Half
Luke 19:1-10

November 4, 2007


There have been accusations that the church bulletin boards at Victoria and Lorne are engaged in sermon title wars. I doubt it, but at least on this side of the corner our sign never runs out of letters. But today I’ll challenge a smidge the title diagonally placed to ours, “Saint in a Tree.” Of course, it’s talking about Zacchaeus, and it is All Saints Sunday. There were some saints up a tree in early Christianity, given the designation of “dendrites” from the Greek word “dendron” for tree. They spent years living in a tree to get away from the difficulty of being with people and by being a few meters or so closer to God. They were saints, but very odd.

Zacchaeus, however, has never been confused for a saint. Finding himself in a tree was a practical, seemingly absent-minded choice of this Jericho tax-collector, certainly not a dignified location for such an otherwise powerful man. Not being tall he couldn’t see over the crowds, but desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of holiness. Here is a disturbed sinner who desires to change his stripes. Something is going on here.

We have our standards of what saints ought to be and ought to be about. Granted, in the Protestant traditions there is no formal category of saint, Luther and others having problems with the way saints were employed tended to throw the saints out with the bath water. There are lots of people we have looked upon with admiration as true saints, although we have tended to identify them only once they have adopted particular habits and ways of life. Zacchaeus still is not counted in their number.

Zacchaeus is a number in an isolated early Christian church. The spiritual leader of a congregation in a small town probably in northeastern Iraq in the Sasanian Persian Empire of the late 300’s wrote 30 sermons called the Book of Steps. If you were a Christian in the Persian Empire, you were always suspected of being at heart a Roman sympathizer, Christianity being the state religion of the enemy Roman Empire. Bloody persecutions occurred periodically, perhaps the worst under the direction of the Emperor Shapur II and the Zoroastrian establishment during the middle of the fourth century.

It is true that being a Christian in many Middle Eastern countries today is risky business, but you and I may understand the dilemma better by looking at how Muslims in Regina and Canada are perceived on the day after the latest bombing.

This Persian Christian faith community understood its membership to be divided between two groups. The first was called the Upright or the Just, lay people who lived and worked and had families just like their non-Christian neighbours. The Upright performed all the traditional acts of Christian charity - feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, maintaining the church. They were married and used their income to minister to the world and to support the higher level of this community known as the Perfect. The Perfect were not yet monks, but they were celibate, did not work or own a home, prayed incessantly and occasionally would mediate in a village dispute. They were not so much perfect as spiritually mature and a major gap existed between the two levels.

This arrangement is not unfamiliar. Churches, religious communities, governments, corporations, educational institutions prefer a hierarchical ranking of its personnel. Elders, deacons, ordained clergy are the only ones allowed to do certain tasks and those lower are expected to be supportive - and not attempt to appropriate either the higher order’s jobs or privileges.

Along the way, the spiritual leader starts seeing that many of his Perfect ones are not so perfect - they are slackers, don’t pray that much, love being served by others and not having to work, are ambitious for power. About the same time he noticed that more than a few of the Upright lay members were actually pretty good, well disciplined, giving generously of their time and money to genuinely help those in need. They were almost Perfect!

He kept encouraging them to keep going, to continue in their spiritual journeys, and as a consequence, this author had to rewrite in midstream his description of the Christian life. On second thought, it was no longer a bad idea to be married with a family, to work and labour in this world and have possessions and income, using that income not for one’s own comfort and ease and gluttony, but for the sake of serving people and God. After all, Abraham was married, had four wives, herds of cattle and sheep, gold and silver overflowing, yet who doubts Abraham as the essential founder of our faith, the man who first really followed God?

Oh, the pastor kept nudging, you’re almost there to Perfection. If you would just give up your spouse you’d have it made. That was not a popular solution, but surprisingly the pastor seemed to back off.

In the 30th and last sermon, in the 27th of 29 paragraphs - not short sermons - he concludes with the story of Zacchaeus to demonstrate that the Upright lay people had the right stuff even while living fully in this greedy, violent, egotistical world. It is possible to be holy, to be a saint, while mucking around in this sinful world. This author wrinkles the story by half.

“[Jesus] did not say to him, ‘Unless you leave your wife and your house and your children and empty yourself from everything you own, you will not be saved.’ Look, the response of Zacchaeus makes it clear that our Lord admonished him in such a way that he need not empty himself, because he knew that he could not reach the power of that great portion. Zacchaeus said, ‘Everyone whom I have cheated I will repay four-fold, and half of my wealth only I will give to the poor.’ See, while he did not say to our Lord, ‘I will abandon everything I have,’ our Lord did say the following to him, ‘Today salvation has come into this house’.... But whoever gives to the poor half of his wealth while not defrauding anyone, look, is he not greater than Zacchaeus, who was called righteous? When he gave two portions of his wealth, look, does not he grow greater still? Whoever gives all he possesses to the poor and the strangers, look, is [that person] not better and greater?” Just add one little “only”!

Hey, that’s a bargain. You don’t have to be a saint to be a saint. All God requires of you is only half of your stuff. You can keep the rest and keep your spouse - who will generally be happy about that! - eat normal food, work at a satisfying job, have some money in your pocket, just the rest of the time give yourself away. Not for glory or power or prestige, but for unadulterated love of God and therefore of human beings. Note the preacher never quite gets around to praising Zacchaeus full tilt. It’s easy for you to top what he’s doing, but God isn’t interested in selecting the elite, the holiest ones, but anyone who gives herself only half away with glee, like Zacchaeus. I sing a song of the saints of God, and I mean to be one too!

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan