Luke 19:1-10<\/p>\n\n\n\n
October 31, 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wish I were taller. When I was growing up, my younger brother, Steven was taller than me. My two brothers-in-law are taller than me. When Joy and I were getting married, Joy\u2019s mother told Joy to wear flatter shoes so that she won\u2019t be taller than me at the wedding. I was getting a Napoleon complex\u2014someone who wants to amass great power because he was small in stature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you ever wondered, \u201cHow tall was Jesus?\u201d I know this is not one of those pressing theological questions that people ask. But if you are short like me, I wonder, \u201cHow tall was Jesus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only once does anybody comment on the height of Jesus. In Luke 19:3, Luke says Jesus was \u201csmall of stature.\u201d I know, you always took that \u201cshort in stature\u201d to refer to Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, so they told you in Sunday School, was the wee little man who was so short that he had to climb up a sycamore tree to get a good look at Jesus parading through Jericho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what your Sunday School teachers should have told you is that, in the Greek, \u201che was small in stature\u201d could apply as well to Jesus. It can read, Zacchaeus sought to see who Jesus was but could not on account of the crowd because he (Zacchaeus) was short of stature.\u201d But it could legitimately be read, \u201cZacchaeus sought to see Jesus but could not on account of the crowd because he (Jesus) was short of stature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus was so short that Zacchaeus couldn\u2019t see the little rabbi in the crowd. He was so short that the big man about town, rich Zacchaeus, had to climb up a tree just to get a peek at little Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know that you might be bothered by this possibility of Jesus being a short man when it runs counter to all you have been taught by your Sunday School teachers and pastors. In the early church, critics would mock Christians\u2019 claim that Jesus was the Messiah saying that no real Messiah would be this short. Even two thousand years ago, being tall was valued more important than being short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neighbor Zacchaeus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zacchaeus wasn\u2019t just a tax collector\u2014a lackey for the oppressive Romans who sponsored terrorism against his fellow Jews\u2014he was the chief tax collector. Therefore, Zacchaeus was on top of the original pyramid scheme, a robber who was very rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier in Luke\u2019s Gospel, we see that Jesus came to save the lost\u2014lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost boy, and now the lost sinner. And when every one of these lost things or persons are found, there\u2019s a feast and party. Here, Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus\u2019 house to have a dinner party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the people around them who heard that Jesus was going to Zacchaeus\u2019 house grumbled, \u201cHe\u2019s gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner!\u201d Jesus responds, \u201cLike I told you in my past teachings, the Messiah came to seek and save he lost. When are you going to admit to my strangeness?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in Luke 15:2, the problem was \u201cthis man receives sinner and eats with them.\u201d Here, it\u2019s, \u201cThis man has gone to be the guest of a sinner\u201d (Luke 19:7). And Jesus says to the grumblers who were not the sinners but the righteous, \u201cToday salvation has come to this house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the basis of this story, a definition of salvation is whenever Jesus intrudes into your space, whenever Jesus makes your sinful table the site of his salvation feast like he did for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus didn\u2019t invite Jesus to dinner. Jesus invited himself. Hardly anyone in scripture chooses Jesus or decides to be saved by him. The gospel is a story about Jesus\u2019 choice and decision for the lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says, \u201cToday salvation has come to this house\u2026for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We might not see a highly financially successful person like Zacchaeus lost. Who cares if he didn\u2019t have any friends when he had so much money, designer suits, fancy cars, and big houses to live in? But in Jesus\u2019 heart, Zaachaeus was lost and need to be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who are the Zacchaeuses in our community? Chinatown, North Beach, Nob Hill, financial district, Pacific Heights, Embarcadero neighborhoods are filled with Zacchaeuses who are lost and need to be saved. We may think that just because they are rich and welled-off that they don\u2019t need salvation. But we know, in fact, that they like Zacchaeus or the Bernie Madoffs or Enron Executives of our days also need salvation. They too are our neighbors. They may be standing tall on top of those pyramid schemes but they are still in need of salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love Your Neighbors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our 2011 Canvass theme is: \u201cWho Is My Neighbor?\u201d In Luke 10:25, we read about a lawyer who asks the question of Jesus, \u201cTeacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d He was asking how might I receive salvation? He was saying that as a lawyer, I feel I am lost and I still need to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jesus asked him, \u201cWhat is written in the law? What do you read there?\u201d The lawyer answers correctly, \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.\u201d Jesus then said to him, \u201cYou have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.\u201d Do this and you will receive salvation. Do this and you will be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the lawyer wasn\u2019t too sure about who was his neighbor. Wanting to justify himself, he asks Jesus, \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d And Jesus tells him the story about the man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and was beaten and robbed by thieves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know the rest of the story. The priest didn\u2019t help. The Levite didn\u2019t help. We would expect them to help. But when a Samaritan, someone whom we would not expect to help, someone who could have cared less that the beaten man was a Jew and someone who was discriminated against by the Jews, would stop on his travels to help the beaten man, this surprises us. But this most unlikely man was the man who became the good neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder how tall was the Samaritan. He may have been as short as Jesus\u2014short of stature. Since the man fell into the hands of robbers, stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half-dead, I would think that this poor man was on the ground. He was lying on the ground half-dead. The Samaritan needed to bent down and get real short to be close to the half-dead man to bandage his wounds and to pour oil and wine on them. Then he had get down low to lift the poor man lying off the ground to put him on his own animal and take him to the local motel so that the man can get better. Being short made it easier for the Samaritan to be a good neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good Neighbors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many churches that are situated in places where they are isolated from neighbors. They may be built on the top of a hill or set apart in a sprawling suburban sub-division or there may be houses all around a church but the people have moved away. Our church is blessed with neighbors. We have lots of people living around us. We are good neighbors with the YMCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have neighbors who live across and down the street from us on Waverly Place. We have neighbors who bring their children to play in what many people assume is our playground. We have neighbors who come to study English and citizenship from us. We have neighbors who walk on our sidewalks going to work, running errands, going to school, and going out to eat. But the challenge before us this year is: \u201cDo we know our neighbors?\u201d \u201cWho is our neighbor?\u201d And if we know our neighbors, are we good to them? Would Jesus refer to us as \u201cgood neighbors\u201d to those who live among us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\u2019s beloved children are not lost to God. Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus\u2019 house to save him. Jesus invited the lawyer to love his neighbor in order to inherit eternal life and receive salvation. But are these people lost to us? Have we become so disconnected from God\u2019s people who live and work in the shadows of our church, that we hardly notice them around us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zacchaeus can\u2019t be any more disconnected from God\u2019s kingdom and community. Jericho is on the geographic margins of Israel. Rather than sitting in the temple in Jerusalem at the theological and social center, Jesus went out to the edges and beyond to seek and save the lost. Jesus meets people \u201cwhere they are\u201d and invites himself to Zacchaeus\u2019 house for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As members of the living Body of Christ, we are compelled to go and do likewise\u2014to help the beaten half-dead man, to meet chief tax collectors, to visit the people who live across the street from our church, to become good neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have to go out to the margins and beyond our little corner of Chinatown, to meet folks we don\u2019t know, to set aside our religious expectations of wearing the right clothes, saying the right words, and smelling good. When we are unwilling to go beyond the doors of our church and grumble about the folks not meeting our righteous expectations, we lose them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zacchaeus was as rich as he can be but for some reason, he wanted to see Jesus. We don\u2019t know why. Maybe he was curious about what everyone was talking about and Zacchaeus wanted to be in on the latest thing. Maybe he heard that Jesus accepts all people, and Zacchaeus wants to fit back into his Jewish community. Maybe there\u2019s a spiritual longing that he can\u2019t have fulfilled as a marginal Jew. Something is driving him to want to see Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are people who live in our neighborhood like Zacchaeus who want to see Jesus. We know people who have everything they could ever ask for who are nonetheless searching for something more. There may be people in the apartments on Waverly Place who have been curious about what the noise is all about when we fellowship and talk together after worship on the sidewalk every Sunday morning. There may be some neighbors who are searching for deeper meaning and purpose for their lives because they see that work and sleep and work and eat, and work and just getting by is not enough. Might we be good neighbors to these people? Like Jesus, can we invite ourselves over to these people\u2019s homes to at least greet them with a \u201chello?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meeting Neighbors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a story about the members of Sara\u2019s Sunday school class who became concerned about the day laborers who gathered in the parking lot behind the shopping center every weekday morning, waiting for and looking for work. They prayed about it and felt that God was leading them to minister to those day laborers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, every weekday morning members of Sara\u2019s Sunday school class arrive at the shopping center parking lot by 6:30 with coffee and doughnuts for the workers. They recruited a Spanish-speaking person to help them communicate. They have formed a language class among themselves and are slowly but surely learning to speak Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From that early morning gathering a new church is being formed. Now, at 9:00 AM on Sundays about 100 Spanish-speaking Christians gather at their church for a service conducted by a lay preacher (a man they met one morning at the parking lot).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can we learn from what Sara\u2019s Sunday school class did at FCBC? There\u2019s something about Jesus that tells us to reach out to those who are on the bottom, to get down low with God\u2019s beloved children. If we are to worship Jesus then we must follow Jesus, go where he goes and do what he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How tall was Jesus? What was his stature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was short, built low to the ground. He could stoop to the worst of them. By the time he got to Jerusalem, he didn\u2019t have far to fall, so short was he, so willing was he to get down and dirty with the lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God not only reached out but he reached down. Jesus makes friends in low places. Some of the lost don\u2019t know how lost they are until they get found. Salvation is Jesus getting down on our level, so that we might rise to his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus got into trouble because he saved people that nobody thought could be saved. In fact, Jesus saved people that not many wanted to see saved! Some of them were poor and downtrodden like the beaten man left half-dead. Some of them were leaders in the neighborhood like the lawyer. And some of them were rich and questionable like Zacchaeus. Jesus saves those sinners that nobody thought could be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being Short<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a play based on Zacchaeus\u2019 story, The Mirror<\/em>, after Zacchaeus announces that he will share his money. Jesus asks, \u201cZacchaeus, what did you see that made you desire this peace?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zacchaeus answers, \u201cGood Master, I saw mirrored in your eyes, the face of the Zacchaeus I was meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long after Jesus leaves Jericho, someone who has not heard Zacchaeus\u2019 story sees him giving his money to the hungry and asks, \u201cDo you ever think about how rich you could be? Why don\u2019t you give less?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zacchaeus smiles, \u201cWhy would I want to go back to the Zacchaeus I used to be?\u201d When Zacchaeus gave his money to the poor, it was a great day for the hungry. But it was a great day for Zacchaeus too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I no longer wish to be taller. If Jesus was short and built low to the ground, I want to be like Jesus to stoop down to the worst of them like Zacchaeus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord, help us to keep going out, to keep reaching out, and to keep expecting you to lead us into places outside our church and into our neighborhoods. Lord, when you seek and find some of the lost, help us to be a church with a big heart to open wide our door and to go out to know who are our neighbors, sisters and brothers whom you love. In Christ, we pray. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luke 19:1-10 October 31, 2010 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. I wish I were taller. When I was growing up,