“lost & Found”

October 30, 2022 • Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Luke 19:1-10
Rev. Gerald C. Liu, Minister in Residence, COTV, guest preacher

[You can view the full worship video recording at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRQw-qSRlo

Good morning Village people. It’s good to be back with you. I was last here for a funeral remembering a beloved son. For those of you who may not recognize me, I’m Gerald Liu. I’m a United Methodist minister ordained in the Mississippi Annual Conference. I have been a Minister-in-Residence at COTV since 2014. I live not too far from the church at the corner of West 9th and 6th Ave., where Jefferson Market Library is if you know where that is. I also bring you greetings from the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, where I work to resource about 200 United Methodist campus ministries. I want to thank QuiShaun, Jorge, Pastor Jeff, Katie, and Jim for their contributions in planning worship today. And my thanks to everyone listed and unlisted in today’s order of worship who 2 helped make the service what it is today. I am grateful to you and grateful that you are all here and online. Thank you.

Will you pray with me?

Prayer:

Almighty and merciful God, we first pray for the lives lost in South Korea. [silence] And we also recognize that it is only by the gift of your mercy, grace, and love that we are saved. May our benevolence to others resemble yours; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

I’m a convert to Christianity and I was born and raised in Mississippi. My parents are culturally Buddhist immigrants from Taiwan. It’s a longer story, but my dad earned a PhD in educational psychology from Iowa State in Aimes. My mom emigrated first to Canada with an associates degree in nursing. She met my dad because her oldest brother was getting his MBA at Iowa State and a good friend of my dad’s. Fast forwarding, after my oldest brother was born, I’m the youngest of 3, my dad’s first and last teaching job was at Jackson State University, a Historically Black College and University in Jackson, Mississippi. That’s how we ended up there. I lived in the same house in Clinton, MS, a suburb about 3 miles outside of Jackson until I was 17. I still go back to Mississippi for Methodist meetings, but I haven’t lived there since I was a kid.

Clinton is also where the oldest college in Mississippi is, Mississippi College.

Mississippi College, or MC, is the alma mater of a man named Bernie Ebbers, a telecommunications tycoon. He founded WorldCom. The headquarters of WorldCom was built in Clinton. But WorldCom was a telecommunications version of Enron. Ebbers was one of the worst CEO’s in American history because he led a $3.9 billion fraud. The WorldCom buildings are now a deserted, but really nice, office park up for sale if anyone is interested.

Our story today from Luke is not about a disgraced CEO named Bernie. But it is about a Biblical character as or more despised, a tax collector named Zacchaeus. And I think all of us can think of a modern day equivalent of Zacchaeus or our own Bernie. If we can’t name anyone in particular, just bring to mind anger with the IRS, social services, a utilities company, a broadband or insurance provider, a hospital network, the MTA, an airline, a website or social media platform, a store, a restaurant, a bank, a hedgefund, an internet mogul, a political figure or party, your landlord, your boss, a family member, the church, people who live in the St. Vincent condos across the street. I don’t know. It’s your recollection. The main thing is don't hold back. Think of someone or some organization you despise. God forbid, maybe some of us are tax collectors. If you are, you’ve made it to the right place this morning and we love and welcome you. But before I go on about Zacchaeus, let me say a little more about my upbringing in MS.

Conversion or being saved was a very big deal in Clinton, MS.

Because my parents were culturally Buddhist, essentially nonpracticing agnostics, which I guess is very Buddhist, I and my brothers converted to Christianity.

Here’s how it happened for me. I was invited to a Christian music concert by my friend, David. It was not a rock show. It was something like a community orchestra. They called themselves ‘Truth.’ The concert happened in a small Southern Baptist Chapel. There was an altar call at the end. Everyone stood up and went forward. My friend David went too. I looked around and thought, ‘shoot, there goes my ride home.’ So I went forward too, not because I was moved by the Spirit. I was afraid I was being abandoned. We were escorted down to the basement of the church and given trifold tracts. When you opened up the brochure, there was a picture of two cliffs. One cliff was ‘sinful man.’ The other cliff was ‘heaven.’ Jesus was the bridge from one to the other with outstretched arms.

A couple of weeks later another friend, Aaron Holleyman invited me to a different Southern Baptist Church for Sunday morning worship. Aaron, by the way, later died in Iraq as an adult leaving a wife and 3 children behind. God rest his soul.

The preacher that morning delivered a classic line that I would never preach or teach. He said, ‘If you died tonight, are you gonna go to heaven or hell?’ Well, I was 11 years old. I didn’t want to go to hell. So I bowed my head in my pew. I silently prayed a 3-step prayer that the preacher outlined. I admitted I was a sinner. I admitted I needed Jesus. I accepted Jesus into my heart and that was that.

The concert with David and the morning worship service with Aaron were how I got saved. And it all stuck. My first book was about music as a proclamation of God.

In our passage from Luke, the despised tax collector, Zacchaeus also gets saved. But he isn’t escorted into the basement of a Southern Baptist Church and given Christian cartoon propaganda to contemplate. He isn’t scared into converting with a Sunday morning sermon about fire insurance. He doesn’t pray a sinner’s prayer. The salvation of Zacchaeus was nothing like mine. Jesus calls him, and here’s how it happens.

Jesus comes to Jericho. Jericho is not a Southern town. It’s just northwest of the Dead Sea in Israel, in what we call today the West Bank. In the older testament, Jericho is significant because it’s the first site that the Israelites conquer as they make their way to Canaan. You may recall Joshua and the battle of Jericho in Joshua 6 where the wall comes tumbling down after a trumpet blast and a collective scream. In the New Testament and our passage from Luke, Jericho is still populated by Jews, descendants of the older testament Israelites. But the Jews in Luke are no longer conquerors. They’re ruled by Romans.

Still, Luke shows us how Jericho is still a place where Jews are saved.

Who Zacchaeus is…

Zacchaeus is a Jew. But he’s a tax collector. He collects money from his own people to sustain the Roman Empire. To put it another way, if we analogize Roman Rule with a structural sin like White supremacy and the oppression of biblical Jews with racism against African Americans, Zacchaeus might be characterized as an ‘Uncle Tom,’ a guy betraying his own people. Or, if I framed it within Asian American betrayal, Zacchaeus might be cast as a ‘twinkie,’ yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. He looks the part, but serves the master. You get my drift?

How important Zacchaeus is… Yet Zacchaeus isn’t any ol’ twinkie or regular tax collector. He’s a chief tax collector. He was like a CEO. In Greek, the word to describe his status is architelōnēs, and it only appears once in the Bible, right here in Luke 19. And Zacchaeus is rich according to verse 2. But Zacchaeus doesn’t have it all. He’s short. He must climb a sycamore tree to see Jesus. American sycamores are more upright, cone shaped, and stately. The tree that 10 Zacchaeus would have climbed is burly with herculean branches.

The Village Parade…
Tomorrow is my all-time favorite parade, the Village Halloween Parade. I’ve climbed lampposts, scaffolding, old telephone booths, and benches just to catch the wonder of it all. We can imagine how awkward, embarrassing, and unprofessional climbing to see folks can be.

Jesus comes to Jericho…
Jesus comes to Jericho and Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see who this Jesus is. And in verse 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

Can you imagine something more horrifying? Jesus insisting that he needs to stay at the house of Bernie Ebbers, the WorldCom guy, or the crook you brought to mind, today?! And 11 think of it this way too. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul tells churches like us that we embody Christ. If we as the church embody Christ, can you imagine us as a congregation insisting that we stay at the townhome or mansion of some CEO swindler everybody despises? That’s scarier than Halloween. Well, Zacchaeus is thrilled and immediately jumps down to greet Jesus. Yet in verse 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” We can relate with the scorn of the crowds, right? Why him?!

Zacchaeus seems to wonder the same thing. I’m verse 8, he says to Jesus, ‘“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.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. Zacchaeus is remarkably saved in Jericho. He doesn’t give it all away. But he’s closer to God than ever before.

The name Zacchaeus is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name Zakkai, which means something like “innocent.” The crowd judges Zacchaeus. But Zacchaeus answers to God. Zacchaeus looks for Jesus, but the Messiah finds him - Verse 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Zacchaeus is lost and found.

Who do we seek out for our salvation, folks? As much as we despise tax collectors like Zacchaeus, we also lean on them for retirement or to battle inflation. We looked to the government to save us during the pandemic. The stimulus kept us from going broke if we got it, but did it deliver us? Did it save us? When will we discover that none of our elected officials have what it takes to rescue us?

Sunak…
Britain just elected their first Hindu and Asian prime minister. He’s a year younger than I am. All of that is amazing. But what qualified him for the job was working at Goldman Sachs and a 13 Stanford MBA and having fabulous wealth. And valuing those traits makes sense. Wouldn’t more money or someone who has it and knows how to get it really help us at COTV and in our personal lives? Let me be clear, I’m not judging Prime Minister Sunak. But I am questioning who we value and how we typically think of rescue by recommending who Zacchaeus is and what he does.

The difference with Zacchaeus is that his expertise as a tax collector doesn’t make him stand out, figuratively or literally. It makes him despised. Instead Zacchaeus is a singular figure in the New Testament because he is a tax collector transformed by Jesus.

That may sound minor, but the only person to refuse the call of Jesus was like Zacchaeus, except maybe wealthier, the rich young ruler just a chapter back in Luke 18. Why did the rich young ruler turn Jesus down? Because he had many possessions. Folks, I think we also too often confuse what Jesus offers and being blessed with what we or others got or having it all.

But do you wanna know what salvation is? It’s what happened to Zacchaeus. Receiving Jesus with gladness and giving like never before.

Zacchaeus isn’t…
Zacchaeus really isn’t an Uncle Tom. The actual character Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book is a Christian who is beaten to death because he refuses to give up the whereabouts of two hiding enslaved black women. No, Zacchaeus isn’t that tough. Zacchaeus isn’t a twinkie either, yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Zacchaeus is a tax collector who transforms his reputation and himself by turning his life’s work into divine payback after seeing and encountering Jesus. Zacchaeus never actually converts to Christianity. Jesus isn’t a Christian in the story either. They’re both Jews. Jesus calls Zacchaeus a son of Abraham like he is. But the vast difference is Zacchaeus needs Jesus in order to be saved.

Do we recognize our need for Jesus in order to be saved? If you’re in church here or online, you’re in the presence of God. Your also in a body of Christ extending an invitation to salvation and to give like never before.

As All Saints Day approaches, may the Holy Spirit enable us to remember Zacchaeus and those who lived like Zacchaeus did, including the beloved of the church who – no matter how they died – gave extraordinarily during their lives on earth. In faith let us be bold enough to emulate their witness to God. Amen.

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