4/11/07 (All Saints)
Luke 19:1-10
The words 'saint' and 'holy' are virtually the same in the languages the Bible was written in. They mean, literally, 'set apart'; something is holy if it is set apart for God's use, a saint is a person who is set apart for God. In the Old Testament the word 'saint' refers to any of God's chosen people, and that is taken up in the New Testament on the understanding that God's chosen people included not only Jews but also Gentiles, through faith in Jesus Christ. If you are one of God's people, you are holy, in the sense that you belong to God, you are set apart for him. You don't have to be a mature Christian, or a 'good' Christian; if you have committed yourself to Jesus, you belong to him, and you are a saint! The church has confused things by designating heroes and heroines of the faith as 'saints', but in New Testament times all Christians were saints. So Paul wrote one of his letters 'to the saints in Ephesus' (Ephesians 1:1), meaning all the Christians in Ephesus.
In Jesus' time there was a feeling that not all God's chosen race (the Jews) were really God's people. Some of them had deliberately chosen to work for the hated colonial power, the Romans. Some of them deliberately flouted God's laws, and lived as prostitutes or bandits. These were lumped together as 'tax-collectors and sinners', and were regarded as outside the law, and therefore not God's people. Zacchaeus was one of these.
Jesus turns all their thinking upside down. When he saw the sinner Zacchaeus up in the tree, he saw a saint - albeit a saint who had gone astray. He was lost, but he was still a 'son of Abraham', who needed to come back to the God to whom he belonged.
Notice how Jesus says nothing to make Zacchaeus feel bad about his sinfulness. Zacchaeus had done wrong , as he admits later in the story. Jesus knew his name, and knew exactly who he was. Nevertheless, his first words to Zacchaeus were to invite himself to stay. In those days that would have been a great honour; even today, in many cultures it is the host who feels honoured by the presence of a guest, rather than the other way round. So when Jesus invited himself and his disciples, he was doing the sinner Zacchaeus a great honour.
That scandalized those who regarded themselves as true saints. God's people were supposed to be 'set apart' from sin; yet here Jesus was inviting himself into a sinner's home. He was honouring sin! He would be contaminated by contact with a sinner! How could he who claimed to come from God do such a thing?
This is grace at work. Grace is always scandalous. But notice the result: Zacchaeus was transformed. His transformation was not just a 'religious' conversion; his whole life was converted, including that part which was most precious to him - his finances. His 'repentance' is a fine example of what true repentance is: it is a response to grace, and it involves not only a turning away from sin but also an attempt to put right what had been done wrong, to make restitution where that is possible. Zacchaeus turned from selfishness to generosity. A sinner was now a true saint.
Questions:
1) Where do we see grace at work today?
2) How can we learn to see people with the eyes of Jesus?