Home

Today’s story is about a homecoming. Jesus invites himself home to the place where Zacchaeus lives. He is welcomed gladly. Crossing over the threshold of Zacchaeus’ house, Jesus enters into an intimate space and brings acceptance and challenge. And Zacchaeus responds in repentance and generosity, building a new spiritual home for himself with God.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you come to us in word and music, in the chiming of bells and the assurance of grace. Come now through these words we ask , as we focus on scripture and listen for insight. And through these meditations, may we  open the home of our heart to you this day.  Amen

Growing up on Long Island, my family did not travel far from home. Mostly, we lived a quiet life in a Nassau country suburb, just over the border from the New York City line.  Perhaps the most consistent out of town journey was to visit my paternal grandparents who lived in Brooklyn, maybe 40 minutes away, on Sunday afternoons. Those were the days before Brooklyn had become a brand, before gentrification and fancy shopping. We could hear the El train from the kitchen and enjoyed hanging out  on the front stoop— Brooklynese for the high steps in front of their building. We sat at the kitchen table and had lunch.  My grandfather would let the pet parakeet out of the cage and let it perch on his finger. It was fun, and it was different.  To a child, it seemed exotic to be in Brooklyn, away from the little patch of green lawn and Cape Cod house where we lived.

I loved my grandparents and enjoyed these visits, but I always was glad when it was time for the trek back. Brooklyn was a far country, and the ride seemed endless. As we got closer, I was glad.  And at that final turn into the driveway, I could feel relief.  Home again.

Even now, when I am lucky enough to travel much further, to places more diverse and remote than an apartment in Brooklyn, I have that same reaction when getting closer to home, and then arriving in my own house, my own place. Relief, to be home again.

When we come home, from a short trip, a day at the office, a long journey, or a hospital stay, we do experience a letting go, and a relaxation that any place “out there “ can’t match. Home is comfortable, known, a base of familiarity. It is the contrast point of all other places in our life, and the place we share with those whom we love most tenderly and intimately, family, and very close friends.

And even if home has also been for some of us a place of conflicted relationships and lack of love, it is still, symbolically, heavy with meaning, with resonance. Without being overly sentimental, which is easy when we talk about home, we can say things like “home is where the heart is”, and “there’s no place like home” and of course, “home, sweet home.” And we understand why these clichés still can touch us.

Of course, this business of home is not just about family, bricks and mortar, and real estate. It’s about our very selves. Being at home can be a state of mind, and not only a place. And we can wonder with whom we are at home and what it means to be at home with ourselves, and others.

In our culture, it’s hard to be at home with ourselves just as we are because we are given so many models—literally and figuratively—to make us think that we are inadequate as we are. There is always the lure of more, which makes us seem less.

Being at home with oneself means coming to terms with the person God made one to be, and to be content with those givens, without envy.

There are implications for our relationships with other people as well. As we become more friendly to ourselves, we become more available to others. We know this to be true from our own experience with friends. We enjoy being with people who are comfortable with themselves, because they don’t put on airs, nor are they anxious.  We feel relaxed with them, at home with them.

Because home is such a special, reserved, intimate place, having someone to cross the threshold is a particular sign of a deepening relationship. In our lives, there is a relatively strong boundary between home and work.  We maintain a certain distance with co-workers, for example, or our doctors and other professionals, by meeting them only at the office. It is a special moment when we take a newly beloved person home to meet parents and relatives, signaling a new stage of a relationship. And is it why for clergy, it is a special honor to be invited for a visit, and one of the ways that we are privileged to know people more closely than in usual in our culture.

So the fact that  Jesus  invites himself in, and is welcomed gladly, is a significant step in his contact with Zacchaeus, and signaled a kind of acceptance that this chief tax collector could hardly have expected, but did receive. And the others who saw what happened didn’t like it at all, muttering, “Look, he has gone to be a guest of a sinner.”

Tax collectors of course being agents of the Romans and usually known to oppress the poor and to toady up to the ruling class.

Zacchaeus gladly welcomes Jesus.

And because the does, Jesus welcomes him as a child of Abraham despite his seemingly outsider status.

Now, we don’t know a lot about this man Zacchaeus, except these delicious details that Luke gives us that he was short, that he climbed a sycamore tree that he was wealthy.  At the end of the story, he gives up half his goods.  These details help to make this story of a great conversion, which seems almost too good to be true, ring true. Luke has a novelist’s gift for story telling, no more so than in this tale.

But we can imagine that Zacchaeus  must have had a great need, to brave the crowds to see  the Master and to go to the trouble of climbing that tree. He must have really needed and wanted this contact.  He must have been quite burdened by his life’s work, which ostracized him from his fellow Jews and made him a pariah in his own country, a sinner in their eyes.  He had a need which Jesus recognized and was willing to meet. A need to change and a need to be free from the past.

And by coming into his house, Jesus offered him a way out of his old life and in to a new way of life.

We don’t learn much about what went on during that visit, but we can speculate that it might have been quite interesting to have Jesus as a guest. We know from other stories like the time that Jesus went to the house of Martha and Mary, that he did not care that much about a fuss being made over him, but Jesus did use the time to teach and to have others stay physically close to him and listen to him. In that story, Mary sits at his knee.  And if he cared for one thing, it was the connection and love that people felt from him and with him. Jesus wanted to reach people in love, and have them respond. 

Jesus is focused on persons. He seems to be someone whom people could feel at home with, someone who knew their hearts and what they needed and what was going to be a challenge to them. And he did not hesitate to offer that challenge. To Martha he gave the challenge of letting go of anxiety and to Zacchaeus, that of letting go of possessions.  

In response, Zacchaeus decides to clean house. He gives away half of what he has, and makes amends for how he might have cheated. He is saved by this visit, which becomes a coming home to a whole new way of life. He comes home to God and to God’s ways, to service to the poor, to letting go of unjust means to wealth. And Jesus declares “today salvation has come to this house!” 

But for us, being at home with God may not be such an easy thing. It looks so simple in the story that we might get that impression.  But I know for myself that it is sometimes hard for me to welcome God into my daily rounds, even as long to do so.  Sometimes the windows are barred and the doors locked and I wonder why God doesn’t seem very present, and then I realize that it is me who has put up the barriers and locked the entry ways and then as the mystic Meister Eckhard says, “it is we who have gone out for a walk.”  Of course, God is always present, for where else could God be but everywhere we are? But we don’t see or feel that to be true, sometimes.

Which is why coming to church can be such a support to us who long for God. For we will find God is here, in this our sacred home. Every time we gather we recognize the Presence, which is already present. We acknowledge God’s spirit in each other through greetings of hello and in signs of peace. In silence we hear or at least listen for the still small voice and we know that the spirit prays through us with sighs too deep for words. When we sing, we pray twice. It is not of our doing, but God’s doing, that we are called here today to experience the presence of God among us and between us.

This Sunday and every time we share communion,  we also have a special way of connecting with God. We eat together, partaking of a meal of grace and forgiveness.

Just like in our homes,  that most intimate of environments, here in church,  we share food and drink and song and speaking. Those moments are made holy in the sharing and the prayer that recognizes that God is present, ever present and most particularly present, in bread and cup, in eating and drinking.

When we come here, back to our sacred home and to this table, we find a kind of release, knowing that we are known, glad to have been found, happy that God has asked to come to our house and that like Zacchaeus, we have said yes, come in, I welcome you gladly.

Today, all saints Sunday, we celebrate and remember the saints of the church. Earlier in the service, we mention especially those who have died this past year, as a way of keeping in mind that each contributed to the holiness of life and are now in God’s nearest presence. In our Reform tradition, saints are not a special class of people revered for special holiness, but individuals who have allowed the sacred story to be the guiding narrative of their lives.  And in keeping with our theme of home, we might say that saints are people who were at home with God here on earth and now find their eternal home with God.

The challenge and the gift of this story of Zacchaeus can remind us that we are always home with God, even at those times when we might feel separate, when we might feel apart. And that as we open the door and welcome Christ into our midst, we will find ourselves transformed.  Ready to given up what separates from God and ready to accept this good news : Sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, salvation had come  to our house.   Thanks be to God.

Amen