03 November 13 “Jesus
Saves” Luke 19:1-10
In Flannery O’ Conner’s first novel, “Wise Blood,” Ms. O’
Conner presents a host of characters seeking salvation. Not once do they
realize they have to first let go of themselves. Hazel Motes, a man with a
woman’s first name and the hero of the story, is caught up in an unending
struggle against his own innate desperate faith. Naming men Hazel is just one
of the ways O’Conner insures tragic events in her novels.
Hazel falls under the
spell of a “blind” street preacher names Asa Hawks and his degenerate
fifteen-year-old daughter, Lilly Sabbath. In an ironic, malicious gesture of
his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Hazel
founds “The Church of God without Christ.” Even so, he is still side tracked in
his efforts to lose God
He meets Enoch Emery,
a young man with “wise blood,” who leads him to a mummified holy child, and
whose crazy maneuvers become an inseparable part of Hazel’s delusion filled
human struggles.
O’Conner and her
characters portray life as a constant struggle with redemption, retribution,
false prophets, blindness, blinding’s, and wisdom longed for and lost. To make
her point, she parodies our human obsession with seemingly important things in
our desire for redemption. As one example, she pokes fun at us about our
obsession with cars. Well, some of us seem obsessed with cars. Early in the
book, Hazel assures himself that, “Nobody with a good car needs to be
justified.” He proudly proclaims this street truth while using the hood of his
car as a pulpit for his “Church Without Christ” ministry. Salvation does not
come easily to the street proud.
O’Conner is dark and
her characters are dark. She reveals the rawness of the human character while
exploring how precarious our life is. So precarious, we stand on the edge of
the abyss of our human conditions and cannot avoid its pull.
From Luke, Zacchaeus’
story is also about the human pull to the abyss and our desperate attempts for
salvation. Unlike O’Conner, he shows us the sure way from that abyss of despair
to the firmness of hope and the changed life that avoids the all too common
“Church Without Christ.”
Zacchaeus’ story
contains a simple, yet powerful truth. Our salvation comes in the life changing
presence of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is not rooted in our life goals, our
stuff, our station in life, how we present ourselves to the worldly powers, or
our self-redemption efforts. No, our salvation, our justification is not in
powers or principalities. It is in a person, Jesus of Nazareth.
Zacchaeus’ only desire
is to try to see who Jesus was. But, the
crowd stands in his way. So he ran ahead, climbed a sycamore tree. He was
desperate to see him. But, Jesus sees Zacchaeus first. In that instant, with
desire in his heart for Jesus, with Jesus looking his way, during that
surprising moment of human connection, Zacchaeus is saved. He is pulled from
his dark abyss. Jesus tells him, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your
house. I would have tried to rush home to at least tidy up.
But, Zacchaeus never
makes it home to straighten his life. He hurried down from his tree and was
happy to just be with Jesus. He did not need to worry about worldly things. He
was happy to simply, yet powerfully, welcome Jesus into his life as a friend, and as a loved one.
The most amazing news,
Zacchaeus’ attempt to improve his human condition did not begin with Zacchaeus.
It began with God. We may not realize God has been pursuing us all along. We
may think we come to some place in our life and decide to follow Jesus. No, it
began with God.
It is first God’s
desire that we be in relationship with God. It is Jesus’ seeking us with his
gifts of grace and love that saves us. This is the good news God wants to
share. Especially this All Saints morning as we remember loss and sadness.
Our salvation comes in
the loving, life changing presence of Jesus Christ. It is a presence that is
with us in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit in our baptism. It is a
presence that comes to us through the nourishing and forgiving bread and cup of
this communion table.
Yet, scripture
challenges us with the notion that our salvation is not yet complete. We live
in a life filled with the abyss of our human condition, sin and ultimately
death. We live in a world where the powers of evil invade our lives without
mercy. We realize, like ourselves, Zacchaeus had not been a model citizen. Too
often he had yielded to the temptations of his position. All that changes when he
realizes Jesus has always been in his heart.
The truth is, when
Jesus fills our hearts with his grace and love we are forever changed. We become more Christ like, I believe.
Zacchaeus does more
than promise to stop his evil ways. He offers to correct his past wrongs and he
offers to live differently in the future. He tells Jesus how he intends to
change his life.
Notice that Zacchaeus
initiates this response. He is seen by Jesus, but Jesus does not tell him what
to do. Zacchaeus has a free will. But, having a free will does not give us the
freedom to do whatever we want to do. No, we have a free will so we will do
what is right.
By searching our
hearts, we know what to do with our life. By listening to our inner voice, we
correct past wrongs. By following Christ’s voice, we live our lives peacefully and purposefully in
service to God and one another.
There are many
ways we can live this new way. Jesus modeled them for us. One way is to see our relationship with the
poor and outcast in society differently. Searching our hearts, hearts filled
with God’s love and grace, it is possible for us to see all people in a new
way, in a new relationship as sisters and brothers with Christ.
Another way is to see
our relationship with our family differently. Listening to the inner voice of God
we recognize our family and friends as God’s chosen who are just as forgiven,
just as loved, and just as needy, and nurtured as we are ourselves.
Another way is to see our relationship with the
peoples of the world differently. Be they from another country, or culture, or
religion, or point of view. Following Christ’s voice, we hear the common voice
of humanity. Brothers and sisters of the same loving God, be they Democrat,
Republican, Tea Party, Muslim, Jew, Gay, or straight.
Truthfully, our
seeking God may begin with a longing that is like no other. It may begin with
an experience that opens our eyes in ways we had never seen before. It may
begin with our surprising surrender that creates an even more surprising
connection between ourselves and God.
I recently read of such a connection with a young man named Ben
Breedlove. The article began, “Ben died
three times in December 2011. The last time, on Christmas day, he did not wake
up.” Ben was an 18 year old senior at Westlake High School with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The
condition causes the heart muscle to thicken. When Ben was 4 he had a seizure. He
had recently asked his mom, “How do we know if we get to go to heaven?” His
mother says, “Right there in the car, Ben prayed telling God he wanted to go to
heaven one day.” Ben did not die during the seizure, but it was the first time
he saw a white light above him that no one else could see. He said he knew it
was an angel.
On December 6, 2011
Ben fainted at school, and his heart stopped. That is when Ben says he went to
the waiting room of heaven. He knew he was dying. He later wrote it was the
same bright light he had seen when he was 4. “I couldn’t stop smiling,” he
said, “I then looked at myself in the mirror. I was proud of myself, of my entire
life, everything I had done. It was the best feeling.” He made a video about
the experience and said “I wish I never woke up.”
Ben later talked about
his experience with his sister, Ally. He said he wanted to go back to that
peaceful place. He told her he thought God let him see the white room so he
would not be afraid of dying. “And so I would know that heaven is worth it.”
Ben died again
December 17, but a bystander did CPR and Ben revived. After this visit to heaven Ben prayed: “God,
I pray that my family wouldn’t be sad or scared for me anymore, because I’m not
sad or scared. I pray that they would have the same peace I have. And I’m okay
with whatever God decides.”
Christmas day around
4:45 p.m. Ben collapsed for the final time. The dark abyss of his human
condition had become his hoped for bright abyss of heaven.
How often in scripture
do we read of Jesus telling us to surrender our lives to him? We surrender it
to something, why not to him? How often are we told to leave everything in this
life and come and follow Jesus to be his disciple where we will know his grace
and his promise of eternal salvation? Often enough to realize his way is the
true way to love more deeply, give more freely, and be grace filled with a life
of unending joy. Unending joy, even when hearing about Ben and remembering our
dear ones this day of remembrance.
Like Zacchaeus, and
Ben, and those faithful servants now gone, we seek a peace that is greater than
this world knows. A peace where hating and hurting will no longer be. Zacchaeus
sought his peace by climbing a tree, we seek ours with the mind and emotion
numbing clutter of our lives. We are all seeking something greater than what
the pains justify in our lives.
Then Jesus shows up.
Casually walking in our direction with eyes locked on us. He sees us, the one
he has always desired, he reaches out to us, calls our name and brings us out
of our tree. He comes up that tree wherever
the height or depth of our lost-ness has taken us, to save us.
For Jesus climbed onto his own final tree, the
cross. He sought us there, to speak our name to God, so we will forever be
loved, forgiven and saved.
We are to no longer be
sad or scared for we have been found in a peace, a white light, a brightened
abyss, where we will not stop smiling, where we will be proud of our lives.
That peace is Jesus
Christ and with him we move beyond the questions of this world and into a life
greater than our own, that of the Kingdom of God. Living always to the will and
glory of God.
The poet and author
Christian Wiman explains it this way:
“My God my bright abyss
into which all my longing will not go
once more I come to the edge of all I know
and I believing nothing believe in this.”
My God, my bright abyss.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
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