Costly Grace

Costly Grace

Luke 19:1-9

One problem faced by preachers is how to keep the old material fresh.  How do you take a Scripture passage that you’ve preached many times (and/or one that everyone has preached many times) and say something new about it?  You can’t keep saying the same thing over and over, nor can you completely ignore those passages.  They’re staples.  Besides, if you use the lectionary, they keep surfacing every three years.  What’s the solution?

One method is to buy new books that comment on the old passages.  A friend recently lent me a couple of books by an author with whom I was not familiar.  His writings have given me new insights into many of Jesus’ parables that are recorded in Luke’s gospel.

Another way is to be open to new leadings of the Holy Spirit, and to recognize the relevance of familiar Scriptures to modern life.  Human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 10,000 years or so.  We still face the same problems biblical people faced.  We just experience them with new technology.

I should add that the above solutions are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, it is necessary to apply all three—and perhaps others that I haven’t thought of—to the problem of finding new meaning in familiar Scriptures.

One of the staple passages from the gospels is the story of Zacchaeus.  I remember hearing it in Sunday school as a kid, where the emphasis was on Zacchaeus’ size—or lack of it.  The teacher tried to make it relevant to boys who shared Zacchaeus’ height differential problem.  We were small; so was he.  We climbed trees to see the world; so did he.  Of course, that’s where the parallels ended.  We weren’t rich tax collectors, nor did we give banquets.  Still, the lesson was absorbed, and we were able to identify with Zacchaeus and hope that Jesus would come to us in the same way.  We even had a song we sang about the story.

As an adult, and one of slightly above average height, I look at the story from a different angle.  I try to find something that speaks to me and draws me in.  I also have to find something that will attract those people to whom I minister on Sunday mornings.

The word that moves me now is grace.  Grace is a universal concern.  We all need it.  We all want it.  We all worry that we aren’t worthy of it (we’re not, of course).  We all want to be sure there’s enough to go around.

Even if he didn’t know it, Zacchaeus needed grace.  He may have climbed that tree just to see what all the excitement was about—as well as to escape the jabs and pushes of his unfriendly neighbors—but he needed grace.  Jesus knew that, and offered it to him.  Jesus should have eaten at the home of one of the leading citizens of Jericho.  Instead, he chose to go home with the most hated man in town.  That’s a huge offering of grace.

At the dinner table Zacchaeus offered grace in return.  You remember:  he promised to give half of his goods to the poor. He also said he would return four times any amount he had taken unjustly.  That’s another a huge offering of grace.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that grace isn’t cheap.  It costs—and the cost of grace is high.  Moreover, grace costs both the giver and receiver.  Grace cost Jesus, because his reputation among the good people of Jericho hit rock bottom.  How could he associate with such a rotten person as Zacchaeus?  Grace cost Zacchaeus.  Once he had given away so much of his worldly goods he would have to seriously change his lifestyle.

Was it worth it?  What do you think?