Sermon by the Rev. Dr James Currall

On Thursday, I was at a packed Church and Academy session at which Scott Robertson (who many of you will know) was suggesting that atheists are our theological allies. A rather unlikely proposition one might think at first glance. Thursday, as I am sure you will remember was Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve (hallows meaning saints). Traditionally a time of festivity, telling of scary stories and so on. As Sandy Montgomerie, Scott and myself made our way through Glasgow, it seemed as though we were the only people not dressed up - if you don’t count clerical collars as ‘dressed up’.

Now dressed as I am this morning, you might think that I have a bit of a nerve to speak about other people being dressed rather oddly, but we were surrounded by people dressed very oddly indeed and there does seem to be a trend away from dressing up as ghosts and skeletons and witches and so on - all of which have some vague connection with the season of Hallowmas, when we remember those who have gone before us, to just dressing up as anything or nothing, colourfully, imaginatively and perhaps rather different to usual party-wear. So I leave you to imagine three rather conservatively dressed clerics surrounded by colour and glamour and muttering ‘bah humbug’ in a way that Scrooge would undoubtedly have approved of.

Thursday evening came towards the end of what, for me and I suspect for many of you, was a rather difficult week. It is the time in the liturgical year when we remember the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all those that we have loved but who we see no more. But in St Aidan’s the shock of Neil’s death makes the significance of this season all the more immediate and all the more challenging.

It is into this context that we read today’s Gospel. In it we meet Zacchaeus the chief tax collector. A story that you are probably very familiar with. The problem with familiar stories, is that they can lose their power, through our familiarity with them and because we have a tendency to ‘domesticate’ or ‘sanitise’ them, to make them more comfortable and to fit with the way that we think that the world ought to be. But before I go on, I would ask you to reflect for a moment on who you identify with in this story, where do you fit in?

To the story. First a word about tax collection in the Roman Empire. The Romans didn’t collect their own taxes, they recruited locals to gather the taxes for them. They didn’t pay these people, who therefore obtained their ‘reward’ by collecting more than what was due and pocketing the difference. Chief tax collectors did much the same thing, except that they were getting their take by overcharging the regular tax collectors. Tax collectors were hated by everyone around, so this man though very rich had few, if any, friends - remember he even swindled other tax collectors.

So Zacchaeus is a friendless, corrupt and ruthless chief tax collector, whose purpose that day was to see this man that everyone was talking about. Zacchaeus is short in stature and so he shins up a sycamore tree to get a look at Jesus as he passes by. Surprisingly as he comes to the spot, Jesus looks up into the tree and calls Zacchaeus by name and tells him to come down because He wishes to stay at his house.

Enter the second character - the other people in the crowd. They cannot stand Zacchaeus. Just imagine their outrage that Jesus - this healer, this miracle worker who attracts crowds wherever he goes, chooses to address himself to this contemptible scoundrel. This is outrageous behaviour. This man surely has a first class ticket straight to hell.

At this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is making what turns out to be his final journey to Jerusalem, in order to celebrate the Passover with his disciples. Under such circumstances he should be keeping himself ritually pure not taking hospitality from someone who is perhaps quite rightly shunned by society, who has just thought about himself and trampled on everyone else in the process, causing pain, sorrow and hardship. Such a person clearly has no place in the Kingdom of God - or do they?

This is a shocking story, but has it lost the power to shock us? Have we domesticated it such that we don’t see the scandalous nature of the way that Jesus treats him? When I asked you just now, did you identify with Zacchaeus, or with the crowd or with Jesus, what did you think? I’ll be honest if a similar situation occurs on Monday at work or in my community, my first response is likely to be more aligned to that of the crowd than Jesus or Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus climbs the tree because of his lack of stature - perhaps not only in height, but also in social terms, in vision and in moral outlook. His purpose is to see Jesus the man, but he gets more than he bargained for. He gets to see nothing less than God. He gets to experience God’s absolutely unconditional acceptance of those who seek after Him, even though they might not realise that that is what they are doing.

Some commentators suggest that Zacchaeus’s indication that he gives half of his possessions to the poor and pays back four-fold everyone that he has defrauded indicates that he is repentant and that this is a classic case of repentance followed by forgiveness. I respectfully suggest that this misses the point completely. I do not see a shred of direct evidence in this passage that Zacchaeus is repentant. Aside from the fact that his wealth is based entirely on defrauding people he would need four times his wealth to make good this reckless promise. He is just acting as you might expect someone who has been caught red-handed doing something that they ought not to be doing.

This is not the first time that Jesus has singled out someone who is at the margins of society, not the first time that he has dined with sinners, not the first time that he has met people where they are, however low they have sunk. This is not the first time that Jesus has responded in shocking or unexpected ways.

Jesus sees Zacchaeus, like the rest of the people as children of Abraham, children of God, never beyond redemption.

“Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

In so doing Jesus is showing us how God takes the initiative, God makes the first move. The only thing that we need to do is, like Zacchaeus, we have to be alert enough to see that God is making the move, to be aware of God acting in our lives and the lives of those around us and to respond to that action. God leads, we follow.

What happened to Zacchaeus is simply not credible when judged by the cause and effect standards of the world but as Jesus said in the previous chapter “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”

Perhaps the lesson of Luke 19:1-10 for us this week is that God’s action in the world will likely come in ways that might take us by surprise, that might outrage us at their apparent unfairness, that might shock us, in their unexpectedness or their suddenness. Remembering the words of Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” we need to be open to the possibility that God’s purposes may be served by people dressing up in outlandish costume on All Hallows Eve and enjoying themselves. We need to be open to the possibility that God’s purposes may be served in the timing of His calling of a child of Abraham into His near presence.

Today, as we remember one that we have loved and who we see no more we also remember that it is Christ who is able to hold out resurrection hope from the darkness and pain of loss. May Neil’s soul rest in peace and rise in Glory. Amen.