"All Are Safely Gathered In" --Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20-- Nov. 24, 2013

It is the end of the church year–the omega point, if you will, the culmination of the alphabet from alpha to omega, a to z. "I am the alpha and omega," Christ says, the beginning and the end. The love of God which we know in Christ Jesus reigns over all creation, so we celebrate this Reign of Christ Sunday, what used to be called "Christ the King Sunday."

But if the image of a monarch or sovereign reigning over a kingdom doesn’t seem to resonate with anything in our lives here in Bennington, VT in the year 2013, if it all seems too abstract and heady, we might do well to turn to the ever-helpful Dr. Suess. Now, you might be thinking that we’re heading into the time of year where Dr. Suess’ classic "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" will soon be featured on tv’s and dvd’s, but I’m thinking of another Dr. Suess book, "On Beyond Zebra."

The narrator in "On Beyond Zebra" takes the reader through the alphabet, which we all know ends with Z, for Zebra. You can stop there if you want, he says to Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell, but then you’ll miss out on all the other great and useful letters, like Yuzz, which you use to spell Yuzz-z-ma-tuzz. And Wum, as in Wumbus. It’s the perfect Easter book, I think, and I did read it here one Easter. You may think that the crucifixion was the end of Jesus and the Jesus movement. That’s what Herod and the high priests and Pilate assumed. That’s what the world assumes about death. It’s The End. But God’s alphabet is not limited to 26 English letters. God is still speaking, and there are so many different ways for God to speak. God’s vocabulary fills up words and goes beyond them. God’s fullness isn’t even emptied by death.

In that one Word, which became flesh and dwelt among us, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, the letter to the Colossians says. "So spacious is he, [Peterson suggests] so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding." Just like that very first, primordial particle that exploded in the Big Bang, everything in the universe–and maybe in other universes–was contained. "In the beginning," God and God’s intention for everything. Wow. Mind-blowing.

But still maybe a little heady, a little too abstract. For whether we know on a certain level that endings are not endings for God, whether we get that God’s alphabet goes on beyond zebra, still the experience, the gut feeling, the tearing and sundering of our hearts knows that endings also involve pain. Grief is not to be trifled with. It will take its time to work through our bodies, surprising us sometimes by its power, by its almost cat-and-mouse game–one day you think you’re doing ok, and the next day the littlest thing will unleash a flood of tears. Grief is the gift of endings–is it possible to think of it as a gift?!–as it takes us through the tearing of familiar bonds and attachments and then slowly, eventually constructs new and even stronger threads that allow us to heal and move on to the previously unimaginable ways we remain connected.

That time

[writes poet Mary Oliver]

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hands in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -

books, bricks, grief -

it’s all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot and would not,

put it down."

(Mary Oliver, in Thirst)

"So spacious is [Christ], so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe–people and things, animals and atoms–get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."

Why "because of his death"? Because in that act Jesus willingly emptied himself, gave himself over to be the channel through which our lives could freely flow through death into Life and Love itself, so that Death was no longer a barrier between us and God, between us and our loved ones who are now in God. In him–so utterly empty on the Cross–the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

All is safely gathered in, we sang of the harvest. All are safely gathered in. Our loved ones. The children of Newtown, Connecticut. President John F. Kennedy. All those whose deaths we remember and feel so deeply, especially today, at this time of year. All are safely gathered in, but not just swept up like so many grains of wheat. There is a "heartbreak at the heart of things," as one poet writes-- The heartbreak of the Cross at the heart of things, we might say–but it is heartbreak mixed with joy and hope and meaning and love–

In the quiet before cockcrow

[writes John Hall Wheelock] when the cricket’s

Mandolin falters, when the light of the past

Falling from the high stars yet haunts the earth

And the east quickens, I think of those I love–

Dear men and women no longer with us.

And not in grief or regret merely but rather

With a love that is almost joy I think of them,

Of whom I am part, as they of me, and through whom

I am made more wholly one with the pain and the glory,

The heartbreak at the heart of things.

I have learned it from them at last, who am now grown old

A happy man, that the nature of things is tragic

And meaningful beyond words, that to have lived

Even if once only, once and no more,

Will have been–oh, how truly–worth it..."

("Dear Men and Women [in memory of Van Wyck Brooks]" (abridged) by John Hall Wheelock, from An Almanac for the Soul, by Marv and Nancy Hiles, p. 222)

"So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe–people and things, animals and atoms–get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."

"All are safely gathered in." Thanks be to God! Amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 

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"Good News! Bad News!"-- Isaiah 65: 17-25, Luke 21:5-19-- Nov. 17, 2013

Scenes from the Philippines this week almost look tragically familiar–they look all too much like other pictures we’ve seen–from hurricanes in Haiti, from an earthquake and then tsunami in Japan, from the Christmas tsunami in southeast Asia, too much like bombed out areas in Kabul, Baghdad, Dresden, London, Hiroshima. Not one stone left standing on another, unless thrown on top of each other by earth’s upheaval or the ravage of wind or wave. Utter devastation.

Two weeks ago, the houses and buildings in Tacloban, Philippines simply made up the street scene of home for thousands of people; they were part of the landscape seen everyday, giving structure to their lives, sheltering them from rain, gathering their family and friends around tables and celebrations. Inside babies were born, illnesses were endured...or not, and people died. In other words, life as they’d come to know it. Until the storm came. Then, in a matter of hours, nothing was the same.

"Look at these beautiful stones and memorial gifts, Rabbi," they said to Jesus as they talked in the Temple courtyard. "All this you’re admiring so much--" Jesus replied, "the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble." It was unthinkable– this massive edifice and complex, the very symbol of power and authority, the seat of the Holy One. Unshakeable. Guarded with ruthless power.

And yet, Luke’s community knew that Jesus’ words had come true. Scattered far from Jerusalem, probably sometime around 80 or 85, after the Judean revolt against Rome from 66-70, Luke’s community knew that both the city of Jerusalem and the Temple itself were in ruins, "a heap of rubble," not unlike the rubble that the exiles had found upon their return from Babylon, 500 years earlier. Luke’s community also knew that many of their number were being arrested and brought before governors and magistrates. Family members had turned against them; many had been put to death.

So, in fact, these predictions on Jesus’ lips were actually good news, comforting even, for he knew what they were going through. He had gone through it himself, and even now was giving them words and wisdom to speak in court, assuring them that every hair on their heads was counted and known by God and more than that, that their very souls were held in the power and protection of God.

In the midst of every upheaval–of cities and temples and churches, through storm and wind and bomb and fire, even the upheaval of death–God remains, with intimate knowledge of each cell and bone and hair of our bodies, loving us, body and soul, and infinitely beyond us, with knowledge too deep and wide for us to ever fathom. John Riddle and all of us who grieve Cindy’s death are held in that infinite knowledge and love. And because it is infinite, that knowledge and love also embrace Cindy, and all our loved ones, all those swept away and buried by typhoon and tsunami, hurricane and fire and disease.

"For I am about to create–or, even now I am creating–new heavens and a new earth," God says through the Third Isaiah, speaking to a people who have lived in the midst of the rubble for a while and are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of rebuilding and getting back to any sense of life as they’ve known it. "The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight....no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress..."

Naive words? Pie in the sky by and by? Is this just airy fairy theology, holding out hope for the next life because this life is so unbearable? 2500 years ago, and then 2000 years ago, just promises, promises? Look at the mess right now, not only in the Philippines and other storm- and war-ravaged places, but in our own country, our government, as some would say, in ruin, millions of people without adequate food, shelter, or employment; our own community wounded with poverty and hopelessness and substance abuse.

"I am about to create new heavens and a new earth." Any time now, God, any time. "Bad news is easy to believe," writes one commentator. "It’s the gospel that’s unimaginable to most [of us]." (Kyle Childress, Ekklesia Project blog, 11-13-13) Gospel–"good news." Is it just four little books in an ancient and dusty tome? Are there any images or sounds or tastes or smells associated with it? Is the gospel to be believed or trusted?

Jim Wallis tells the story from some years ago of volunteering in a church homeless shelter around Christmas time. The church basement was decorated with banners and Christmas decorations, "Good news! Christ is born!" "Glory to God in the Highest" and so on. One of the men who lived each day out on the streets looked around the room and asked, "What is the good news anyway?" Jim said there was a long pause; no one knew what to say. Finally someone spoke up from the back of the line, "The good news is that it doesn’t have to be like this."

(Childress, op cit.)

It doesn’t have to be like this. What the prophet Isaiah and Jesus were both doing was painting the picture of what an alternate reality might look like. If it doesn’t have to be like this, what might it be? "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind," God says through Isaiah. "Not one stone will be left upon another," Jesus says through Luke. But of course, he also painted so many other pictures of the new heavens and new earth–"the kingdom/reign of God," he called it....where no walls would keep people away from God and where, in fact, God couldn’t be contained in a building. The kingdom is in you, he said, in your midst, still coming. Leaders are servants in this kingdom. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female–all have equal standing. There’s a banquet table with enough delicious, healthy food for everyone. The choir’s made up of birds and angels and all God’s critters; sun and moon and stars even sing. All the variety of skin colors and dress and music and dance glorify God. Death does not end life–it transforms it into new life–and Love continues to hold us and connect us to loved ones.

This is not a shuffling of the pieces on the board. This is a whole new board and brand new pieces. From death shall come new life, not just the old life resuscitated. "Doxology [or praise] is the ultimate challenge to the language of managed reality," Walter Brueggemann writes (Prophetic Imagination), and it is only when we are open to the possibility of a truly new reality that we can be re-energized, given the strength and hope to even become part of God’s new creation. "By your endurance," Jesus said, "you will gain your souls."

And despite what the powers that be would have us believe, truly experiencing our grief– our grief over the loss of loved ones, our grief over the poisoning and poaching of our planet, our grief over the loss of the dream we may have had for our country–truly experiencing our grief can break through the numbness that would keep us powerless and merely reactive. Our discouragement, our despair, our "what difference could I possibly make?" only serve the status quo, not God. We must not be afraid of the upheaval, of our world’s being turned upside down. It just may be God’s Holy Spirit stirring things up, shaking things down so that we will finally empty our pockets of all the stuff that’s weighing us down, that we will let go our grip of all to which we so tightly cling as being essential for our lives, and finally let go into God, whose radical freedom and creativity are in fact our hope, here and now, as well as in the future.

Imagine! "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox...they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord." Might we begin by an act of imagining new heavens and a new earth? "Any church that stops leaning toward ‘new heavens and new earth," writes one sage, " any church which no longer keeps taut the tension between the world as it is and the world as God intends it to be, is a sadly compromised and accommodated church." (Childress, op cit.)

What if we were lean into joy? Into a whole new earth? What if we were to invest our money, our time, our imaginations into this new "thing" that God is bringing to birth, even now, in our midst, even through us? Imagine!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Praise, praise, praise!?"-- Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21-- Nov. 10, 2013

The Church has its own secret language. Walter Brueggeman calls it "odd." We use words that only make sense here–sacrament, salvation, atonement, confession, doxology, benediction, and my personal favorite – "hermeneutic" (which means, how we interpret the Bible). These words may sneak into outside useage occasionally, but they are at their most authentic in the context of the Church’s life and worship, which means they are increasingly becoming extinct, no longer many people’s native tongue.

One of the words that permeates the Bible and our worship is "praise"–"praise the Lord!" Our first hymn is almost always a "hymn of praise"–"Praise, My Soul, the God of Heaven." There are some psalms that use "PRAISE" in every line, like Psalm 150–"Praise the Lord! Praise God in the sanctuary; praise God in the mighty firmament! Praise God for his mighty deeds; praise God according to his surpassing greatness! Praise God with trumpet sound... with lute and harp! ...with tamborine and dance...with strings and pipe! ...with clanging cymbals; ...with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" "We just wanna praise you, Lord!" sing the evangelicals in Praise choruses. "I will extol you [there’s one of those "odd" words], my God and King," begins Psalm 145 which David read for us this morning, "and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever."

Yikes! That’s a whole lotta praising going on!

But does God "need" our praise? Is God so insecure that the Holy One just needs perpetual praise and reinforcement? What does it mean, really, to "praise God" night and day, and whatever can it mean to have rocks and hills "praise God"?

"Do we know what it means to praise? To adore? To give glory?" the Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton asked in his book Praying the Psalms.

Praise is cheap today,

[Merton wrote in 1956]. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets that are supposed to make life more comfortable–everything is constantly being ‘praised.’ Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is ‘praised’ with the official hollow enthusiasm of the radio announcer, it turns out in the end that nothing is praised. Praise has become empty. No one really wants to use it...

So,

[Merton says][because we don’t want to "praise God,"] we go to [God] to ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead.

Merton wrote that the psalms–these ancients songs of Israel’s worship-- lead naturally to contemplation. He recommended choosing one at a time and making it the heart of one’s morning and evening meditation or prayer. (If you do that sort of thing). Spend time with it. "Praise the Lord, O my soul...and all that is within me, praise God’s holy name." Morning and evening...maybe at noon. See what it does to you. Let it do its work on you.

When my father died, I decided to take on the Jewish practice of saying the Mourners’ Kaddish every day for one year after he died. It’s a prayer that never mentions the loved one’s name or anything really about death; it simply praises God, who made the universe and life as it is.

Let God’s name be made great and holy in the world that was created as God willed. May God complete the holy realm in your own lifetime, in your days, and in the days of all the house of Israel, quickly and soon. And say: Amen. May God’s great name be blessed, forever and as long as worlds endure. May it be blessed, and praised, and glorified, and held in honor, viewed with awe, embellished, and revered; and may the blessed name of holiness be hailed, though it be higher than all the blessings, songs, praises, and consolations that we utter in this world. And say: Amen. May Heaven grant a universal peace, and life for us, and for all Israel. And say: Amen. May the one who creates harmony above, make peace for us and for all Israel, and for all who dwell on earth. And say: Amen. [Prayers for a House of Mourning]

Over and over. Night after night. Some nights it was all I could to keep my eyes open. Some nights the words were meaningless. But it became part of me. It reminded me that life is as it is, that there is a deeper wisdom and blessing in life than always appears, that I and my father were part of something much greater than both of us, that deeper than my meager imagination was a harmony and radiance and love which permeates the universe. Praise God. Bless God’s holy name.

I’ve spoken before about thanksgiving–that if the only prayer you offer is "thank you," that’s enough. It still is. But my friend and colleague, Marshall Hudson-Knapp–a former member of this congregation and pastor of the Fair Haven Congregational Church for the last 35 years or so–and I have had an ongoing conversation about the difference between thanksgiving and praise. Praise is slightly different from thanksgiving, Marsh maintains. Thanksgiving has a subtle thread that refers back to us. "Thank you, God, for this thing that somehow makes or has made my life fuller, more beautiful, more peaceful"–whether it’s God’s presence with me or the one whose well-being is on my heart, whether it’s for the food or the view or the company which nourishes me... Thanksgiving is always somehow self-referential.

But praise-- as I’ve come to learn from Marsh–praise seems one-directional–it just goes out there. It’s just about God, not about me. "So does that mean God is ultimately transcendent," I asked Marsh, "ultimately other?" "And inescapably imminent," Marsh nodded. "Inescapably inside of us." [This is the kind of conversation clergy have when they get together!] Praise, at the very least, gets us out of ourselves. It affirms that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. It’s not all about us. That’s why music is often a much more effective form of praise than words, not for God’s sake, [although maybe God prefers music] but for ours–it’s too easy for us to get caught up on the words, whereas music–if it’s truly great music-- has the power to transport us beyond ourselves. And, some would argue, music speaks more truly the language of the soul.

Another way to get beyond ourselves is service, of course. Tending to another’s need instead of ruminating on our own is a time-honored way of healing mild depression or of just being in a "funk." To praise God by serving another is a deeply wise practice, and sometimes may have more integrity than going through the motions of ritual or "worship"--

I hate, I despise your festivals,

[God says through the prophet Amos] and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (5:21-24)

"Every day I will bless you, [God], and praise your name forever and ever." While praise takes us out of ourselves, it also connects us to our true Selves. In the act of praising, we enter into ongoing creative activity of God, we align ourselves with God’s being and with the ultimate truth of our lives. What we focus on is what we give our attention to; we might even say that we become what we focus on. God’s presence becomes larger in our awareness. We become more generous when we focus on God’s generosity; we become more compassionate when we meditate on God’s compassion. Rather than focusing on our faults, our blemishes, like the minister with the radiated facial deformity that Maria Sirois told us about, we can focus on what is beautiful and good and true within us. That doesn’t mean ignoring our faults and blemishes, it simply enfolds them into a larger picture.

In the praise psalms, praising the God of creation, the source of all abundance, Walter Brueggemann says that "Israel’s song of ‘exuberant trust’ praises the way God set things up, the way God established ‘a coherent, viable, life-giving, life-permitted order–a place for life." (Cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 11/10/13) "Exuberant trust"–I like that. "The Lord watches over all who love God," the psalmist says in v.20, but then we read that jarring statement, "but all the wicked God will destroy." Is this the God we trust in, exuberantly or otherwise?

"The happiness or prosperity of the righteous, "writes Clinton McCann, "is not so much a reward as it is their experience of being connected to the true source of life–God." [That’s what praise does–it connects us to God.] Similarly [he says] the destruction of the wicked is not so much a punishment as it is the result of their own choice to cut themselves off from the source of life. The compassionate God does not will to destroy the wicked, but their own autonomy gives God no choice." (Cited by Huey, op cit.) Or, I would say, "their own autonomy chooses for them their own result, which is disconnection to God, which is ultimately destruction."

So we praise God....which connects us to God...which puts our lives in such a vast, mysterious, wondrous context that, in the midst of-- and at the end of-- such a life of praise, we can let go, knowing that we are connected by so many threads to God that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which we know in Christ Jesus. To praise God is to align ourselves with the Truth of the universe, including ourselves–which rocks and hills and trees automatically do, so they "praise God." To praise God is to notice, be aware of, the wonder and beauty and mystery all around us, not so hard in this season now passing, but possible in every season. To praise God is to notice, be aware of, the wonder and beauty and mystery within–"I praise you, God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"–how amazing that our bodies work the way they do! That they heal and re-route pathways, that they are built for pleasure and given pain to notify us that something’s wrong, that they are able to express love and caring and solidarity.

And even in the midst of times when praise seems the farthest thing from our minds– when we are confronted with injustice or cruelty or pain or illness or even death–the psalms provide models for us as well. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" one psalm well-known to Jesus begins. We can express any and all emotions in God’s presence–anger, despair, vengeance, grief– as many of the psalms do--but there’s always an "And yet," or "still...I will praise you...my ancestors trusted in you...You are my God." The threads of praise still connecting us.

Help, Thanks, Wow is the title of Anne LaMott’s book on prayer–a slight modification on the claim that "thanks" is the only prayer you need. "Wow" is praise. "Oh, wow, oh wow, oh wow!" are the last words Apple founder Steve Jobs is said to have uttered as he died.

Finally, Walter Brueggemann offers this guide to prayer–

...these words that tell our truth bind us to you, and to your passionate truthfulness. While the words linger sweetly on our lips, we are summoned beyond ourselves–as we always are–summoned to you, in awe and doxology, and exuberance. Summoned past ourselves to you...only to say...

Alleluia...God of heaven;

alleluia....still the same forever;

alleluia...slow to chide,

swift to bless;

alleluia...gladly all our burdens bearing.

When we sound these ancient cadences, we know ourselves to be at the threshold with all your creatures in heaven and on earth, everyone from rabbits and parrots to angels and seraphim...alleluia...angels teaching us how to adore you.

And then in the middle of our praise which causes us to float very light, we are jarred and sobered:

Dwellers [as we are] in time and space

...

In time–the beginning of winter, as so many will not have enough to heat their homes...alleluia;

In time-- as flu season begins, and we cannot figure out a way to provide healthcare for all...alleluia;

In place–in the Philippines, where thousands are lost to wind and waves; in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, where cars explode and children are gassed...alleluia;

In place–in Washington, where the rich are given seats and the poor are forgotten; here, where escape and pleasure are sought through drugs, where lines form at the Kitchen Cupboard...alleluia;

That is how it is when we praise you. We join the angels in praise, and we keep our feet in time and place...awed to heaven, rooted in earth. We are daily stretched between communion with you and our bodied lives, spent but alive, summoned and cherished but stretched between. And we are reminded that before us there has been this One truly divine (at ease with the angels) truly human...dwellers in time and space. We are thankful for him, and glad to be in his missional company. Alleluia. Amen. (Brueggemann, Awed to heaven, Rooted in Earth, pp. 85-6)

 

And amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"No Shame" --Luke 19:1-10-- November 3, 2013

One of the elements of humor is that it’s often unexpected, it surprises us. It turns a phrase in a way that catches us off guard. "Autumn leaves. Jesus doesn’t." [seen on an outdoor church sign yesterday, theme of children’s moment today]. So, imagine my surprise and the smile that came over my face when I read this in a Biblical commentary--

"Even in antiquity, the only exercise some people got was jumping to conclusions." (John Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Yr. C, p. 160) It’s a wonderful image, but of course, jumping to conclusions can have devastating or even deadly consequences. Take the issue of racial profiling. Or perhaps less dramatic but no less hurtful, all those prejudices–which means, "pre-judgement"–we all have. We judge people by the way they look, by who they remind us of, by what we’ve been taught about them, all before we ever speak to them, let alone get to know them.

The gospel of Luke is full of "reversals," of having common assumptions turned upside down, beginning with Mary’s song when she is pregnant with Jesus-- about the mighty being taken down from their thrones, and the poor lifted up. About the hungry being filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. There’s the unlikely Samaritan rescuer of the man who had fallen among thieves, or the rich man who went away sadly from Jesus, because for all his righteousness, he couldn’t let go of his possessions. There’s the defenseless widow who persistently comes to the judge to demand justice. There’s the shepherd leaving the 99 and seeking out the 1 lost sheep, or the woman sweeping her entire house to find the one lost coin.

So here at the end of Luke’s travel narrative about Jesus’ determined journey toward Jerusalem, we find Jesus seeking out a tax collector, of all people, even one who was hiding out in a tree so he could catch a glimpse of Jesus. "Zacchaeus," Jesus calls up to him, "hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."

So Zacchaeus scrambles down the tree, suddenly full of hope and joy, but he can hear the crowd grumbling around him. My guess is his ears were pretty well-tuned to that sort of thing. "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner," is what they were saying, and Jesus looked at Zacchaeus as if to say, "Hey, they grumble about me all the time. This isn’t about you."

But Zacchaeus stands his ground and protests. Most of the versions we read, and most of the versions we learned, have him say, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Another sinner repentant in the presence of Jesus.

But what usually gets translated in the future tense–"Half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor.... and I will pay back four times as much"–now is recognized by may reliable translators as actually the present tense–the progressive present tense. In the Greek, this has the meaning of a repeated, ongoing action. So, "Look–half of my possessions, Lord, I already give to the poor. And if I [find that] I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay them back four times as much." Roman law required a payback of four times only for convicted criminals, and the Torah required restitution of the object or amount plus 20% interest. Zacchaeus has more than fulfilled both laws.

In fact, the name "Zacchaeus" means "innocent," "pure," or "righteous one." Maybe he is. Maybe instead of a story of redemption, this is a story of revelation. (Richard Swanson, cited in Kate Huey, Sermon Seeds, 11/3/13) Zacchaeus knows he is part of a system that oppresses. He’s part of the 8% of Palestinian culture who were the "retainer class," serving the 2% of elites, who controlled and acquired their wealth which was produced by peasants. Rome taxed every aspect of daily life, and they depended on a system of tax collectors, set up at crossroads or harbors or markets to collect those taxes, but those tax collectors all worked under "chief tax collectors," like Zacchaeus, who had to pay the tax upfront to Rome, and then recoup their payout. It was only by surcharging or graft that any of the tax collectors could make a living. Zacchaeus, "the righteous one," one commentator (Huey) suggests, wants to make reparation for his gain from the system, and can’t live with the fact that he has benefited from the system which has oppressed others. "The fact is," writes Fred Craddock, "that one is not privately righteous while participating in a corrupt system that robs and crushes other persons." (Huey, op cit.) How many of us sit uneasily with the fact that we benefit from a system that crushes so many? I wonder if certain outwardly pious politicians ever are challenged to think about that from the pulpits they attend to.

Stan Duncan, a UCC pastor who went on the trip to Honduras with Sue Wiskoski and Vic Callirgos and me 10 years ago, writes that tax collectors in almost every instance were viewed negatively by the wealthy, including the Pharisees, while almost universally befriended by Jesus. (Blog, 11/3/13) Again, I wonder how many "Christian" Tea party members are aware of that.

So maybe Zacchaeus, like his name implied, was in fact, a "righteous" tax collector, just like the other tax collector whom Jesus named in his story about the Pharisee and tax collector both praying. Jesus saw that; in fact, sought him out. The crowd, though, had already formed their opinion of him. "Even in antiquity, the only exercise some people got was jumping to conclusions." There seemed to be "conclusion-jumpers" all around that day.

But then there is that other detail that must have been so remarkable that Luke retained it in his story. Zacchaeus had trouble seeing Jesus because "he was short." Now, actually, it’s not clear whether it’s Zacchaeus or Jesus who was short, but somehow a "short" savior is unbearable. So, let’s say it was Zacchaeus who was short. Maybe he had been teased and even bullied his whole life because he was small. Maybe that’s why he became a tax collector–at least he then had Roman soldiers to back him up. Zaccheaus was aware that he bore some guilt for what he did–for the job he apparently did well–and so he went over and above to repair the breach. "Half of my possessions, I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, I pay back four times the value."

But Zacchaeus also knew shame–not for what he did, but for what he was–short. "He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature." She was trying to eat at the lunch counter, but because of the "crowd" she could not, because she was black. He was trying to rent an apartment with his partner, but because of the "crowd" he could not, because he was gay. Shame is about who you are, not what you’ve done. You’re black or brown, you’re Latino, you’re not physically attractive, you battle with depression, you’re gay or lesbian or bisexual or transsexual, you’ve never married, you’ve never had a child, you’re not cool, you don’t have the right clothes, you’re a band geek instead of a jock, your mother drinks too much, your father is unemployed. Shame. Shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown defines shame as the "intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging." Everybody’s experienced shame, she says, but shame grows exponentially when kept in secrecy, silence, and judgment. Shame that is kept secret and silent is lethal, Dr. Brown says, and "we [as a culture] are swimming in it deep." (Super Soul Sunday interview, OWN) Think about it. Is this not true in your experience? Have you not experienced that "intensely painful feeling," that hot face and churning stomach, when someone or something has triggered a "shame storm" in your? I happen to think Bennington is swimming in shame.

What shame cannot survive, Brown says, is empathy and being spoken; though, I might add, as she does elsewhere, that our stories of shame should only be spoken to someone who can be trusted. Zacchaeus knew Jesus was someone who could be trusted. He responded "whole-heartedly [as Kate Huey says] to God’s radical grace in his life." (Op cit.) "Here’s the good news," writes another commentator (Peter Woods, I am listening, 10/26/10)–"Jesus is drawn to shame. Shame and sadness are the pheromones that attract the amazing grace of Jesus." In a culture that was based on honor and shame, Jesus consistently zeroed in on the people defined as shameful by that culture–the outcasts, the possessed, the sick, the non-attached– and reconnected them to community. "Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and connection," remember? This isn’t shame as we use it when we say, "Have you no shame?" Or "Shame on you!" What we mean then is really, "Have you no conscience?"

The church is often perceived as being in the shaming business, the finger-wagging business, but that in itself is "a shame." I see Jesus confronting the shame-- that "intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and connection"-- head-on and being the vehicle for transforming that shame into re-connection, healing, the embodiment of love and worthiness. In fact, Jesus took the shame on himself, up to and including the excruciating pain and shame of crucifixion. Part of the good news of the resurrection is that even death cannot make us unworthy of love and connection.

Brene Brown writes of those who are able to overcome shame as whole-hearted people, people who live with courage, compassion, and connection. ("Gifts of Imperfection") Zacchaeus experiences such joy and wholeheartedness when he scrambles down that tree to Jesus and tells him who he really is. Not so with the rich young man who had followed all the rules but couldn’t detach himself from his money.

"Today salvation has come to this house," Jesus said, reaching out to touch Zacchaeus’ arm, "because he too is a son of Abraham." This one whom you thought you knew but never took the time to know, this one whom you have kept out of the circle of community, he too is a son of Abraham. He is part of the family. Salvation, wholeness, restoration, has come to this house today. There is no shame here.

Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here. You are welcome to this table. Jesus must eat at your house–at our house-- today. Come, let us keep the feast!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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