Luke 19:1-10
Presented November 4th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
In her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, Diana Butler Bass seeks to explode the myth that the only growing churches in America today are mega-churches or those who embrace a rigidly evangelical perspective. Butler Bass examines church life in a number of mainline Protestant congregations that are exhibiting significant vitality and growth, and she highlights critical qualities of the spiritual life displayed in their congregational life. First on her list is hospitality.
Hospitality may well conjure up images of little more than a series of social graces performed with the intention of convincing persons to consider church membership. But the kind of hospitality displayed by lively congregations is not simply a recruitment strategy; it is a way of life. It is seeking to welcome others as graciously we ourselves have been welcomed into the fullness of God’s love through encounter with Jesus. Welcome one another, asserts the apostle Paul, just as Christ welcomed you (Romans 15:7). In his book Reaching Out Henri Nouwen defines hospitality as a matter of creating space where a stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. The space created is holy space, and it is offered, not with the intent of compelling the stranger to change so that he or she meets our criteria, but rather, it is a matter of offering a place where transforming encounter with God’s grace might occur.
The familiar story of Jesus encountering Zacchaeus serves as a model of hospitality. In Luke’s Gospel the story falls near the end of Jesus’ lengthy journey toward Jerusalem. Were Jesus primarily interested in making good time as he journeyed from Galilee to Jerusalem, he certainly would not have detoured through Jericho, especially since the road from Jericho to Jerusalem involves a steep, winding, and challenging ascent. But Jesus does indeed go out of his way, and while in Jericho he goes out of his way yet another time, as he reaches out to the despised tax collector who has climbed a sycamore tree, the better to catch sight of Jesus.
Tax collectors in ancient Palestine, you may recall, were viewed as the lowest of the low, traitorous and generally corrupt agents of the oppressive Romans. As chief tax collector, Zacchaeus likely was both extremely wealthy and extremely corrupt, by virtue of his position free to keep a portion of the money collected by all the subordinate tax officials in the entire Jericho region. But reading between the lines, one senses that all of Zacchaeus’ money provides precious little satisfaction. Was it mere curiosity that prompted Zacchaeus to seek to catch a glimpse of Jesus, or was there perhaps, deep within him, an unnamed yearning for something more in life? Indeed, was it not an act of considerable risk for Zacchaeus to venture, alone and unprotected, into a crowd that could easily recognize him as hated agent of the Romans?
New Testament scholar William Barclay suggests that many in the anonymity of the crowd would not hesitate to nudge or push or even kick Zacchaeus, so that by the time he climbs the tree, he may well have been black and blue with bruises. Not just because he is short of stature does Zacchaeus scale the tree, but even more, Zacchaeus is seeking a safe and guarded place. Yet once there, is not the hated tax collector even more vulnerable? Consider what could happen, should an angry victim catch sight of Zacchaeus up in the tree, and with a howl of delight turn the excitable crowd upon him with vengeance. Indeed, it may well have been the taunts of the crowd that initially draws the attention of Jesus to Zacchaeus in the tree.
For this reason and more, it is an intriguing story. Truth be told, it is a rather surprising story to be found in Luke’s Gospel, for seldom do the wealthy fare well, according to Luke’s remembrance of Jesus’ ministry. “Woe to you who are rich,” Jesus cries out in the Sermon on the Plain (6:24). And then there’s the parable in which Jesus labels a rich farmer a fool because the farmer can think of nothing but his own personal gain. Yet another parable portrays a rich man who dies and goes to Hades, while Lazarus, the poor beggar who long sat unnoticed at the rich man’s gate, is carried to the bosom of Abraham. In Mary’s joyful song, proclaimed in anticipation of her giving birth to Jesus, God is celebrated for “bring[ing] down the powerful from their thrones, and lift[ing] the lowly; [God] has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:52-53). And after watching the rich young ruler turn away sorrowfully, Jesus observes, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven!” (18:24).
Nevertheless, Jesus reaches out to Zacchaeus. There are no harsh words of judgment or recrimination, no badgering demand that Zacchaeus reform, no rigidly defined requirements for Zacchaeus to accept, before Jesus is willing to spend time with him. Rather, Jesus simply invites himself to the tax collector’s home, an action that both shocks and appalls the watching crowd. “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner,” grumbles and laments the crowd (19:7)—and not just any sinner, but a chief among sinners! Jesus, however, displays little interest in creating greater distance in relationship, little desire to hold another at arm’s distance. Indeed, all throughout his ministry, Jesus does the very opposite; again and again Jesus shows himself to be in the business of enlarging God’s realm. In a world far more accustomed to creating barriers, Jesus offers gracious and transforming hospitality. In a world of judgment and division, Jesus models radical acceptance and inclusion.
Zacchaeus is so touched by this unexpected grace and compassion, by this unmerited acceptance, that his life is literally turned upside down. Recognizing just how far Jesus has gone out of his way to include him, Zacchaeus is overcome, so much so that he vows to move in markedly new directions in life; Zacchaeus determines to transform long-held priorities. The old ways of self-centeredness, greed and isolation will simply no longer do. And so the tax collector announces, “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” (19:8).
Here’s the power of hospitality—this willingness to go out of our way to invite and welcome and include those who formerly felt themselves to be on the outside looking in, creating holy space where those who formerly felt themselves to be alienated and alone might now enter into community with us. It is a ministry of presence. Henri Nouwen puts it this way: “Ministry is the spiritual act of seeing and helping others see the face of a loving God even when nothing but darkness seems to be present.” For Zacchaeus, it was the darkness of isolation, living amidst a community, yet clearly separated from it, treated as both outcast and hated enemy. For some among us, it may be the darkness that comes from living with a veil over us, from living with the unspoken reality of an abusive relationship, or a crippling addiction, or the fear of being upfront about one’s sexual orientation. For others among us, it may be the darkness of grief, sorrow, uncertainty, pain. For still others, it may be the fear of rejection, the fear of moving forth in new directions, the fear that we will never experience greater fulfillment than now. Whatever the source of our inner darkness, in the face of genuine hospitality we are invited to step into the light, to let go of our hurts and our fears, to accept the warm embrace of God’s gracious love in Christian community.
Clarence Jordan, noted for his founding of the interracial Koinonia community in Americus, Georgia back in the 1940s, once observed the powerful link between incarnation—God taking flesh in us and among us—and evangelism, inviting and welcoming others into the faith. Indeed, Jordan once wrote that we do not have “a right to bear witness to that which we do not experience.” Hospitality, then, is a two-way street. The one who extends hospitality finds his or her own faith experiences deepened and enriched. The Catholic writer and activist Joan Chittister once asserted, “Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts. Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves.” Along the way, we discover that the distinction between host and guest, between resident and stranger—this distinction becomes blurred.
Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon tell a powerful story in their book Resident Aliens of a woman who was assaulted in her own backyard in the middle of the day. The woman’s pastor urged her to undergo therapy, as one means for dealing with the deep trauma caused by the attack. Some weeks into the therapy the woman’s counselor suggested that she tell someone other than her immediate family and her pastor about the experience. “Who are thinking you would like to tell?” asked her pastor, when she talked about the therapist’s suggestion. Responded the woman, “I think I would like to tell Sam Smith,” a sometimes recovering alcoholic in the congregation. The pastor was a bit taken aback because he assumed she would prefer telling another woman, or at least a man who was a bit more “together” than Sam. But when he asked, “Why Sam?” the woman responded, “Because Sam has been to hell and back. I think he will know what it has felt like for me to go there. Perhaps he can tell me how to get back.”
Sometimes hospitality—inviting others into our lives, into our fears every bit as much as our faith, into our horrors as well as our hopes—sometimes this kind of hospitality can appear scandalous. Yet this kind of hospitality and welcome demands courage, honesty, and spiritual openness. This kind of hospitality requires strength, not weakness. Lutheran writer and theologian Martin Marty once observed,
In a world where strangers meet strangers with gunfire, barrier walls, spiritually landmined paths, the spirit of revenge, and the record of intransigence, it sounds almost dainty to come on the scene and urge that hospitality has a strong and promising place.
Dainty though it may at first sound, hospitality is a key quality of the spiritual life. Congregations that display vitality and life are congregations willing to risk the scandal of hospitality—inviting and welcoming even those who live on the edge of society, those who may well have been to hell and back, those who are hoping beyond hope for a taste of compassion, community, and peace. To the surrounding crowds, Jesus’ inviting welcome to Zacchaeus appeared scandalous, but for Zacchaeus, it was an invitation that carried with it the promise of a new hope, a new comfort, a new way of living. Zacchaeus received the gracious words of invitation as words of freedom and new life.
May the same be true for us. May we find the courage and strength to embrace and offer the gift of hospitality. Amen.