Just Trying to See Jesus

Psalm 119:137-144; Luke 19:1-10

          I will admit I am very concerned about the near future of the church in this country.  By near future, I mean the next fifty to one hundred years.    Here’s why I’m concerned.  Much of the church is this country is off track.  Its focus has shifted from the Kingdom of Heaven to the kingdom of American politics.  Its concerns are no longer giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, welcome to the stranger, clothing to the naked, or visiting to those who are sick or in prison.  Its concerns are a certain brand of politics and the issues it deems important.  The word “evangelical” is a good word that has been taken captive by this political movement.  It used to refer to people who were passionate about their faith and demonstrating its teachings of love and service around the world.  I used to consider myself to be an evangelical.  No more.  That word has been stolen from us and used to label a voting bloc.

          I fear the same is happening to one of our most cherished words, our very name “Christian.”  Instead of a movement of people committed to the teachings and principles of Jesus, Christians more and more are being identified as a monolithic voting bloc.  “How can we get the Christian vote?” strategists ask in smoke-filled rooms.  “What must we say and do to appeal to Christian voters?”

          We’re off track.  Our focus has been shifted away from the Kingdom of Heaven and service to “the least of these.”  As a result, I fear the church as an institution in this country over the next few decades is going to suffer greatly.

          This is a failure on many fronts, one of which is history.  We have not learned or have forgotten or perhaps are ignoring the lessons of history.  You see, we have been here before.  The church has been off track at other times in history.  Historians call one of the worst of these times Medieval Christianity.  Some refer to it appropriately as the Dark Ages.  During this time, the Church was fabulously wealthy, politically powerful, utterly corrupt, and spiritually bankrupt.  During Medieval history, the Church was as much a secular government as it was a religious institution.  It owned vast parts of Europe, at one time owning half the land in Germany and France.  When smaller nation-states faced economic collapse, the Church, with its vast fortunes, stepped in and took over.  And of course, someone had to oversee these vast holdings of the Church.  An order of priests known as the secular priests arose to run the daily operations of the Church.  They were notoriously corrupt and often illiterate.  The practice of “simony” was prevalent.  Do you know that word?  We talked about it a few weeks ago on Wednesday night.  It is named after a character in the book of Acts, Simon the Great. He tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit.  Simony was the practice of selling church offices.  The clergy, for the right price, could purchase a lucrative position in the church.  Though the clergy took vows of poverty and celibacy, most were wealthy landowners who fathered many children.  Some high level officials of the Church lived in magnificent palaces and lived lives of luxury and leisure.

          Are you familiar with the relics in the Medieval church?  This was a common way of bilking the people of their money.  Relics were religious objects connected to a saint or some other venerated person, including Jesus.  People took pilgrimages and paid fortunes to see these so-called relics.  It might be a body part of a saint, maybe a finger, a lock of hair, or maybe an article of clothing.  They believed the veneration of these relics could aid in their salvation, maybe shave a few years off their time in purgatory. Fredrick I, a prince in northern Germany, claimed to have a collection of 17,000 relics.  For the right price, you could venerate twigs from Moses’ burning bush.  That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?  It might be worth the price of admission.  If the price was really right, you could venerate straw from Jesus’ manger or, better yet, fragments from the cross of Jesus.

          I could go on and on about the corruption and abuses of the Church.  Suffice it to say the Church was off track.

          It took a revolution, a revolt, a reformation to get the Church back on track.  On October 31,1517, 505 years ago tomorrow, a young monk named Martin Luther raised his voice in protest.  His Ninety-five Theses, nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, called for spiritual reform of the Church.  He argued that the individual believers, the little people, should be less dependent on the Church and its clergy.  He called for a new kind of Church where the people took personal responsibility for their faith.  This protest and call for reform gave birth to the Protestant Reformation and a major upheaval and reform of the Church.  In time, new types of churches were born. Those who followed the lead of Martin Luther were called Lutherans.  Some followed John Calvin and were called Presbyterians.  The Church of England was born.  In this country, we call it the Episcopal Church.  And something interesting happened in the Church of England.  It reformed, true, but some didn’t think it reformed enough.  They called for more spiritual reform.  When it didn’t come, the separated from the Church of England.  They came to be called the English Separatists.

          The Separatists were persecuted for not conforming to the state Church.  They were flogged in the town square.  They had their property stolen.  Some were put in prison, and some died in prison.  So around 1609, some of these Separatists pulled up stakes and moved to Holland, where laws governing religion were much looser.  There, historians say, in Amsterdam they started the first identifiable Baptist Church.  John Smyth and Thomas Helwys were the two principal leaders.  In 1620, some of these English Separatists set sail on the Mayflower for New England.  They brought their religious passion with them, and their churches, Protestant churches, born out of protest, flourished in the new land.

          Now, you’ve got to hear me when I say this.  This is more than a history lesson.  Here’s what I want you to see.  It took the little people, not the clergy and church hierarchy.  It took the little people who wanted to see Jesus to bring about a spiritual reformation of the Church.  Like that “wee little man” named Zacchaeus, they would let nothing stand in their way.  They were willing to do whatever it took, climb even the tallest tree, to see Jesus. 

          On this Reformation Sunday, when we recall the names of these heroes of our faith, the story of Zacchaeus is a reminder of two important things.  First, it points to the power that rests in your hands, you who are here in this room and you who are joining us on YouTube.    Zacchaeus claimed his power.  He would not be deterred by the crowd or his short stature.  He exercised his power to see Jesus.  Thanks to the courageous men and women of the Reformation who exercised the power in their hands, the laypeople were set free from the oppression of the clergy.  Baptists like us now honor a central tenant of the Protestant Reformation.  We call it the Priesthood of the Believer.  It is the belief that every Christian is his or her own priest.  You need no other priest or clergy person.  You have the right and responsibility to relate directly to God.  No one stands between you and God, other than our Lord, Jesus the Christ.  Notice I said your “right and responsibility.”  Those are two sides on one coin.  God gives us the right.  We then must own the responsibility.  That power rests in your hands.

          The story of Zacchaeus reminds us of something else that is important.  The effort to see Jesus is rewarded.  You remember what happened to Zacchaeus, don’t you?  Jesus saw him up in the sycamore tree and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”  Zacchaeus’ entire outlook on life was transformed that day.  He repaid all those he had defrauded four times over and then gave half of his possessions to aid the poor.  It took some work for him to see Jesus, but the reward was great.  We will find that to be true too.  While salvation comes to us as a gracious gift, our maturity takes work.  It takes effort.  Some never put forth that effort, and their faith never matures beyond adolescence.  Those who work at it are rewarded.  Be warned though.  It could be transformational.

          So, yes, I have concerns about the church being off track, but I am not wringing my hands.  While I’m concerned about the near future of the church in this country, I do not fret.  Here’s why.  The little people.  Like Zacchaeus.  The little people who want to see Jesus.  Who will let nothing stand in their way of seeing Jesus.  And sometimes when I listen closely, I can hear them saying to those who are blocking the way, “Would you get out of my way!  I’m just trying to see Jesus.”  You be that kind of person.

Closing Prayer 

         That’s what we want, Lord.  We want to see you.  We want a faith that is genuine and vibrant.  Come to each of us the way you came to Zacchaeus. Amen.