Preached · July 5, 2020
Series · Don't Be A Jerk
Text · Mark 10
Hey everybody, Pastor Anthony here. How are you all doing? I'll admit, I'm tired this week. I'll also admit that this is going to be the least prepared I've been for a sermon in a while. So it's going to be me, and the Bible, and this camera, and you all, and we're going to see what's going to happen.
You know, I think it's okay to admit that 2020 is a heck of a year, and it can take its toll. There are good days and there are bad days, there are good weeks and there are bad weeks, and there's the fact that, emotionally, a lot of us are still back in February somewhere, even though physically we just entered into July. I saw that on Twitter. We're just all in all sorts of different places.
So for those of you where, scale of 1 to 10, you're at a 10 — this is the best day of your life — great. Praise God. I'm genuinely happy for you, because I've had some really good days. And for those of you where, scale of 1 to 10, you're at a 0, and you are ready to give up, and you don't even know why you're here right now — I hear you. I know that feeling too. Today's one of those tired days for me, and I'm willing to admit that.
Sending Ken Out
A couple of things before we jump into the word. Our dear friend, one of our trustees, Ken Holmes, is off to a new job for the University of New Hampshire, which means he will no longer be here at the Table. That makes us really sad, because Ken is this wise, kind gentleman who was part of my hiring process. It was wonderful to get to know him for just a little bit of time.
It's one of my beliefs that when a church has somebody who is moving, leaving to do something else, we're sad about that, but we're also joyful, because God is a sending God. God continually sends his people out into the world to do amazing things, to change the world — what we've been talking about all month in this series.
We want to change the world. A church I used to be a part of used to talk about the idea that we're all cleverly disguised missionaries. You're not just a lawyer. You are a lawyer who's a cleverly disguised missionary for the gospel, the good news of Jesus. You're not just a teacher, or a doctor, or a nurse, or a pet retail specialist. You are that because God has cleverly disguised you to show his love and his kindness and his mercy and his goodness into the world.
So we want to pray for Ken, and for his new mission, his new assignment, his new job, and that God would use him. Would you pray with me?
Father, Son, and Spirit, we thank you that you are the sending God. You are the God on a mission, that you are the first mover. You move towards us, and then you take us, and you love us, and you say, "Now take this love and share it with the world." So God, we pray for Ken. We thank you for the wisdom, for the discernment, for the experience that he brought to the Table. And God, I pray that as he moves to a new place, to a new job, to a new church, that your Spirit would go before him, behind him, beside him, above him, below him, within him. That he may show your love to all he comes in contact with, that Christ would be in the mouth of all who speak of Ken, that Christ would be in the hearts of all who think of him. God, would you use his ministry in this new position for your good news, your gospel, to be shared. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
Invitation and Challenge
All right, so like I said, it's me, and a Bible, and an iPhone, and you on the other side of that screen. So if you have a Bible of any sort, power it on, turn it on, open it up. We are in the book of Luke, chapters 18 and 19 — chapter 18, verse 35, and going from there.
Over the past few weeks, we've been talking about how Jesus has calibrated the concepts of invitation and challenge. God in the flesh, Jesus, was this highly invitational person. People loved to be around him. People loved to eat and dine with him. He would gather folks around him because he was so highly invitational. And Jesus was also highly challenging. He would get invited over for dinner — Pastor Angela talked about this last week — invited over for dinner, and he would say, "Hey, let me tell you all the ways you guys suck." And he would do that in the context of a relationship. He wasn't standing on a street corner yelling about how you suck. He was saying, "This is the way that you are hurting people and abusing people, and I'm going to talk to you about it because I care for you, because I love you. I want you to know this is the way that you are hurting people around you and your society." He's bringing challenge.
I believe that the best kind of relationships are ones that have both invitation and challenge. Invitation says, "I love you. I'm concerned about you. I will accept you no matter where you're at." And challenge says, "I love you too much to not call out your crap, to challenge you toward growth." Those are the best kinds of friendships — friends who don't just say lies to our face and say everything we're doing is wonderful when we're, you know, skinning cats for fun. No, invitation and challenge says, "I love you, and let's grow together."
Relationships of what I think is a phrase I coined: consensual correction. Sometimes you get corrected by somebody — somebody flips you off while you're driving. That's not consensual correction. You didn't ask to be corrected by a stranger. And it never feels great. It's rarely appropriate — sometimes appropriate, but rarely. Relationships of consensual correction say, "We're in a relationship together, and I'm giving you permission to call out my crap, to point out when I'm wrong, to say, 'Hey, are you sure that's the best course of action, the best way to say that, the best way to phrase that?'" Relationships of consensual correction. Can I call out your crap? Will you call out mine? That's the ability to grow intentionally, on purpose, to say, "I recognize that I am deeply loved and accepted, and I can move forward, and I need people in my life, friendships in my life, to move forward."
So that's what we've been exploring. We're going to take a look at the book of Luke, the story of Jesus in the city of Jericho, and see the ways that Jesus is calibrating both invitation and challenge all the time, and how Jesus is changing the world as he does it. I'm just going to go through this verse by verse. I don't have slides. I don't have any pretty graphics or funny jokes. I just want to tell you the story of Jesus.
The Blind Man at Jericho
Luke 18, verse 35:
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside, begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. And they told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."
Jesus is well into his public ministry now. Jesus has a reputation of being a healer, a rabbi, confronting the authorities of his day. And we also know that Jesus is making his way up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and he has confided with his followers that this will be the last time he does this, because the Messiah, Jesus, is going to be killed. So he's got this crowd of people following him, not really understanding what he's saying, because messiahs aren't supposed to die. So that's weird. And if he knows he's going to be killed, then why is he going to Jerusalem with no army, no sword, no supplies?
And he goes to Jericho. There's this blind man who hears that Jesus of Nazareth, the famous rabbi, is passing by. So he calls out, "Jesus, son of David" — this messianic term, this kingly term — "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me."
And those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me."
So Jesus is making his way through this city. There's a blind beggar, and the crowd says, "Shut up." Now, if you're a beggar in first-century Palestine or Judea, this is how you made your living. You would go out to the city gates. You would be a beggar for a variety of reasons, usually because society said that there was something wrong with your body. Society said that your lack of ability to see or to hear or to walk made you an outcast, and you were going to beg. Society also said that beggars were an important part of society because it gave you the ability to offer alms to beggars. Beggars offered this important role: people who were not considered outcast could show how wonderful and generous and kind they were by giving money to beggars. So they kept the beggars nearby for the sake of their own desire to be seen, to look good.
So this beggar is about to get in the way of Jesus, the famous rabbi and teacher, and they say, "Get out of the way. We want to see Jesus."
Verse 40:
Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him.
Now, this is this great invitation and challenge happening at the same time. Jesus invites this man who begs for a living to come to him — invitation. And he's also rebuking the crowd that told the blind man to stay away. The very people who say, "Hey, you're not allowed to be with Jesus," Jesus says, "Can you bring him here? Can you bring him to me, please?" The very people who rejected, who shunted aside, who said, "Get out of here, shut up, get out of the way" — those very people Jesus orders, commands, to bring that person to him. What a fascinating example of rebuke and challenge.
I am certain that many of you looking at this screen have experienced this very thing: that because of some reason society has decided — outside of Scripture, outside of God's will — society has decided, "Hey, you don't belong in the church. You don't belong within the reach of God's love." And Jesus is like, "Actually, no, that's not how this works." Jesus is the kind of God who sees those who are rejected, pushed aside, told they don't belong, and takes the very people who are the rejecters, the pusher-asiders, and tells those very people, "Actually, if you can do me a favor and bring the rejected people to me." Great example of invitation and challenge.
What Do You Want Me to Do for You?
When he came near, Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?"
There's so much packed into this phrase that Jesus asks. Number one: don't ever presume to be the expert authority on someone else's pain. Don't do it. Don't ever assume to be the expert authority on someone else's pain or lived experience. Jesus, God in the flesh, has a blind man brought to him by this wicked crowd, and Jesus doesn't assume that he's the authority on what this person wants. He doesn't assume that he's the authority on what this person needs. He is going to learn from this person, described as a blind beggar: "What is it that you want?"
Now, another piece going on in this. If you had been a beggar in first-century Judea all your life, and you hear that Jesus the healer is coming to town, you would have to stop and take account of what it is that you want. You have had one predictable life for years. You go out to the outskirts of the city. You beg. You receive money. That's how you live. And you have the opportunity brought to you to radically alter that life. But remember, because of how society has treated you, you didn't get to go to school. You didn't get to be taught any trade or skills. You were removed from the oikos, the family, the household, as quickly as possible so you could beg, and that's how you would bring money in. And so if you are going to go from not being able to see to being able to see, then there's the chance that you will now struggle even more in society because of how society has treated you, raised you, rejected you. Are you sure that you want this?
I also think this text gets a tiny bit into ableism. Jesus doesn't assume that just because this person can't see, that they want to cast aside that kind of lifestyle. I don't know if you've ever met a blind person or a deaf person, but you would not do well to say that their inability to see or to hear, in the ways that seeing and hearing people describe it, is a detriment to them. Don't do that. Not a great idea.
So Jesus has this person brought to him, and again, doesn't assume that he's the expert on this person's experience. He says, "What is it that you want me to do for you?" And then the person speaks for themselves: "Lord, I want to see." They're given autonomy, they're given agency, the ability to speak for themselves. "What is it that you want?" "This is what I want."
And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God.
And then this is the part that just cracks me up:
When all the people saw it, they also praised God.
This fickle crowd that was holding back the person — the person receives a miracle, and now the crowd's like, "Well, that was great. This was our idea the whole time." It's just dumb.
I was reading on Twitter today — there's a college professor who always takes a survey of his class: "If you lived in the 17th, 18th, 19th century, would you have been an abolitionist?" And miracle of miracles, every single student says, "Well, yes, of course." Okay, you're saying that you would be willing to have an opinion different from the majority. You would be willing to be publicly shamed because of that contrary opinion. You would be willing to speak up and fight on behalf of those who have been oppressed. And you have to say you're not only willing, but you have a track record of doing that — a track record of standing up for those who have been oppressed or marginalized, of being publicly ridiculed because of your so-called progressive beliefs that all people should be treated equal. That's what you're saying. Every single person in this classroom would have been an abolitionist? I don't know.
I think about this crowd that's thrilled to see the miracle, thrilled that Jesus has done their little parlor trick for them, when they're the very crowd that was preventing it from happening in the first place. I love this passage. Jesus just has so much going on. What am I trying to say? Don't follow the crowd. Don't be an advocate for your own sake.
You know what Jesus could have done? Jesus could have given the beggar money. And in Middle Eastern culture, if a beggar receives money, the expectation is that the beggar is meant to shout and declare as loud as they could about the excellence of the person who has given the money. In today's language, we talk about performative activism — I am posting this thing on social media just to show how woke I am, and we're all trying to out-woke each other. Jesus could have done that, but he doesn't make his advocacy and his fight against the oppressor and his fight for the oppressed about himself. He doesn't put the money in the beggar's hand and then expect the beggar to shout about how great Jesus is. And if you read through the gospels, Jesus says constantly to the people that he heals and redeems and removes from oppression, "Don't tell anybody about it."
Zacchaeus
Chapter 19 — this is a great example of how the chapter breaks in Scripture often don't make sense and don't help our reading, because Jesus is still in Jericho. Verse 35 of chapter 18, he approaches Jericho; chapter 19, he enters Jericho and is passing through. The "passing through" thing shouldn't be ignored, because Jesus would have been expected to accept the hospitality of the city — this crowd that's gathered to see how great Jesus is and pushes blind people aside to do it. Jesus is going to pass through. So he's kind of shaking the dust off his shoes: "I'm not going to stay here. You guys are a bunch of jerks."
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd.
Actually, the Greek says he wanted to see Jesus, but he was short, and because of the crowd could not see. I think that distinction is important, because it's saying he couldn't see because of his short stature — which, five foot four, I get — and the crowd is actively preventing Zacchaeus from seeing Jesus. They've prevented the blind man, the oppressed, and now they're preventing the tax collector, the oppressor. That's the kind of crowd we're dealing with.
Zacchaeus is a tax collector. He would have been a Jewish man seen as a co-conspirator with the Roman Empire, because the tax collectors were given a certain percentage that they needed to collect from their village and hand off to the Romans. But that percentage was kept secret. So the tax collector could say, "Hey, I need to get 25% of your proceeds from your fishing expertise and trade." In reality, the Romans only asked for 20%, but he's getting an extra 5% on the side. So tax collectors were hated. They were seen as collaborators with the enemy, and just kind of selfish pricks getting rich off of other people's oppression, and traitors to their own culture and race and ethnicity.
So the crowd is actively preventing Zacchaeus from seeing Jesus. Verse 4: Zacchaeus ran. Big deal, that phrase. Wealthy people, wealthy oppressors, don't run. Remember the story of the prodigal son? The son demands his inheritance, runs, spends it all, realizes that he'd be better off treated as a servant in his father's home than eating pig slop. So he starts walking toward his father's home, and while he's still a long way off, the father sees the son and starts running toward him. That is a huge moment in Scripture, because wealthy, land-owning men in Middle Eastern culture don't run for nothing. And so with Zacchaeus, there's something going on in his heart where he so badly wants to see Jesus. He's being rejected by his people, and he is oppressing his people at the same time, and yet he is willing to be shamed publicly, even more than he already has, to run and to see Jesus.
So he runs and he climbs a sycamore tree. Another big deal — rich, wealthy people in no culture ever just climb trees for the heck of it. There's another weird thing going on here. In rabbinical thought, if a ceremonially unclean person stands underneath or near a tree, and that tree has branches that hang over, anybody else who's also underneath the shade of that tree would also be seen as ceremonially unclean. So Zacchaeus has this thought. He runs to the tree, climbs into it. He's trying to hide, but he's also thinking, "If anybody sees me in the tree, they won't come near, because they'll become unclean too." Zacchaeus would have been seen religiously as an unclean person to be around, because of the oppression that he was doing to his people. No one's going to come underneath that tree and get unclean too. And if you're ceremonially unclean — it's a hard word — no one's going to come over for dinner. Everyone's going to keep a wide distance away from you as much as possible. And anybody who enters into your home also becomes rejected, unclean.
So Jesus reaches the spot. He looks up. He sees this wealthy dude hanging out in a tree. And Jesus says, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
This is what makes Jesus such a fascinating, enigmatic figure. Verses before — invitation and challenge. He invites the oppressed person to come near. He chastises the oppressor crowd to get over themselves. And then he sees the oppressor, tax collector Zacchaeus, and says, "I'm going to have dinner at your place." This is what makes Jesus, quite frankly, difficult to follow. Because depending on where you are on the wokeness scale, it is relatively easy to call out oppression, to call out oppressors. It is much harder to do that and also build relationships with the people who are causing problems in our society, with the people who are propagating systems of oppression. It is much harder to both call it out, build relationships, use our privilege and our voice and whatever ways we can to help society get better and help people who have been marginalized get out of those situations — and to also build relationships with the people, with the systems, that have oppressed, for the sake of undoing that oppression.
This is what makes Jesus so fascinating. Jesus talks about going and finding the lost sheep — the shepherd that leaves the 99 and goes and finds the lost sheep, the reckless love of God. And Jesus is also willing to meet with Pharisees and Sadducees in their homes and in the cover of night so they can ask Jesus some hard questions.
Now, not everybody can do that, and not all of us should do that. This is not a sermon about how you need to build a relationship with your abuser or your oppressor, or with the people who have repeatedly hurt you. There's something going on with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus seems to be a person of peace for Jesus, because when Jesus says, "I'm going to stay at your house today," Zacchaeus comes down at once and welcomes Jesus gladly. Zacchaeus is showing the willingness, the openness, to have the conversation — the willingness and openness to maybe be confronted by Jesus. Because Jesus has a reputation, as we saw last week, of saying, "Hey, cut the crap. Woe to you, Pharisees and scribes." Zacchaeus knows what Jesus is capable of, and Zacchaeus is still willing to have that relationship and that conversation with Jesus.
So this is not a sermon about being really nice to the people who hurt you. That's not what I'm saying. But we do bear some responsibility, if we're going to be people who follow the way of Jesus. We do bear some responsibility for not just cutting off every relationship that makes us angry. We bear some responsibility to confront ourselves with the words of Jesus and to maintain relationship with those who are still actively hurting, oppressing, harming, abusing others, so that we can see change if they show themselves open and willing to change.
Salvation Comes to Zacchaeus' House
Verse 7:
All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a sinner."
The Greek literally says he's gone to spend the night at the house of a sinner. The crowd pushes the blind beggar aside, now sees Jesus going over to dinner at the collaborator's, the co-conspirator with the Roman emperor's house, and they're just as upset about this. Jesus is making himself ceremonially unclean. He's giving himself a bad reputation so he can have dinner with a co-conspirator for the Roman Empire.
Verse 8 — there's a scene change. We're now inside Zacchaeus' home. When you eat in a first-century home, you do it reclining, kind of leaning on your side, at a table called a triclinium. And then the person of honor, the homeowner, Zacchaeus, stands up and he says to the Lord:
"Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."
Now, we read that, we start doing the math, and we think that's not possible — you'll lose all your money. You can't possibly do that. Again, first-century expectation: if you make a measured, calculated promise — "I'm going to pay back everyone precisely this amount, this much interest" — people won't take you seriously. But if you say it with hyperbole, then all of a sudden people's ears perk up, and they know that what you're saying is going to have some force of truth behind it. So what Zacchaeus is saying, even though mathematically it doesn't make sense, is the first-century Jewish way of saying, "This is really what I'm going to do." The hyperbole actually speaks to the truth of what Zacchaeus is saying, not the opposite.
"I'm going to give half of my possessions to the poor. I'm going to pay back four times the amount of anybody that I've cheated." Modern-day terms: this is reparations. This is the collaborator, the co-conspirator with the Roman Empire, who has taken money from his people saying, "Well, that was wrong. Let's make this right in an economic way." There are actual repercussions for what Zacchaeus is going to do.
And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
This speaks to the idea of what salvation is. Repentance. The idea of giving our lives to Jesus, of getting saved, being born again — all of those phrases. It's not merely something that happens internally. It's not merely something that happens within our hearts. It has practical, physical, economical, relational, emotional consequences: this is the way that we were behaving, this is the way that we were acting, and now we're going to try something different in an effort to follow the way of God.
So our faith, our following of Jesus, is not just a touchy-feely heart thing. It needs to have practical consequences. If we believe that God is a God of love, a God who loves everyone, well, that has some practical repercussions for how we set up our church. If we believe that God is a God who cares about the marginalized and the oppressed and those who have been systematically hurt and abused and harmed, well, that has some practical repercussions for how the church is going to respond to that harm. And we see that here in the story of Zacchaeus. It's not until Zacchaeus says, "This is what I'm going to do to undo the harm I've caused," that Jesus says, "Today salvation has come." It wasn't a sinner's prayer. It wasn't a nice diary entry. It was, "This is the action I'm going to take."
How to Not Be a Jerk
This is how we don't be a jerk. We need to confront. We need to say to those who marginalize and oppress and hurt and harm, "Hey, stop that. In fact, I would rather you be an usher, a servant, to those you have harmed, rather than keep doing it." That's the challenge piece of Jesus. And then there's the invitational piece of Jesus that says, "Hey, have you been hurt, harmed, abused, wrecked in your life? Let's have dinner. Let's talk. I'm not the expert on your pain. You are. Can we talk about it? Can I submit myself to learning from you?" And then there's the invitational piece of Jesus that we grow a little bit more uncomfortable with: "Hey, person who has hurt, harmed, abused, wrecked, set up systems of harm and abuse — can I have dinner at your place?"
Grace in itself is transformative. The grace that Jesus shows Zacchaeus, co-conspirator with the Roman Empire, changes him. And again, don't hear me wrong. I'm not telling you to be nice to your abusers. I'm not telling you to be nice to the people who have made your lives a living hell at some point. But I'm saying not every single one of us can abscond, can remove ourselves of the responsibility of maintaining relationship with those who are in some way hurting or harming others. Some of us, most of us, if we're going to follow the way of Jesus, maybe don't need to be buddy-buddy with our own hurt, with the people who hurt us. But we need to be willing to have relationships and conversations with those who are hurting others, so that we can work toward a more just, a more loving society on earth as it is in heaven. Thy kingdom come.
So that's my tired and unprepared sermon. Like I said, there are no bullet points. I've got no pretty slides. But I think when we follow the way of Jesus, when we refuse to abscond from the responsibility of being both invitational and challenging, of loving all well, and building relationships of consensual correction — "Hey, can you point out the messed-up stuff in my life?" — if we can do that, I believe that we can change the world for the better.
Would you pray with me?
Jesus, I thank you for the example that you set. I'll admit, Jesus, it's hard. It's a hard example. I don't regularly heal people on the side of the road, and I don't regularly invite myself over to the homes of those that I vehemently disagree with. And yet I see your example, Jesus, and I want to be transformed into the kind of person who can do both of those things. So I ask that your Spirit living within me would change me, change my heart, to be both more invitational, more loving, more capable of seeing the good in others, and also more challenging, more willing to speak out and to speak up for the sake of those who have been oppressed, harmed, abused, marginalized. Jesus, I trust your goodness, and I trust that you are already up to something good. I don't just wonder what Jesus would do; I'm wondering what you're doing right now, because I want to join you there. So help me, help me, God. I pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
