Good morning! I am Tim Roberts, the
pastor here at Sunrise Church. I want to take just a moment to welcome you and
especially to all the dads out there. Happy Father's Day! I hope that you have the opportunity to spend
some time with your father today, but if not, please honor him in some way.
For me, I am remembering and honoring
my father this morning by wearing one of his stoles that he wore as he
preached. So, I believe this stole is probably a little older than me. But for
me, it is just a small way that I am still able to connect back with my father.
This morning, we are continuing with
this series we're calling, Our Heart
& Soul, in which we are looking at all the various pieces of our
Mission, Vision and Values statements. These statements serve as a reminder for
us as to who we are and what our purpose is.
Today, we are looking at the second
element to our Vision Statement, which in its concise form is, "Welcome."
I've been told by some of the founding members of Sunrise that this concept has
been a foundational principle since the inception of the church. It originally
began as this phrase "Come As You Are!" Twenty-three years ago, when
Sunrise was founded, that was pretty much a radical idea. While it was mainly
about the standard of dress, being casual and not needing to "dress
up" for church, it has become more than that over time.
Now the idea of a church proclaiming
the word "Welcome," is not a new idea, nor one that originated here,
I sometimes wonder, "Do they really mean it?"
Maybe to answer that question, we need
to get a good, usable definition for it. Here's how one particular dictionary
defines it:
Welcome
- verb - To receive or accept with
pleasure; regard as pleasant or good.
Maybe I am a bit cynical, but sometimes
I think that people misuse, or maybe overuse the word "Welcome." We
say it because it has become more of a habitual remark rather than a term of
endearment.
I am reminded of the words that are
inscribed in the tablet held by Lady Liberty, that serve as a welcoming
invitation to the rest world, “Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But again, do we mean it?
Not long ago, I read the story of a
family who was traveling along one of the highways when the baby started crying
out because it was hungry. The man pulled the car to the side of the road so
his wife could nurse the infant. The stopped car sparked the interest of the
local police who then called for backup and surrounded the car and began interrogating
the man and then took the whole family down to the station where they were
questioned about their affiliation with known terrorist groups. All of this
came about because one police officer noticed that the man appeared to be
Muslim.
Of course, in the wake of the various
terrorist attacks here in the US and the knowledge of several thwarted attacks,
many believe that profiling is justified. A significant amount of the
population agrees that it is okay to organize people into groups and categories
- just separate "them" from "us."
Classification is not a new concept
though. Nor is it something that just government officials engage in. Take for
an instance, a story out of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19.1-10:
Luke 19.1-4
(The Message)
1
Then Jesus entered and walked through Jericho. 2
There was a man there, his name Zacchaeus, the head tax man and quite rich. 3
He wanted desperately to see Jesus, but the crowd was in his way - he was a
short man and couldn't see over the crowd. 4
So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when
he came by.
Many of us know the story of Zacchaeus
from learning the song about him when we were little: "Zacchaues was a
wee, little man and a wee. little man was he..."
I remember learning this song in Sunday
School and coloring pictures about him smiling as he sat up in the tree - and
everybody was smiling - seemed friendly. But in real life, that was not the
case.
Zacchaeus was not popular by any
stretch of the imagination. As much as most people loathe the IRS, it would not
begin to compare to the disdain that people felt towards Zacchaeus. He was not
just a tax collector, he was the chief collector - in other words, he didn't
even do most of the work, he contracted that job out. At that time, there was
not any income tax, no reporting of your earnings to give some idea of your
fair share of taxes. The Romans simply said that they expected a certain amount
of tax revenue from a region and then hired tax collectors to collect and remit
that amount. Whatever the collectors took in in excess of that amount, they got
to keep.
We know by story, Zacchaeus was
wealthy. We do not know how he came about his wealth, whether it was from his
job or from his family. But just because he was a wealthy AND a tax collector,
people assumed that he became rich from other people's money. They thought
since he was wealthy, somebody else must have lost their wealth.
Luke 19.15-6
(The Message)
5
When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down.
Today is my day to be a guest in your home." 6
Zacchaeus scrambled out of the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted
to take Jesus home with him.
Here we see Jesus doing something very
odd; he notices Zacchaeus, this loathsome little pestilence of a man, who had
just degraded himself even further by foolishly climbing up a tree, and honors
him by announcing to all who could hear him, that he would eat with Zacchaeus
at his home that evening.
Of course, Zacchaeus is ecstatic with
this sign of social approval. But not everyone is so happy about this turn of
events.
Luke 19.7-8
(The Message)
7
Everyone who saw the incident was indignant and grumped, "What business
does he have getting cozy with this crook?"
Why did the crowd become so upset? Was
it jealousy or envy? Was it sheer disgust? I believe it may have struck deep
much deeper than that. I believe that all of a sudden, the crowd is faced with
a tough choice - which was going to win - their disdain for Zacchaeus of the
high regard for Jesus? They felt justified for their lack of approval for
Zacchaeus, but Jesus, they highly respect him, so if they are going to continue
to revere him, they have to accept his favorable opinion, even about Zacchaeus.
Luke 19.8
(The Message)
8
Zacchaeus just stood there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically,
"Master, I give away half my income to the poor - and if I'm caught
cheating, I pay four times the damages."
Zacchaeus, sensing the crowd's
disapproval, begins to worry that maybe Jesus will think he made a mistake and
will not want anything to do with him. So he responds by pointing out what he already does.
Luke 19.9
(The Message)
9
Jesus said, "Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is: Zacchaeus,
son of Abraham!
Now if Jesus' self-invitation wasn't
enough to completely flabbergast the
crowd, this statement does as it forces them to see Zacchaeus with new eyes. He
is not the outcast that they have always considered him to be - he is their
brother, "one of us"! With that one simple statement, Jesus restore
Zacchaeus back into the right relationship within him community and healing of
this broken relationship begins within the whole community.
I chose to read this passage this
morning from The Message because I
believe it is the closest to the original Greek text. The reason I say this is
because of the way it translates verse 8. In most modern translations,
Zacchaeus' response is in a future tense "I will give" and "I will
pay." But in the original Greek, it is in present tense, relating what
he already does.
So, why the discrepancy? It may be
because of our modern evangelical slant that repentance must precede
forgiveness. It assumes that Zacchaeus must be a dishonest tax collector, so in
order for Jesus to forgive him, he has to repent!
But you
know friends, that's not what the text says. It also causes me to wonder
a bit about this sense of justice that many seem to have - What if God doesn't
care as much about justice as we do?
Is it possible that maybe our sense of justice
is just our way of defining each other, or a way of tracking "who's in"
and "who's out"? I wonder.
You know, if that is so, then that must
mean that God's grace regularly trumps God's justice. That makes sense, because
as I have read the Bible, I have come to see that the Good News isn't about justice,
it's about relationship - God's inexplicably and audacious desire to be in
relationship with each of us.
And that sentiment is summed up in the
last verse of our passage this morning:
Luke 19.10
(The Message)
10 For the
Son of Man came to find and restore the lost."
You see friends, Jesus refuses to be
bound by our labels. He looks beyond all of the masks and cloaks that we cast
on others. Where we see an outsider, Jesus sees "one of the family."
Where we proclaim one as hopelessly lost, Jesus declares undeniably found.
Where we chide, Jesus welcomes.
What we can take from this story today
is that issue a call of Welcome doesn't come predicated with the intent that
someone has to get everything ready first and make everything neat and pretty -
it truly implies "Come As You Are."
So, let's take a look at this element
of our Vision, to Welcome, with new eyes and heart as we read it together
Welcome - No one is a stranger in God's House and Sunrise is
God's House, therefore all are wanted and longed for. It does not matter what
the circumstances are, God invites you to Come As You Are.
