Christian and (that thing that you do) at the same time”.   Way too many church folks say things like that.  Way too many who are told that, believe it.  The thing about being Christian is that we aren’t perfect people. Or as I’ve seen it said on Facebook, “A church is not a museum for good people.  It is a hospital for the broken.”   

We don’t get to decide who Jesus will or will not accept.  Look at his friends.  Look at who he surrounded himself with.  People who were not welcomed by the establishment.  People who had been told repeatedly, “You cannot be (whatever) and come to the Temple at the same time.”  Jesus was not in the business of making the unclean acceptable to the Temple.  He was in the business of healing the broken, and of bringing salvation to the lost.   He was about changing people’s hearts.  He was about having dinner with sinners and inviting into the kingdom of God all who seek him.   Like Zacchaeus.  Like us.