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“Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with
them.”
Mother Teresa
Gather in Jesus’ Name
Gathering with all the Saints
Call to Worship
O God, you show us these things – you are these things:
Integrity
TRANSFORM US BY YOUR WORD!
Making judgments that are just
TRANSFORM US BY YOUR WORD!
Unforgettable rules for life
TRANSFORM US BY YOUR WORD!
Life-changing forgiveness
RE-FORM US, RECONCILE US,
TRANSFORM US BY YOUR WORD!
The welcoming love of Jesus Christ be with you all!
AND ALSO WITH YOU!
Hymn WOV59 We plough the fields and scatter
BLESSING FOR THE CHILDREN
In some churches today’s service will relate to the fact that tomorrow – November 1 – is All Saints Day, a
church festival to remember all who have gone before us in the faith. In some churches, today itself will
be being marked – as Reformation Day, especially those like our NZ Presbyterian Church which are part
of the Reformed Tradition.
So today we remember people of faith and reformers of church that is “reformed and always reforming” –
ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. The Bible as the Word of God retains a central place in that
ongoing process, as it does for us in our church life together here.
Prayer
O Still Speaking God,
throughout history and the wide world
you have gathered people around your Word
to instruct and inspire.
We give thanks for all
Who have received your vision
and shaped diverse and faithful communities
to follow in your Way.
Continue to open that vision to us,
that we may become transformed
by the renewing of your Word in our hearts.
Let us grow in love and understanding for each other.
Create in us O God clean hearts and minds;
Let us join with you in your suffering and your triumph.
We desire to be your children and
We claim these blessings in your name. AMEN.
We confess we have strayed away from your Word
WE CRY OUT TO YOU, O GOD
We confess that we have allowed the worries of this world
to drive us away from your vision for our lives
WE CRY OUT TO YOU, O GOD
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We confess that there is strife and contention all around us
WE CRY OUT TO YOU, O GOD
Let us confess together:
THAT WE ARE POWERLESS
AND HAVE TAKEN OUR FOCUS OFF YOUR WORD….
THAT WE HAVE NOT ALLOWED YOUR WORD
TO WORK IN OUR LIVES,
YET WE CONTINUE TO CRY OUT TO YOU
IN TIMES OF TROUBLE AND NEED.
GRANT UNDERSTANDING AND WISDOM
THAT WE MAY SEE YOUR VISION AND APPLY IT IN OUR LIVES.
HEAR OUR PRAYER, O GOD,
AND CALL US BACK TO YOU.
The scriptures tell us that God’s love will find us
no matter how far away we are from the Word.
Just as Jesus found Zacchaeus hiding in a tree,
God will find us and bring us home.
It does not matter what we have done wrong,
we still belong to God.
We have the assurance that God will rescue us.
This is the good news of the Gospel.
AMEN!
Symbol of God’s Presence
Hymn [KK] WOV10 All people that on earth do dwell [Akisi’s choice]
[KAEO] In loving kindness Jesus came [Annette’s choice]
Engage
Conversation with the Word
What difference does it make because you, because I, believe?
Does the world come nearer to the dream of God because of what you believe?
We begin with Hebrew Scripture and some selected verses from the prophet Habakkuk. I invite you to
use them to bring to mind how you see the current state of the world, and how you feel about it. So far
away from God’s dream for it, and it worries us.
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Think of righteousness as integrity – a person right in spirit, together in their whole selves. The goal – the
dream – is for such integrity, and right relations, for the whole world. Justice, well-being, summed up in
one Hebrew world – shalom. Another word used in scripture is salvation – healed, rescued, made right,
living God’s way and making a difference for good to the world around.
Now there’s a character in an episode in today’s gospel whose name means “integrity”. Zacchaeus’ name
must have grated terribly with those who knew the sharp end of his extortionist ways. If Habakkuk
helped us think about everything that is wrong, Zacchaeus shows us what it looks like to be part of the
problem.
We know from the start there’s going to be a bit of a disturbance here. Jesus has entered Jericho, and
we’re told he is passing through. Can he pass through Jericho and nothing happen? His namesake
Joshua came this way and the walls fell down!
Zacchaeus is a wealthy man, at the top of the tax extortion pyramid. Just previously in chapter 18 there
was a wealthy man who asked for Jesus’ help to be sure his future with God was secure and was told to
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sell everything he had and give it to the poor. He went away sad because that was one thing he couldn’t
do – “for he was very rich,” the text says.
Zacchaeus is trying to see Jesus, to see who this person is, but being vertically challenged he couldn’t see
over the heads of the crowd. Right before this story at the end of chapter 18, as Jesus is coming close to
Jericho, a man who can’t see because he is blind keeps calling out to Jesus. He’s sitting by the way –
perhaps even meaning the way as in “God’s way” – but he can’t see to step up and walk on the way. He
can’t see Jesus and he wants to.
So perhaps Zacchaeus might be different from the rich ruler who went away sad. Zacchaeus wants to
see. But he’s small and blocked by the crowd, which reminds us of the children the disciples wanted to
keep away from Jesus, but Jesus said, let them come.
What’s more, Zacchaeus is a tax collector and our memory might go back to mid previous chapter – the
story we heard last week – of the two people praying in the temple. It was the tax collector that Jesus said
was right in God’s eyes. He was the one whose prayer had integrity.
So it’s looking good for Zacchaeus. His persistence in fact adds one more echo from previous stories,
making us think Luke is planning to bring a lot of key points of faith together in this episode. Zacchaeus
so wants to see Jesus that he climbs a tree. He risks his dignity, he persists with his goal, just like the
widow who kept pestering the unjust judge until she got justice.
Luke 19:1-10
Remember that Zacchaeus is part of the problem Habakkuk stirred up for us, of how far the world is from
God’s dream for it. The story is rightly a classic for two major themes – restorative justice and
conversion, putting right harm done and relationships damaged by behaviour that violates others and
being transformed as a person. Both are essential to this meeting between Jesus and Zacchaeus. Both
are essential for making a difference to the state of the world.
As a result of Jesus seeing Zacchaeus and saying “come down, I must go to your house today”, there is
healing and there is change. Jesus makes a point about having to go to Zacchaeus’ place, not asking to be
invited. It’s part of the plan: that Zacchaeus, who was searching out Jesus, is searched out first by Jesus.
That’s God’s approach: if you’re a problem person or a person with problems, God wants to find you.
God has a preferential option, you might say, for people with troubles, for situations where people are
being harmed and doing harm. Where there is pain, where there is emptiness, God will be looking.
Where there is spiritual blockage – in a person’s own spirit, or the blockage of not being in good
relationship with our situation and with other people – then the spirit of life will be moving through to
blow down the walls and remove the blockage.
A good way to think of Zacchaeus’ problem is in terms of the emptiness and loneliness he surely felt.
Call it “spiritual poverty” in contrast to his material riches. The law-abiding ruler of chapter 18 was the
same, and the sadness that one went away with is exactly how it is to be spiritually poor. No joy, no
sense of well-being, no salvation, in a word.
As has happened on every expedition I’ve undertaken with the International Rural Church Association, in
Germany I again spent time with people who have very little of this world’s goods, but are spiritually
rich. I’m always taken back to the light-bulb moment I had visiting a rural congregation in South
Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 2003. I’d learnt by this stage of my visits to churches not to answer the question
many asked about the average size of farms in New Zealand, or the size of my brother’s farm. But I was
still struggling with the requests for help, as they asked that my church at home help them financially in
their struggle to get a living from their land and spread the gospel to the many villages in the region yet to
receive it.
Then I spoke the truth that dawned on me. I said, “you people may be materially poor, but you are
spiritually rich. You come out, in the middle of your harvest time, and welcome me a visitor. You take
time for me, you give me hospitality, and it is our faith in Jesus that brings us together. But me and my
people at home, we may be materially rich, but we are spiritually poor. We think we can’t spare the
money to give, and we are usually too busy during harvest for church.”
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“I am ashamed,” I said.
Now seven years on there is a viable partnership project between a NZ group and a group in Toraja Land,
which is faith driven and uses Kiwi can-do to add value to their products before dispatch and to improve
marketing. But that doesn’t remove my continuing concern – the spiritual poverty I am part of in contrast
to the spiritual riches I meet in other non-western situations. In Germany I met Copeland Nkhata, who is
responsible for several new United Methodist congregations in Malawi. He spoke with concern about
many newly planted churches (by churches mostly from North America) that won’t move out into the
rural areas. “Country churches don’t have enough people,” they say. “There’s no money in it.”
What keeps people caught up in this kind of view and spiritually poor?
What kept the law-abiding ruler spiritually poor? Why did he go away very sad? Because he had a lot of
money.
What kept the blind man sitting on the spiritual sideline - by the way and not going God’s way?
couldn’t see.
He
What has been keeping Zacchaeus spiritually poor? His wealth and the fact that he can’t see.
Money got him behaving badly and not being able to see his way out of it has kept him behaving badly.
For it is possible, when Zacchaeus talks about giving half of his income to the poor and paying quadruple
restitution when he rips someone off, that this is something he has already been working on. Tenses are a
very English language thing. “I will give/I am giving”. Perhaps he’s been trying to be a good Jew,
despite his job and his being trapped in the system. We can likely relate to that. Perhaps God has been
working on him for quite a while, and the biggest barrier has been other people, who have written him off
as beyond redemption.
Imagine he’s been trying to get his eyes away from money and making more money. He’s been wanting
to shift his focus, but he can’t quite see the alternative. Once Jesus sees him, then the barrier is broken.
He now has Jesus as the alternative focus. Salvation comes to this place, transformation of the individual
and restored relationships with his community.
I wonder what happens next? Could Zacchaeus stay in his job? But if he doesn’t, how will he live?
How do we do our jobs in our Habakkuk-type world, and do them with integrity? Although maybe not
as extreme as the picture painted with Zacchaeus, we are also part of a system that rewards the rich and
traps many in poverty.
How do we keep our focus on Jesus and not be blinded by our money needs?
Just remember that today’s gospel is not about what Zacchaeus did to make his life right. It’s about what
Jesus did. Spiritual riches are not something we achieve. It’s what God gives us when we let go and let it
in. I must come and visit you, says God. And the response is joy.
Respond
Offering Hymn Jesus lover of my soul/Shout to the Lord
Prayers
Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Comoros, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles
Give thanks for:
 Religious freedom in Madagascar and the increase of church attendance due to mission
outreach.
 Churches, which work for economic justice and engage in diakonia, especially among the poor in
society.
 Effective work for development among the poor in Christian humility and faithfulness.
 The shepherds, evangelists, lay leaders in the churches in Madagascar who work tirelessly to
share the love of Christ with the whole nation through word and deed.
... prayer book prayers...
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Lord Jesus,
the storm is life and life is the storm
and there is no escaping it;
but what matters is that you are in the storm with us,
a beacon and a presence that is sure.
Continuing the Conversation and Learning from the Children
Hymn [KK] Zacchaeus was a wee little man
[KAEO] E te Atua, aroha mai
[singing] Lord’s Prayer
Serve God
Blessing
Give us faith to walk in your path, power to stand the test of life,
and your voice to call us back when we wander away.
We leave in peace, knowing that you will never leave nor forsake us.
… God speed you on your way
Robyn McPhail
31.10.2010