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October 31, 2004
The Meal and The Table
Luke 19:1-10
"He entered Jericho and was passing through." Jericho was the last city before Jesus would arrive at Jerusalem, the destination of the most important journey of his life — his last journey. Luke punctuates his narrative of it with the word "way" — the "way" Jesus walked and to which he invited people (including us!) to join him. Jesus met many interesting people along that way, and Jericho would be no exception.
This journey had begun months earlier and miles ago, in the north of Palestine. It began 10 chapters ago in Luke, just after the Transfiguration, where Luke says, "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51) Luke devotes nearly half of his gospel to this journey!
Arriving in Jericho meant Jesus was near the end and Luke says, "he was passing through." Jesus' sense of urgency increased by knowing that the road rises steeply from the valley of Jericho to Mount Zion, and that the going would be rugged. Jesus had made this road the setting for his Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Luke sets the scene in the opening sentence, letting us know Jesus had no intention of stopping here, even though a large and curious crowd awaited him. In the second sentence he introduces Zacchaeus, a man with three strikes against him so far as his community's opinion was concerned: he was a tax collector, he was rich and he was short!
Though Zacchaeus usually stayed out of crowds, he was curious to see Jesus. Celebrity-watching was popular then too. Because he was too short to see over the crowd, he gained a better view by climbing a tree.
No one noticed this hated little man, and you wouldn't expect Jesus to notice him either, as he inched his way along the narrow street cajoled by the inquisitive, importuned by the sick and poor and jostled by the curious. But Jesus did notice the little guy in the tree. He stopped and called Zacchaeus by name.
Did Jesus know Zacchaeus? Maybe — maybe personally, but maybe by reputation. Whatever the case, Jesus could see by the clothes he wore that he was better off than most, most likely because he was — a tax collector!
Jesus sized him up in a single glance! Had Jesus trained himself to be on the lookout for the unexpected? Were his eyes always wandering, scanning the edges of a crowd, roof tops, dark doorways, tree limbs? Nothing important seemed ever to escape his notice!
What were his restless eyes looking for? What was important to Jesus? According to Luke, there were three kinds of people for whom Jesus would interrupt Sabbath observance, or an urgent task, or a trip. Jesus paid attention to —
- people with afflictions,
- social outcasts (women, lepers, Samaritans, tax collectors)
- and people who were interested in him (such as the woman with the hemorrhage who touched his cloak, people who asked him questions, and people watching from trees).
However he did it, Jesus did notice Zacchaeus crouching unceremoniously on that limb. In characteristic manner, Jesus stopped and called, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."
"Stay"? I thought Jesus was just passing through. Now he's inviting himself to stay at an outcast's house. Without warning Jesus switched priorities, changed his schedule and postponed the last leg of the most important journey of his life — in order to socialize! And remember, staying at Zacchaeus' house meant sharing a meal at his table.
Jesus was immediately confronted by two additional distractions:
- "All who saw it began to grumble… because he was going to be the guest of a sinner." (In that day, you had to be really careful about whose table you sat down at, and about whom you ate with. There was no greater social offense than to eat with a person beyond the pale of social acceptance.)
- Zacchaeus, surprised and pleased by Jesus' self-invitation, nonetheless reverted to a deeply ingrained default program of excusing himself of the guilt on which his life was based: "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor — and, and, uh. if I have defrauded anyone, I will pay back fourfold!"
These were powerful sentiments in that day, as they are today — so powerful that any of us would have responded to them: most of us would have defended ourselves against the grumblers and would have encouraged Zacchaeus in his good intentions. Jesus, however, had interrupted his journey for one purpose only and he would not be deterred: he was going to share a meal at the home of this tax collector and he didn't care about Zacchaeus' reputation, or the size of the table, or the kind of house it was in, or the disapproval of the crowd, or the self-justification of his new host. He cared about the meal!
Jesus ignored the opinions of those around him and Zacchaeus' protestations. He didn't care that Zacchaeus' reputation, character, house and table didn't meet the standards of the day. He wanted to get to the main event, a meal with this tax collector and to the shocking demonstration it would be of the Good News of God's inclusive love!
Brushing past the crowd's grumbling and Zacchaeus' reparations, Jesus said, "Today salvation has come to this house, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost!"
Today is Reformation Sunday, when we commemorate a revolution in church history from concern for the trappings of faith and ministry (such as the size, grandeur, shape and worth of the Table and of the church in which it is housed) to a focus on the Meal served on that Table or on any Table where all are welcome in His name!
The First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids is in the midst of a campaign (and of a building that is currently in a mess!) to fix some fundamental problems with the infra-structure of this building, and to make it a facility that will be what we can call a more attractive Table — a Magnet for Ministry — to which people from all over metropolitan Cedar Rapids and this part Iowa will be drawn. A Table functioning as a Magnet!
Reformation Sunday is an appropriate day to remind ourselves of the characteristics of Magnets and of Tables:
- Magnets are not as important as what they attract;
- Tables are not as important as the meals served on them.
Magnets attract lots of differences: you should be more interested in some and less in-terested in others. If you are indeed to be a Magnet Church, what criteria will you use to sort out those who come? For whom will you be especially on the lookout? You should take your clue from the Lord you serve, having already noted that from among those he attracted Jesus looked especially for people with afflictions, people genuinely interested in him and social outcasts.
We have also noted that Jesus rejected the complaints of those who disapproved of his welcome of outcasts — and he rejected Zacchaeus' preoccupation with guilt and unworth-iness. Jesus criterion for welcoming people was the simple question, Do you want to eat a meal with me?
When you are a Magnet for Ministry, you take on yourselves the burden of making such judgments, engaging in such discernment.
Tables are infinitely less important as the Meal served on them. Surely this congregation needs a refurbished and improved facility for ministry, a more attractive Table to which to welcome the community around you. Not only does good stewardship of your resources and opportunities call for it, but you have it well within your capacity to do it — and you're well along the way to making your dream a reality! Good for you!
But, on this Reformation Sunday, I remind you of what you already know — that when this huge effort is over, you will be tempted to be more impressed by and devoted to the Table you've built than to the meal Christ offers on it. That would be a great tragedy, one that the Christian Church has repeated over and over again throughout its long history.
People (including you) are lastingly drawn not to Magnet Churches or to the Tables they house but to the liberating, joyful and inclusive Meal and Gospel offered here!
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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