Sunday, November 17th, 2019 – Everyone Has At Least One Sermon in Them, a Sermon on Luke 21:5-19

Luke 21:5-19
5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,⁶ “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” ⁷ They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” ⁸ And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!’ and, “The time is near!’ Do not go after them. ⁹ “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; ¹¹ there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. ¹² “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. ¹³ This will give you an opportunity to testify. ¹⁴ So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; ¹⁵ for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ You will be hated by all because of my name. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ By your endurance you will gain your souls. 

Sermon

In the 2005 movie, Walk the Line, about the life and music of Johnny Cash, there is a powerful scene when Johnny Cash and his band finally get their chance to play for a music producer. So, there they are in the music studio, plunking away at their old-time gospel tune, as confident as can be. But the music producer…is bored. He stops the band and asks if they have anything else they can play. He said, “I can’t sell gospel. Not like that.”

And Johnny Cash straightens his spine and asks, “What was wrong? What did I do?”

And the producer says, “I just don’t believe you….We all have already heard that song. That same old, gospel song. A hundred times. Just like that. Juuuust like that. If you were hit by a truck and you were lying in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing one song. One song that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would tell God what you thought about your time here on earth, one song that would sum you up….is that the song you would sing? The song we’ve all heard before? Or would you sing something real? Something you felt. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people…”

And in that quiet, pregnant moment, Johnny Cash starts strumming the chords to Folsom Prison Blues. I hear that train a coming. It’s rolling round the bend…

When I was in seminary, my professor played that clip in class and told us that every time we heard the word “song” to replace it with the word “sermon.”

If you were hit by a truck and you were lying in that gutter dying and you time to preach on sermon, one sermon that people would remember before you are dirt, one sermon that would sum you up…what would you say?

Someone once said, “Everyone has at least one sermon in them.” What would yours be?

In her memoir Pastrix, Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber tells a story about a time, when she as a chaplain intern at a hospital. And like most seminary students, she felt like she was playing dress-up in pastor’s clothes as she roamed the halls of the hospital, as she had no idea what to do or where to go. One day, she is paged to the emergency room, where she is told to go into Trauma Room One. When she gets there, she sees a “nurse cutting the clothes off a motionless man, in his fifties on a table; tubes were coming out of his mouth and arms.” She said, “Doctors started doing things to him not meant for most people’s eyes. Another nurse was hooking things up to him while a doctor put on gloves and motioned for paddles, which he then placed into the motionless man’s freshly cracked-open chest.” A nurse eventually stepped back to where Nadia was standing and Nadia leaned over and said, “Everyone here seems to have a job in here. But what am I doing here?”

After looking at Nadia’s name badge that said “Chaplain” on it, the nurse said, “Your job is to be aware of God’s presence in the room while we do our jobs.”

Nadia might have been the pastor in the room, but she wasn’t the preacher. No, that nurse gave perhaps the sermon of her life in that moment.

Everyone has at least one sermon in them.

In his book, Tattoos on the Heart, Father Greg Boyle tells about when his church became a homeless shelter for 50 or sometimes 100 men on Saturday nights. And every Sunday morning, well, the church members could smell that they had hosted dozens of men the night before. And as happens from time to time in the church, this caused a stir among the worshipers. Some were disgruntled and disgusted that a church could be so unkempt for Sunday worship.

So, like a good pastor, Father Greg raises the issue, and calls the question. One Sunday morning, he opens his sermon like this, “Well, folks, what’s the church smell like today?”

And people are mortified. People look at their shoes, avoiding eye contact. Women search their purses for…nothing, really.

“Come on, now,” Father Greg throws back at them, “What’s the church smell like?”

“Smells like feet!” Don Rafael finally hollers out. He was old and never cared about what people thought.

“Excellent,” Father Greg says, “And why does it smell like feet?”

“Cuz many homeless men slept here last night,” a woman says.

“Well, why do we let that happen here?” Father Greg asks?

“It’s what we’ve committed to do,” says another.

“Well, why would anyone commit to do that?” Father Greg asks.

“It’s what Jesus would do,” another says.

“Well, then….what’s the church smell like now?”

And in that loud silence, a man stands up and bellows out, “It smells like commitment!”

And suddenly all the people cheer out in faith.

Father Greg might have been standing in the pulpit that day, but he wasn’t the preacher. The entire congregation had found their sermon.

Everyone has at least one sermon in them.

What’s yours? In the midst of the chaos of the world, when life is hard and the lights are growing dim, and you had time to preach one sermon…one sermon that people would remember, one sermon that would sum up your faith….what would it be?

I share these stories not to avoid the gospel reading this morning, but to highlight the heart of it.

I don’t know if you noticed, but Jesus, this morning, ordained all of us to be preachers.

In the gospel reading, Jesus’ disciples are admiring the temple in Jerusalem – how it is adorned with beautiful stones and dedicated gifts. But as they admired it , they do so with both pride and hesitation. On the one hand, this was their temple – the center of Jewish worship and the proclamation of God’s presence. On the other hand, the beautiful adornments were also the work of King Herod, a brutal and corrupt king.

And so as they are looking up at this temple, Jesus doesn’t miss a beat and he doesn’t mince words.. “Yeah, well, enjoy it while it lasts…because those stones are coming down. All will be thrown down.”

Which, to some of us, might sound like a scary prediction of the end of the world, but to the readers of Luke’s gospel, it is just the honest truth about the world. Because by the time this gospel was written down, the temple in Jerusalem and its beautiful stones had already been thrown down during the attack of the Roman Empire. Jesus says “All will be thrown down,” and Luke’s readers are nodding their heads. Because they know. They know it’s true. That things fall and fail in this life.

Or all week, I’ve imagined that it would be like for those in Paris who heard this text in Notre Dame Cathedral today. When Jesus says, “The days will come when not one stone (or one wooden beam) will be left upon another; all will throw (and burned) down,” I suspect those worshippers will all look up at the exposed ceiling and morning sky and nod their heads. They know. Nothing lasts forever.

And we know too. We know this truth in our own lives. Jobs end. Politicians and systems become corrupt. Medical test results devastate. School shootings continue. Stress consumes joy. Marriages and families crumble. We know too that things fall and fail in this life.

But then Jesus goes on to say to his disciples, “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified…Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; ¹¹ there will be great earthquakes, and famines and plagues. Yes, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. But all of these things, Jesus says… all of these things will give you an opportunity to testify.”

Jesus says to his disciples that when the chaotic world is closing in and nothing is certain, this is your opportunity to give a testimony to what you see in the chaos of the world and to what you believe in the midst of it. To testify to the hope that sustains you.

All this stuff, all these things happening, this will give you the opportunity to testify.

And testimony, Anna Carter Florence says, testimony – to name what you see and name what you believe – is all that a preacher has left when everything else is gone.[1]

So to put Jesus’ words more simply, when the chaotic world is closing in and nothing is certain, this will give you an opportunity to preach.

And everyone has at least one sermon in them.

Contrary to popular opinion, these apocalyptic words of Jesus are not meant to bring fear and trepidation about the end of times. But rather apocalyptic literature is meant to give hope and help to those who were struggling with the state of their lives and the state of the world, and it is a word of “comfort that no matter how difficult things became, God would not abandon them and that God would ultimately prevail.”[2]

And that, my dear friends, is the call of the church in these uncertain times. To preach that sermon. In our own words and through our own lives.

To proclaim the truth that, yes, buildings fall but so do empires. Dominant powers fade, systems of oppression die, but God remains. To proclaim that it will be Jesus himself who is arrested and betrayed by family and foe, placed in prison and brought before the governor. And then from the pulpit of a cross, Jesus will preach. To those who will execute him, Jesus proclaims, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” And to the thief on the cross beside him, Jesus proclaims, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus on the cross is the gospel proclamation of a God remains present in the world and with the world, with the frightened and the forgotten, the suffering,  when things have gotten so bad that it feels like the world is collapsing.

And Jesus is calling us to testify, to preach that sermon.

Whether you know it or not, you have that sermon in you, because I hear you preach it all the time. With your words and your actions.

I hear you preach when you linger in the sanctuary after worship, welcoming the new person who was sitting just a few rows in front of you.

I hear you preach when you use what you think are ordinary skills to transform a community center for the most vulnerable in our community.

I hear your preach when you confidently leave confirmation class without asking permission so that you can check on your friend who is struggling.

I hear you preach when you stay after the meeting to offer compassion to the committee members whose life was just turned upside down.

I hear you preach when you crouch down to talk with the littlest ones in our church, so that they can see you face to face.

I hear you preach when you show up to the second funeral in a week for one of your fellow parishioners, as a sign of the promise that when we die, we do not die alone.

When everything is lost, when the world is falling apart, it is your testimony, your faith, your sermon that remains, Jesus says. And it is your sermon that the world needs to hear.

A sermon that proclaims of a God who is always at work creating a new heaven and a new earth – good things for the people God loves. A God who is working tirelessly toward the day when wolf and lamb will share a meal together.

A sermon that embodies God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to God’s people, despite the evidence of the world. That proclaims that God simply will not give up on us.

A sermon that truly saves people. A sermon that recognizes that in the midst of all the chaos, God is still in the room. A sermon that smells like commitment.

I can’t wait…I can’t wait to hear those sermons that you’ll preach in this new church year just ahead of us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] Anna Carter Florence, Preaching as Testimony, p. 110

[2] David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/pentecost-26-c-joy-in-november/

Sunday, November 3rd, 2019 – Zacchaeus in the Present Tense, an All Saints Sunday Sermon on Luke 19:1-10

Luke 19:1-10
1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 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.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Spirit of the living God, you are already with us. But we ask that you would open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to your presence with us now. In our prayers, in our singing, in your word, in the people we meet, in the naming of your beloveds who have gone before us. Come and grow our faith. Deepen our hope. And strengthen our love. And water within each of us the desire to be your faithful friends forever. Amen.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew Zacchaeus. And that wasn’t a good thing. He had what we might call…a reputation. And the problem is…he still does.

In our Sunday school classrooms, all Zacchaeus is really known for is being short.

But in Jericho and in many Biblical commentaries today, Zacchaeus is known for being ruthless. Not only is he a tax collector, but he is a chief tax collector. Plus, he was rich. Which meant he was a ruthless tax collector – profiting off his neighbors and community members to line his own pockets with straight up cash. He was small but mighty, and everyone despised him.

And then one day, Jesus comes to town.

And Zacchaeus wants to know who this guy really is.

He’s heard the rumors about what Jesus has said to rich guys. That it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. And so, Zacchaeus wants to see this threat to his business but he doesn’t want to be near it. So, he doesn’t find just a hillside near the parade route, no he climbs a tree. To keep himself and his wallet out of Jesus’ reach.

But then like a middle school teacher who knows exactly which kid is avoiding his eye contact, Jesus marches right over to Zacchaeus, calls him by name, and says, “You come down. For I am going to your house today.” And then somewhere between the opening of the blinds and emptying the pockets and a little shame-only-Son-of-God-can elicit, Zacchaeus comes to his senses. He sees the error of his ways – his betrayal of his people through his loyalty to the Roman Empire as a tax collector and now he’s ready to turn his life around. Just like that. To give away half of his possessions, and to pay back four times what he has wrongfully taken from the people.

And now we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Salvation has come to this house, Jesus says. Zacchaeus has figured out his life and will not wreak havoc on the community anymore. Amen. Alleluia. Go and do likewise. Amen. We can all go home, happily ever after.

It is a classic bad guy turns good guy, morality tale about not being greedy but being generous instead. And if only you, people of God, could be more like Zacchaeus by getting your life together and figuring out that it is better to be generous than greedy, then you too might receive your reward – God’s promised salvation.

We love this story. We tell this story all the time. We tell it through cinema. We tell it through tv shows. We tell this story through the Bible. We tell it in church. We love tell this story. Especially around Stewardship Season.

But this isn’t Stewardship Sunday.

Today is All Saints Day. A day when we speak the truth – about people and God. The truth about life and about death. And what if this isn’t the truth about Zacchaeus. What if life is more complicated than that and there is more to his story?  What if his rumored reputation was just that – a rumor?

You see, when Zacchaeus says to Jesus, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much,” we all think it is this moment of conversion. A change of heart. Zacchaeus is a new man. And we rejoice at his generosity that goes above and beyond what the law would have expected.

Except that’s not what Zacchaeus says.

Not according to the grammar of the sentence.

You see, all the verbs in that sentence are not future tense – “I will do these things now…” – but rather they are all present tense verbs. “Lord, I already do these things.”[1]

“Lord, I already give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I defraud anyone, I pay them back four times as much. I’m not who they say I am. They think they know me, but they don’t. That’s not who I am, Lord.”

You see, the people thought they knew Zacchaeus.  We thought we knew Zacchaeus. So, they whispered about him around town. To tarnish and solidify his false reputation.

“Hey, you see that guy over there? Zacchaeus. Yeah, he’s a chief tax collector. That’s how bad he is.” Chief tax collector, which, as it turns out, is a made-up term. It doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Bible or in all of Greek Literature.

Zacchaeus has quite literally been labeled by a made-up term. Pushed to the margins. He’s out. Ruined. Cancelled. Everyone thought they knew Zacchaeus. Yet, nobody knew him. Not really.

And if you have ever been whispered about, misunderstood, given a bad name, then you know that you’ve got a couple of options to survive. You can push back. Get defensive. Argue your case. Or you can give into the reputation and take it on as your own – you can puff out your chest and strut through the school and try to look like you’re proud of who they say you are and what you’ve done.

Or you can wait. And keep your head down. Be who you know you are and wait for the chance for someone to get to know the real you.

Zacchaeus waited. He kept going to work. He kept giving away half of his possessions. He kept walking in the shadows of those who did not know him.

But then he heard a rumor of his own. That Jesus of Nazareth, friend of tax collectors, was coming through town. Friend of tax collectors.

Zacchaeus had no clue who this Jesus was, but the thought… just the thought of a friend was enough to catch his breath.

Misunderstood, scorned, lonely Zacchaeus had to know who this Jesus was. He had to because the possibility of a friend was just enough hope to keep him going.

But when Zacchaeus stepped outside, just like any other crowd gathering in Jericho, he was pushed to the back. The crowd was thick and he couldn’t see a thing.

But that didn’t stop him. Zacchaeus had to see Jesus. He just had too. Even if the crowd wouldn’t let him through. And so, motivated by a hope he hadn’t felt in years, he improvised. He found another way.

Last week, we heard Jesus say, “Let the children come to me…” That only those who receive the kingdom of God like a child can enter it.

Well, it doesn’t get more child-like then climbing a tree.

But that’s what Zacchaeus does. He’s desperate to catch a glimpse of this Jesus, he sees his chance, that tall sycamore off to the side of the road and he takes it.

“Zacchaeus” by maryinasia

Running to the tree, he grabs the lowest limb and launches one foot into the air and over. Which can’t look very dignified or classy in a tunic. But Zacchaeus doesn’t care. He just wondered how the world might look from up so high. One foot after the other, one branch then to another, Zacchaeus climbed higher and higher.[2]

But on the ground, it was a different story. Even though the crowd thought they had created enough of a barrier to protect their honored guest Jesus from encountering the town-embarrassment, and chief sinner Zacchaeus, they probably didn’t mind much this opportunity to see Zacchaeus making such a fool out of himself, hoisting his little body up that big tree. As preacher Anna Carter Florence said, “Maybe the crowd saw Zacchaeus…and laughed. And pointed. Until the whole crowd caught on and joined in.”[3] And suddenly Zacchaeus’ passionate search for Jesus was becoming a public spectacle. Isn’t it so funny? “Jericho’s least favorite son and lacky of Romans got treed.”[4]

But what they didn’t realize is that little Zacchaeus had climbed up so high that entire light of the Son of Man shined on his face.

The crowd tried to keep Zacchaeus in his place with big bodies to block his view, and loud laughter to loosen his grip, but what they crowd couldn’t do…is they couldn’t prevent the Son of Man from scanning the trees for those dangling out on a limb of life that’s about to give way.  Zacchaeus climbed up to see Jesus, but it was Jesus who saw him. And Jesus didn’t laugh.

“Zacchaeus,” Jesus called to him. A name which means “righteous.” Had anyone ever called him by name before?

“Zacchaeus, you come down. For I am going to your house today.”

And Jesus did. Much to the crowd’s dismay and offense.

And perhaps for the first time ever, Zacchaeus had a friend. Who would sit with him. And eat with him. And hear him out.

“I’m not who they think I am, Jesus.”

“I know,” Jesus says.

And then Jesus says to Zacchaeus, and to the crowd, I think, “Today, salvation has come to this house. For this Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham too.”

He is a son of Abraham too. “Too” – it might be the most important word in the whole story.[5]Because in that one word, Jesus restores not only Zacchaeus’ identity, but the identity of the crowd.

You are brothers and sisters. And Zacchaeus too.

You are sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah. And Zacchaeus too.

In that one word, Jesus has restored Zacchaeus and the crowd back into one community, one people. That is what salvation looks like. And todays, salvation has come to this house, Jesus says.

You know, in 8+ years of ordained ministry, I’ve lost count of how many funerals I’ve presided at. But over the years I’ve come to learn something about the living and the dead. We are rarely ever fully who people think we are.

I’ve sat around the table with the grieving family of a hometown hero, whom everyone in town loved. He knew everyone. This was his reputation. But scratch beneath the surface, and it turns out that no one really knew him. Especially his kids. He never let anyone behind the curtain of his life. Which left his adult children saying, “I don’t know if I ever really knew my dad.”

And I’ve sat around the table with the grieving family of someone who messed up their life at just about every turn. Bridges burned, addictions acquired, jobs lost. That was his reputation. But in the midst of all that, it turns out he was loyal friend to the forgotten. And wow, did he love his family deeply.

We are rarely ever fully who people think we are. As a pastor I’ve come to learn that we all are just trying to climb trees. Whether you are 6’ 3” or 5’1”, each one of us has moments where we just feel so small. Too short for the people around us to really see us. And, misunderstood, we can’t see the road up ahead. And so we try to climb trees, to see Jesus and to catch even a glimpse of God in our life.

And the best gift is that, whoever we are, whomever we have been – if we have been the ruthless scoundrel or the misunderstood outcast, or something in between, Jesus scans the trees. And he sees us. As we are. And then he calls us by name and calls us down. And he comes to our house. Because he will stop at nothing to restore us back into a community. A community of saints in this life and in the life beyond.

As Paul says, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Which means we always, always part of this community. For God loses nothing that God loves.[6] That is what salvations looks like.

In so many of the stories in the gospel of Luke, we are left to wonder, what happened next?? Did the lawyer questioning Jesus learn from the Samaritan what it looks like to love their neighbor? Did the prodigal son’s older brother ever join the party? And today’s story is no different. What happened to Zacchaeus? What happened to the crowd? Did they welcome him back in as a son and a brother? Did they every become friends? We don’t know.

But that is the question we are left with.

On this All Saints Day, the question is not only will we honor those who have gone before us, but will we honor those saints who are still before us.

Look around.

We all are just trying to climb trees. To see Jesus. May we see him in the faces of one another. That is what salvation looks like. Amen.

[1] Amy Jill-Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel Luke, New Cambridge Bible Commentary.

[2] This is a subtle quote of the song “For Forever”, from the musical Dear Evan Hansen.

[3] Anna Carter Florence, Westminster Presbyterian In Minneapolis, MN, at the Festival of Homiletics in May 2019.

[4] Ibid.

[5] This insight is from Dan Geslin, from the one of the best Bible Study groups around, Manna and Mercy Text Study, at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Northfield, MN.

[6] Bonhoeffer.