The Mayberry Preacher

THERE GOES GOD, MAKING EVERYTHING SO NEW!

Isaiah 65: 17-25, Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
August 28, 2011
Rally Day Sunday

Oftentimes, “new” is nothing more than a tag line; a sales pitch to stand out in the crowd and garner attention; when in fact nothing is really “new” at all.  The “Under New Management” sign hanging over the restaurant entrance doesn’t change the fact that the food is still average and the service still sub-par.  The front cover of the football team’s program proudly proclaims, “A New Season!,” but halfway through the schedule and six losses later, it sure looks an awful lot like the previous one.

Sometimes, “new” means something is different; something is not what it was before.  It’s that lingering smell of fresh paint when you walk into your home for the very first time.  It’s the way the sun casts its rays on a brand new day in a manner it never had before, and never will again.  It’s every single time a baby is born and a totally unique life enters the world.

And then there are times when “new” doesn’t just mean something is different, but something has changed.  What’s old is gone, forever.  This is the kind of “new” that’s talked about in our two scriptures today – two different passages, two different audiences, but a very similar message.

It’s a “new” that the writer of Isaiah wrote frequently about; a former resident of the city of Jerusalem and later a captive in Babylon.  For a generation or so, the people longed for something new, longed for something to change.  They had lost so much when they were forced to leave their beloved city Jerusalem and live in Babylonian captivity.  And yet with Isaiah’s words, the people are put on notice: something is changing.

That same message would resurface some 700 years later, located this time not in an Old Testament prophet but in Jesus of Nazareth.  It wasn’t easy following this man.  Rome was the new world power, ruling over the faithful without mercy.  The Jews and early Christians were one of dozens of nations oppressed by this empire.  As before, the city of Jerusalem fell, leaving God’s people homeless.  And yet with Jesus’ words that came to John of Patmos in a vision, the people are put on notice again: something is changing. 

It is tempting, especially for us here on this Rally Day Sunday as we’re beginning new things in this church, it’s tempting to read these two passages and ask ourselves: so what’s new?  That’s the obvious question, isn’t it?  But you know, I wonder – I wonder if the better question to ask is not “what’s new” but “how” – how those Babylonian captives and first-century Christians grabbed a hold of it?  How they were not only able to believe in the ridiculous, outlandish hope of God’s “newness,” but live into it?  No one would’ve faulted them if they decided to throw in the towel and call it a day, as the saying goes.  So how did they stand there in the midst of all their suffering, surrounded by all that “old” stuff, and dare to proclaim “all things new?” 

Because that’s not how you and I typically respond, is it?  When we get the “same old same old;” when those old familiar powers come crashing into our lives, we often tell ourselves there’s nothing we can do.  We might even convince ourselves of the greatest lie – that this is the way God wants it.  We let the powers of Rome and Babylon dictate not only what we do but, more devastatingly, who we become.

It would’ve been easy, for instance, for Oskar Schindler to have rationalized that using his position to save Jews from the Holocaust wouldn’t amount to much – not to mention putting himself in extreme danger.  It would’ve been easy for Jackie Robertson to prematurely hang up his major league baseball cap because the racial slurs hurled in his direction at every bat simply weren’t worth being the first African American to play the game.  It would’ve been easy for Rosa Parks to heed the bus driver’s demand and relinquish her seat to the white man standing there.  Just as it’s easier for you and me to go with the flow, not create any waves, because to suffer in silence seems the safer option over sharing our heart.

So where exactly do people find this hope for God’s newness?  Where do we find it?

You know, I look at the images in both our readings today – pretty unorthodox stuff.  They do more than just communicate a message – they announce a reality that goes beyond words.  The prophet Isaiah paints this scandalous picture of the wolf and the lamb feeding together, and the lion eating straw like the ox.  That’s just not in their nature to do things like that, is it?  The writer of Revelation dares to portray a time when God wipes away every tear from our eyes, death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  Is it even possible these days to turn on the evening news or flip through the newspaper and not be confronted with such things?

There is something deeply evocative that Isaiah and John are trying to tell us; something that goes beyond simple “inspirational reading.”  Like Oskar and Jackie and Rosa, they declare loud and clear: something has changed.  Not just “different,” but changed. Something is brand spankin’ new in this old world of ours; and we’ve got a term for that new world.  We call it the kingdom of God.

Now you and I have talked about this kingdom before – that when Jesus and others speak of it, it’s not just heaven they’re talking about.  It’s not some far-off reality in the distant future.  In fact, both scriptures today are pretty clear that it’s this life they’re referring to – an earth where God comes down to us, not where we are “taken up” to God.  When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking to the possibilities that exist when we as God’s people follow Christ and live lives that reflect that following – even and especially when it’s not easy.  Even when we must contend with our own Babylons and Romes.  Oddly enough, it’s then when the kingdom of God is most obvious.

And you know what?  This isn’t some “pie-in-the-sky” theology here.  This isn’t a crutch designed to provide a sense of comfort to the downtrodden at the end of their rope.  This is real.  This is what Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had in mind when, in the midst of their loss, their suffering, their hopelessness, they put pen to paper and with broad strokes painted pictures of God’s kingdom.   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the prophet says, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!

That last sentence, by the way, is not mine.  It was spoken by someone else; by Margaret.  Margaret was a member at my former church in Lexington.  I always get a little nervous sharing stories about church members in sermons – I don’t want you thinking that our relationship as pastor and parishioner is solely about extracting potential sermon illustrations.  But I did ask Margaret’s permission to one day share this story.

Margaret died about a year before I left that church and came here.  There was a blizzard on the day of her funeral; one the meteorologist actually got right.  The other pastor and I tried to encourage the out-of-town family to consider postponing the service a day, because we knew, as much as everyone in the church loved Margaret, that there would be a lot of disappointed folks who simply couldn’t make it.  But her family was from Minnesota and didn’t understand how we Southerners react to a foot of the white stuff, much less a few inches.

At so at the graveside, standing there underneath the tent with swirling snow blanketing my robe, I told my story of Margaret.  It had happened just a few weeks before when I had gone to see her at her home.  She was ill, very ill; and even she acknowledged that, as she would always put it, my time is coming quick.  You didn’t argue with Margaret when she said this.  You couldn’t. 

The truth was, Margaret was in terrible shape.  She had lost nearly all of her eyesight years before; I remember the way she sang hymns in church with her eyes closed because she knew them all by heart.  Her hearing was fading, too.  It had been nearly a year since she was able to walk on her own, and she only got up when she absolutely needed to – always with help.  In recent months she’d lost her appetite and the simple pleasure of enjoying food.  It almost seemed like some kind of cruel joke that the cancer in her body, the cancer that would eventually kill her, had to take a back seat to everything else.  So you didn’t try to convince Margaret otherwise when she’d say “her time was coming quick,” because you both knew it was true.

It didn’t seem fair, Margaret having to suffer like that.  It just didn’t.  That’s what everyone thought, whether they said it or not.  One time I made the mistake of saying it in front of her, right to her face; a moment when that “pastoral façade” we clergy sometimes try to wear simply broke down. Margaret’s response was swift: compassionate and firm.  You better start reading that Bible of yours, Margaret gently scolded me, looking right at me with her blind eyes.  God’s got a new heaven and a new earth for us.  There won’t be any more death, Steve!  There won’t be any more crying or pain.  The old is gone – There goes God, making everything so new!

I shared that story at her graveside, shivering uncontrollably in the blizzard.  I shared it even as I couldn’t feel my feet standing on that frozen earth; an earth Margaret said God would be making new.  I shared that story, and as I did I found that the chill of the day wasn’t as chilly anymore.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!  When you hear that coming from a blind, deaf, bed-bound, emaciated, cancer-ridden child of God, it’s hard to stay cold for very long. 

Because if someone like Margaret could experience God making all things new, then imagine what God can do among us!  Imagine what God has in store for this church – this body of believers and Christ-followers.  You know, it’s typical at this time of year, on this Rally Day Sunday, that we mark the beginning of one or two new activities in the life of the church.  But this year, newness abounds!  We have a new Director of Music and a new organist, and with them a revitalized ministry of music that includes not just gifted staff but the musical gifts of this congregation – gifts that were put to use last week in our member-led music Sunday; gifts that will be put to use when children and youth choirs begin later this church year.  We have a concentrated effort in our midst to continue becoming a “missional church” with our first-ever church-wide Habitat build.  That’s exciting and important stuff, folks!  Next Sunday we’ll experience a different kind of Christian education and nurture through the intergenerational fellowship ministry we’re calling The Gathering.  You’ve already heard a little bit about it this morning, and you will not want to miss this next week.  And later this year, all of us will take part in a new way of committing ourselves to the future of God’s church, with what’s being called Consecration Sunday.

Now please understand, friends: these are more than just “new church programs” (I’ve never liked using that word in the church, anyway!)  It’s not just that something’s “different.”  These ministries are evidence of the fact that, as the people of God, as followers of the One who is doing a new thing in our midst, something has changed.  The signs are all around us.  They’re found wherever God’s people stand together and put their faith into action, one step at a time, one tear at a time, one hope-filled moment at a time. 

And so may our lives as people of faith never fail to radiate God’s newness in and all around us.  Even in the darkest of places, there is hope.  There is always hope.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

WHATEVER DOESN'T KILL YOU, STILL ALMOST KILLS YOU!

Jonah 2: 1-9
Steve Lindsley
August 21, 2011

I have something I need to share with you this morning – something I’ve been dealing with for a while now.  It’s time I come clean.  I have what’s called Instinctive Biblical Correction Disorder.  It’s what happens to ministers when, without realizing it, they start correcting others on Biblical misquotes or incorrect information.  And it’s always the kind of trivial stuff that, in the big scheme of things, really doesn’t matter much.  This disorder is fostered and exasperated through years and years of seminary training and a minister’s innate desire to show that all the intricate details they absorbed in books and lectures actually mean something to the average person.  It’s rooted in our subconscious; a knee-jerk reaction that can make for some awkward situations.

For instance: when I hear someone refer to the last book of the Bible as Revelations with an “s,” I’ve been known to obnoxiously blurt out, “It’s Revelationnnnn!”  I do it without even thinking, which is part of the problem.  Or if I hear someone talk about how it says in the Bible, “God helps those who help themselves,” I’ll quickly respond that no, that’s not a Bible verse at all, often waving my hands wildly like I just did.  And if I’m reading a children’s book with some kids and there’s something in there about Jonah getting swallowed by a whale, I’ll immediately correct them that no, it doesn’t say “whale;” it says it was a big fish.”   A revelation usually met with blank stares of disinterest.

So I want you all to know that I’m working on this, okay?  And acknowledging it before you, my church family, is the first step.  So if I may: Hello, my name is Steve, and I have Instinctive Biblical Correction Disorder.  And I feel so much better sharing that with you all!

Although, truth be told, when it comes to that whole deal about the whale and the big fish, there’s really a lot more going on in Jonah’s story than meets the eye; more than just sea creature identification issues.  You know, what we typically think about this story is pretty different from what’s actually there, if we take the time to look.

This is how we often imagine the Jonah story: God tells this guy Jonah to go do something God wants him to do. Instead, he does the exact opposite.  So God has a whale swallow him up in his belly, where he stays for three days and three nights.  And when he gets out, Jonah has a change of heart and goes on to do God’s bidding.  That’s pretty much the way we’ve heard it, right?  But see, therein lies the problem.  Instinctive Biblical Correction Disorder issues aside, there are some differences here that really do matter.

For one, take a look at Jonah himself.  He was a prophet – and a fierce one at that.  He was extremely passionate about his faith and God’s nation Israel. Jonah’s zeal for the Hebrew faith was matched by his disdain and disgust for anything and anyone else. And for that reason, Jonah much preferred to stay in his comfort zone, doing only what he was comfortable doing.

So we can understand, then, why Jonah reacted the way he did when God told him to go to Nineveh – a heathen, non-Jewish city with bad news written all over it.  Think Las Vegas meets New Orleans at Mardi Gras.  It must’ve felt like fingernails running down the chalkboard for ol’ Jonah!  And that’s why he runs away.  In fact, he makes a point of running in the exact opposite direction from where God wants him to go.  If you looked at a map of ancient Israel and the way the scriptures describe it, it’d be like being in Kansas City, getting summoned to go to New York, and instead heading to California.  He goes out of his way, it seems, to go out of God’s way. 

And that’s when he finds himself on the ship at sea, and the storm that wouldn’t stop, and then in the belly of the big fish.  Three days later he is out of there; and this time he’s off and running in the right direction, Nineveh-bound, doing God’s bidding and fulfilling his call. 

Now - conventional wisdom has always held that Jonah’s radical change of both direction and heart had something to do with whatever he encountered during those 72-plus hours inside the belly of that great big fish.  Which, of course, makes sense – an experience like that would have a profound effect on any of us, wouldn’t it?  The real question, though, is what kind of change.  Most folks assume this was about divine punishment – God’s retribution on Jonah for his mistakes.  Punishment can be a tremendous motivator, after all; whether you’re talking about correcting your kids’ behavior with some “time out,” or rewarding a professional athlete’s shenanigans with a multiple-game suspension, or a low test grade due to lack of study.

And that would be all fine and good, and a perfectly acceptable way of understanding the story of Jonah, if it weren’t for our scripture that Jessica read earlier.  Because when we actually read and listen to the prayer that Jonah offered up to God inside that big fish’s belly, we really don’t get the feeling this is about punishment, do we?  This doesn’t sound like a man who’s been sent to the corner for a time out.  This sounds like a man who’s in the process of being redeemed.  Listen again to what he says, this time with The Message translation:

In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God –
He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, “Help!” 
You heard my cry.
I was as far down as a body can go,
And the gates were slamming shut behind me forever.
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!

You know what’s really amazing about Jonah’s prayer?  And I don’t think this is my Instinctive Biblical Correction Disorder creeping in; I think this is legit!  What’s amazing is that Jonah refers to all his trials and tribulations in the past tense, and his redemption and his transformation as if they’re happening right now.  This in spite of the fact that, as he’s praying this very prayer, Jonah is still in the fish’s belly!  He’s not out yet!   

Is it really possible to encounter redemption and renewal, to be transformed into who God wants us to be and equipped to do what God wants us to do, even as we are still stuck in our place of contempt?  So often we think that the change in ourselves takes place after the struggle, not while we’re still in it.  So often we think that redemption is something we have to wait for until things get better.  But that wasn’t Jonah’s experience, was it?  For him, the pain was in the past. Redemption was here and now.  In his darkest hour.  In the belly of the fish.  Could this be the hidden message; the one that so often goes unnoticed as we focus on whales and punishments?

Last spring I got an email from a friend with the subject line: You must watch this!  It was a link to some web video.  I almost deleted it without even checking it out; I get these things all the time.  You know how it is, right?  But I decided to open it anyway. Turns out it was a video of the commencement speech that late night talk show host Conan O’Brien gave to Columbia University this past spring.

Keep in mind, this is a man who had the world at his fingertips a few years ago, the successor to Jay Leno on NBC’s heralded The Tonight Show.  And then, in a twist of events that left even industry leaders dumbfounded, Conan was unceremoniously dumped from his post and succeeded by the man he’d replaced himself.  Listen to what Conan had to say to these Ivy league graduates about that:

Nietzsche once famously said “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  But what he failed to stress is that IT STILL ALMOST KILLS YOU!  A little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment; something that felt like it was almost killing me.  I did not get the thing I so very much wanted; the thing I had worked all my life to achieve.  I went from being in the center of the grid to not only off the grid, but underneath the coffee table that the grid sits on, lost in the shag carpeting that is underneath the coffee table supporting the grid.

Sounds a little like being in the fish’s belly, doesn’t it?  Listen:

But then something spectacular happened.  Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things.  I grew a strange, cinnamon beard.  I dove into the world of social media and started tweeting my comedy.  I threw together a national tour.  I played the guitar, did stand-up, recorded an album, made a documentary, and frightened my friends and family.   I followed my heart and followed my calling. And it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life.  To this day I still don’t understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged, and this is important ---- had more conviction about what I was doing.

Conan concluded this part of his speech with an incredibly profound thought: There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. 

What are your worst fears?  Is it a fear of failure, like it was for Conan?  Is it a fear of following God’s calling even when it takes you out of your comfort zone, like Jonah?  Is it a fear of living in a broken world, dealing with a struggling economy, a family stretched to the seams, a tough semester class load, ailing parents, an overloaded calendar, or simply not mattering to anyone anymore?

And what’s it like when those worst fears are realized – when they come to pass?  Do they paralyze you so that the belly of the fish becomes your new reality?  Or do you somehow, somewhere see in the midst of those fears and failures the kind of hope and transformation Jonah saw – a chance to hit the reset button and begin anew?  You know the saying: there’s nowhere to go but up.  Or, in Jonah’s case, there’s nowhere to go but out.

As it is for us!  Kind of a gross image, I know, but you and I are vomited out!  Out into a world that hasn’t stopped spinning while we’ve been tucked away.  Out into a world where there are plenty of other fears for us to latch on to if we so desire; plenty of other opportunities for disappointment and failure.  And yet, even so: we are vomited out into a world that needs us desperately, more than we could possibly imagine. 

Because if there’s one thing Jonah’s story tells us, it’s that we are never children of God more than when we’re at our lowest.  God does God’s greatest work in our lives and in our world when the hour is dark.  Our redemption and our transformation don’t happen after the hard times are over, as much as it happens right in the thick of it.

I’m going to try and be better about not correcting people when they stick an “S” at the end of Revelation or when they quote Bible verses that aren’t really there.  But let me warn you: I will never stop telling you over and over and over again how much you matter to God, how much God loves you, and how God renews and redeems you not after your darkest hour, but in it.  If you look for God’s love in the places you least expect to find it, I have a hunch you’ll wind up like Jonah: sitting there in the big fish’s belly, singing yourself a little prayer, redeemed and ready to be spewed out into the world!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

YOU FIT RIGHT HERE

Luke 19: 1-10
Steve Lindsley
August 14, 2011

You get the feeling that this sort of thing happened to Jesus all the time, don’t you?  The scripture Cathy read for us has Jesus “just passing through” Jericho when he meets Zacchaeus.  Just passing through.  You know, I doubt Jesus kept a calendar; I’m pretty sure he didn’t start every day with a “To Do” list.  You read the gospels and you realize that the vast majority of things Jesus did were not things he intentionally set out to do.  For the most part, they all kind of came to him.

I wish I could live like that, you know?  I wish I could just kind of wander into the places God wanted me to be.  And I guess, in a sense, my life is like that.  All our lives are like that.  But it doesn’t feel that way.  Instead, like you, I’m bound to the almighty schedule, zigging and zagging back and forth between this appointment and that conference call; this hospital visit and that errand.  So much of life seems to be the very antithesis of “passing through.”

But it wasn’t that way for Jesus.  He stumbled upon the woman at the well.  He just happened to find himself surrounded with thousands of hungry people out in the desert. I doubt he went into the temple that day planning on overturning some tables.  And he just happened to run into Zacchaeus as he was “passing through” Jericho. 

This is the first thing Luke tells us in this story about Jesus and Zacchaeus.  The very next thing he shares is that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and was rich.  And if you and I were in Luke’s audience; if we were Christians living in the latter part of first century Palestine, I imagine our reaction would’ve been swift.  You can almost still hear the catcalls and hisses from the gathering, the moans and groans and contorted faces as if smelling fresh garbage. 

That’s because tax collectors in that day and time ranked at the very rock bottom of the popularity totem pole.  They were hated not only because they over-collected taxes from the poorer Jews, but because they were Jews themselves.  The worst kind of traitor – employed by and aligned with the Roman empire to further that empire on the backs of their very own people – and getting filthy rich themselves while doing it.

We don’t know much about Zacchaeus, but the way Luke tells it, we don’t need to.  We know enough already.  We can pretty much extrapolate and form a picture of the man Jesus happened upon that day.  We see someone who was terribly good at his job – ruthless, even.  He knew his community well.  He knew when a family gained some extra livestock and was there in an instant to claim Rome’s share.  He had no qualms about squeezing the highest tax rate out of his fellow citizens; and if one resisted or begged for leniency, Zacchaeus was the kind of guy who’d increase the percentage just to make a point.  He dressed extravagantly, not only because he could afford it, but because he wanted everyone else to know he could.  And at the end of the day, after delivering Rome’s share and keeping his sizeable own, Zacchaeus would head home to lavish living quarters, furnished by the most exquisite items, all purchased with money taken out of the pockets of his fellow Jews.

And I wonder, in light of all of this, why Zacchaeus wanted so desperately to see Jesus that day; the day he got word that the man from Nazareth was going to be “passing through.”  Why he threw his public reputation out the proverbial window and hiked up a sycamore tree so he could get a better view.  Why he would even care what some run-of-the-mill preacher and teacher had to say.

Maybe he was incessantly curious. Maybe he was bored.  Or maybe, along with all those other things that made up Zacchaeus’ life, and in some ways because of them, maybe there was one other thing he was: and that was lonely.  Utterly and painfully lonely.  There’s no mention of family; no word of friends or acquaintances.  And is it any wonder why?  For all we know, Zacchaeus returned home every night to an extravagant but empty house. Maybe the reason Zacchaeus climbed up the tree that day was because he didn’t fit in anywhere; and was hoping that perhaps, with Jesus, he just might.

So when Jesus did pass by, when he looked up into the branches of that sycamore and saw the rich tax collector staring down at him, what is most surprising is not that Jesus called this man he’d never met before by name: Zacchaeus.  We’re kind of used to Jesus doing that sort of thing, aren’t we?  That way he seems to know more about us than we think he should, or want him to; the way he perceives and senses not only who we are but what lies in the depths of our hearts.  After eighteen previous chapters of Jesus doing amazing things, calling a man by name doesn’t jump out at us all that much.

What does surprise us, what surprised Zacchaeus, and what surprised everyone else there that day, is what he says to him: I must go to your house today.

Not, “I’d like to go to your house sometime,” but “I must go to your house today.  Right now. He’s not asking, is he?  Think about that: out of all the people who’ve lined the streets of Jericho that day, out of all the other places Jesus could’ve chosen to spend his time, Jesus wants to be with the local hated richer-than-rich tax collector at his home – the home that no one else ever went to.  Now.

What do you make of Jesus’ urgency here?  That’s the real question in all of this, isn’t it?  Why was visiting with this man in his home so important to Jesus, so necessary a thing for someone who was just “passing through?”

Back earlier this summer I got reacquainted with a great Steve Martin movie called Cheaper By The Dozen.  You heard of it?  It’s a movie about a husband and wife who are parents to twelve kids ranging from kindergarten through high school.  The opening scene of the movie sort of captures the chaotic but caring lifestyle of this family of fourteen, as they get ready for their day.  Everyone is huddled shoulder-to-shoulder around the breakfast table, diving into eggs and toast and juice.  Everyone, that is, except Mark – the eighth kid if I remember right.  Mark’s not at the breakfast table because he’s looking for his lost frog named Beans.  He’s asked everyone all morning if they’d seen him, but no one’s had the time to answer.  Everyone’s in such a hurry.

And as the family is sitting around the table downing their breakfast, Mark finally spots his frog – sitting in the kitchen light fixture right above the table!  He has this net and he’s extending it upward to try and get Beans down; Mark’s father sees what’s going on and tries to stop him.  Too late! Beans jumps out and lands squarely in the big bowl of eggs.  Total chaos ensues!  Everyone trying to grab the frog; eggs and toast and juice flying everywhere and landing on clothes and in hair.  Plates and glasses shattered.  And when all calms down, there Mark stands with Beans in his net, as the rest of his family glare at him in disgust.  One sister blurts out, “Nice move, Fed Ex.”

Now we’re outside the house and everyone’s leaving, piling into cars and hopping on bikes, heading off to school.  Mom is at the bottom of the porch steps barking out last-minute orders and well-wishes.  A dejected Mark mopes down the stairs.  His mother stops him and asks what’s wrong.  Mark looks up at her and with sad eyes says, “Everybody says the Fed Ex guy dropped me off because I don’t fit in with this family.”

And without pause, in one of the movie’s most powerful scenes that sets the tone for everything else to come, Mom pulls Mark over and hugs him to her side; she cradles his head in her arms; and says, “You fit, Mark.  You fit right here.”

You know why I think Zacchaeus climbed the tree that day?  You know why I think Jesus told him he just had to go to his house?  Because I believe both of them knew that Zacchaeus wanted so much to fit in; needed to fit in, somewhere, with someone; so he would not be imprisoned one moment longer to the life he’d made for himself.  And I think Jesus wanted Zacchaeus to know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that he fit right there – right in his embrace, his amazing grace, his everlasting love. 

And it’s amazing, isn’t it, what happens to Zacchaeus because of that?  I mean, Jesus didn’t have to say a thing to him about changing his ways.  He didn’t have to give him a stern lecture about returning all the money and things he’d taken unfairly and turning over a new leaf in his life.  Zacchaeus did it anyway – immediately.  And it shouldn’t surprise us that much, should it?  Because when we find out where we fit in – right in Jesus’ embrace – when we find out where we fit in, we want our lives to change, too.  We can’t help but toss aside all the things that hold us back from that embrace; all the things that keep us from experiencing that amazing grace and that everlasting love.

And so on this morning, my friends, as we gather inside these four walls amidst a world outside where stock markets go wildly up and down, where rioters riot in London, where political partisanship is quickly becoming the rule and not the exception, there’s no doubt where you and I fit.  We fit right here – right at the table the Lord has prepared for us.  And just as Jesus himself couldn’t wait to get to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner that day, he’s prepared a meal for us here.  Bread and the cup, the body and the blood, given to us and given for us.  So you and I will never forget that we are always children of God.  So we’ll always know exactly where we belong.

Eat and drink, my friends.  Jesus can’t wait to dine with us today.  This is where fit in.  And this is where we belong.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.