Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

24:43 Amen. Thank you, Jen and Wayne and Dr. Olgen for your music. Thank you, choir of Fifth Avenue. You sound good. Will you join me in prayer? holy one you call on us to come as we are awaken in our spirits this morning the stirring of your voice and open our hearts to hear you may the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you oh lord our rock and our redeemer amen this summer here at fifth avenue we are pulling up our chairs at christ's table we seek to break bread together and with christ our teacher and lord because in the hands of our gospel writers meals shared become a way to know christ's presence and a way to respond to our hunger to see ourselves and our world differently.

25:58 And almost all of our scriptures this summer pull lessons from the Gospel of Luke, who uses meals to imagine with us about the kingdom of God here on earth. Today's passage asks us to imagine that kingdom not as far off salvation, but as an urgent invitation, a change in our present circumstances, something that we can see and taste and feel right now, together and tangible. Salvation is not just for the individual, but made possible through meals offered and shared. For in Luke's gospel, our daily bread serves as an instrument of social solidarity. A glimpse, or as we like to say during our communion liturgy, a foretaste of the feasting together at Christ's table. And this is so important to us in our hurting world because we know deep hunger. We know the hunger for good relationship. We know the hunger for healing. We know the hunger for justice for ourselves and for our neighbor, the hunger for peace to come where no peace seems possible. And in our reading and our studying this summer, we see a Christ who understands these hungers, a Christ who passes by our way to show us the recipes, the ways to host that help to heal our hurting.

27:38 Today's feast will be hosted by Zacchaeus, a wealthy man, the chief of the region's tax collectors, a Jewish man working for the Roman Empire that oppresses his own people, held in social exile among his fellow Jews for his work to exact from them the high cost of living under Roman rule. Yes, this Zacchaeus will host the feast, but even he doesn't know it yet. just before this moment jesus has been on the road going up to jerusalem he's been telling stories amassing attention and curiosity and controversy and followers they are unexpected and ragtag guests that you wouldn't expect to sit down together and share a meal in the chapters before this one jesus gets recognized by beggars on the roadside is performing healings on the road and the people are praising God in his wake. On this road to Jericho, Jesus nears the end of his journey and his public ministry. He has just taken the 12 disciples aside and told them how he will fulfill the prophecies with his death and resurrection.

28:59 so Jesus is on the road but like us he stops to eat along the way he does not pass us by he stops to heal he stops to seek and to save so let us listen now as the story echoes to us

30:58 This is some scandalous stuff, folks. The crowd grumbles. The wealthiest among us go up in a tree. Maybe they're wearing a custom suit. Maybe struggling on the way up there in some unscuffed souls. And we've been promising you meals in this series at Christ's Table, but we don't even get to see the meal in this story. We have to imagine the meal, but the invitation and what sparks it stirs up this scandal and makes room for transformation. Here we see a model for us lifted up on a tree branch of how our own behavior seeks out Christ. Notice it's not Zacchaeus's wealth or status that gets Jesus's attention, for the crowd has not parted for his authority. No, Zacchaeus had to climb as a child does the limbs of a tree to be seen. Zacchaeus could not change his shortness of stature or what the crowd thinks of him, but he climbs out on that limb to put himself in the path of Jesus. I wonder if Zacchaeus had heard of the teachings of Christ through all his tariff exchanges. I wonder if snippets of Jesus's healings or preaching reached his ears. Maybe he'd heard tell of the ways Jesus had been challenging the wealthy like him.

32:36 For Luke, more than any other gospel, gives us stories of God's care for the poor. Luke shows repentance that comes from the rejection or the return of what was not equitably collected. So it would fit. It would be cleaner here, maybe, to say the invitation to break bread with Jesus is just what breaks open the hinges of Zacchaeus' heart, and now he is saved. Yet that's not the only thing that happens here. Zacchaeus doesn't say, oh Lord, pick me, I repent, pick me, and then receive Christ's mercy and invitation. No, that invitation comes to Zacchaeus before he proclaims this radical return of half of his possessions to the poor. Jesus sees him out on a limb calls him by name Zacchaeus hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today yes Jesus demands Zacchaeus invite him in before we know just how generous Zacchaeus will be. I bet we can assume some things about the table at Zacchaeus's house. I imagine in the home of one of the wealthiest men in Jericho, it might be abundant with flowers or rich linens, maybe overflowing with aromas and platters of food set out to share. Yes, it must be a beautiful place to host a meal, and yet the crowd does not want to be his guest.

34:25 No, instead they grumble at Jesus, insisting Zacchaeus be his host. This word translated to grumbling, that sullen, continuous mumble of protest, this is the same term used to describe the Israelites as they complain against Moses during the Exodus. This is serious business grumbling, and there is a high cost here, a risk, for Jesus to choose Zacchaeus as his host in the eyes of his gathered followers. But for Jesus, the community is not whole when it creates outcasts of some. In Luke, the outcasts are the poor, yes, but they are also those who are separated from the community, set apart in the ways that wealth can divide or set apart and set here in this story for us to imagine the divisions that persist in our communities.

35:31 So many carved divisions we have trouble imagining overlooking. Tables where we can't imagine would host our Lord. Maybe we carve these distinctions across political identity or geography. Maybe it's across languages or cultural expressions we don't understand. Maybe we carve these distinctions across differences we don't know how to bridge in who we love or how we express our culture or our gender. Maybe there are tables we've been excluded from, places we wouldn't want to draw up a chair. And yet this passage tells us, despite the grumbling of the crowd, Jesus came to seek and to save. Not neatly, not just the deserving or the perfect, but each of us as we are, when we choose to seek God, to put ourselves in the path of Christ. Yes, Jesus came to seek and to save not just as individuals, but to save us from our separation from each other and from God. To show us the ripple effect of seeing each other and treating each other as God sees us. This act, this salvation that comes to the house of Zacchaeus does not wait. Jesus does not wait to be seated at the fine table in Zacchaeus's home to proclaim his salvation. Instead, we hear about it in public. And as part of this listening crowd, we are impacted too. Salvation comes now, not just some distant promise. It's as present and tangible as a meal shared, an invitation extended, a place at the table. It changes Zacchaeus, and the people who see him change too. Salvation comes to save us from our separation.

37:47 For when we are hurting collectively, so may our healing come to us collectively. For Jesus, the community is not whole when it creates outcasts of some. I have seen you here in this community showing that you know and understand this. Recently on Sermon Springboard, folks in this church lifted up prayers for each other, and one person prayed for friends of theirs who don't have their own church, but know that this person is someone that they can tell their prayers to, share their needs to be seen and heard and known. And the very next prayer that came forth was to say thank you for that person. To say thank you that in this community there are those who listen deeply, who are known as one who can be trusted with a prayer, even by those who don't yet pray themselves.

38:51 This is faith out on a limb, seen by your community and changing each other by its clear vision of who we can be together. When have we been so bold out on a limb in our faith recently? When have we cast aside our assumptions in order to see Jesus more clearly? last week if you were here we tried something new in this sanctuary i wonder if it had ever been done before within these walls we served communion to each other in a circle we asked everyone for whom it was accessible to step out of their pews to get close to their neighbor to break bread together side by side by side, waiting very near to each other for the bread and cup to arrive to their place in the circle. Some of us wondered ahead of time, would there be gaps between us in this abundant space? And instead we were up close. Some people said they had to walk a ways to find a place for themselves in the circle, shoulder to shoulder, but making room for more, willing enough to try something new. We were one circle as a community. Even our friends online shared that they could feel the difference because of our wonderfully skilled camera staff and the shots they were making.

40:29 We are only whole when all are in the circle. When Zacchaeus is seen as beloved, it heals the whole of us, not just him. We learn the things within ourselves that we think we need to hide away that are seen and welcomed. When we stand and circle together, even though the pews are in the way, even though some had to walk a ways to find a place. This story tells us salvation will come to your house, and it will not look like you thought. It will get you up a tree, getting your fancy clothes dirty, looking silly like a child playing.

41:20 Zacchaeus was lost, now found, putting himself in the path of Christ up a tree to be restored to a place within the community. His broad and fancy table now host to the one who came to serve the lowly and the least. In this story, Zacchaeus was a symbol of greed, of bowing to collaborate with power structures that divide. and by the end of this story we see him as an honored host. Now his table becomes a symbol of the redeeming love of Christ, and so Christ invites us to cast aside our own symbols of our separateness from God and from each other.

42:16 we sang Amazing Grace together last Sunday, and as we awaited Barron's benediction, I stood in front of these doors here singing together with you, and I was amazed at how many of you did not need your hymnals. You didn't need the words in front of you to remember that sweet lost and found song, and you've had it stuck in my head this week. Maybe you know it. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. Tis grace that brought me safe thus far And grace will lead me me home when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining The sun

43:38 We've no less days to sing God's praise Than way When we first begun.

44:00 There's always, always time to seek out God. To remember that song stuck in your head this week. to remember the feeling of singing it without the words in front of you with your neighbor's voice strengthening you to step outside of the ways that we are seen by the world to live as though we trust in how God sees us true to our core that we need Jesus with us in a broken and fearful world, we need Jesus with us. In a time where division rules the headlines and carves fault lines in our families and our nations, we need Jesus with us. We need the one who comes to seek and save, the one who comes to say, you up there, you outcast, you tax collector, you so harsh on your own imperfections and shortfalls, you who are named and known and drawn into the circle, when you step out of the place you think you always sit, when you step out on a limb, you might be the one that brings Jesus near to us. Not because you emulate all Jesus has taught us perfectly, but because you seek God. Even when it's inconvenient, even when God is hard to see, even if you've never sought God before.

45:44 This story teaches us in our seeking, we will be seen. In our seeking, we might just host a table for the Lord. And it is our collective salvation that awaits this grace. Amen. will you rise and join me in the prayer of the day printed in your bulletin or seen on your screen help us oh god like Zacchaeus to find the courage to take risks that seek out christ in our lives help us give with sudden generosity and receive with open hearts let the grumbles within us subside help us see clearly how to host Christ among us. God of resurrection and change, we give thanks for your love that makes your grace and mercy abundant for each of us.