Sermon - Making It Right

Preached on February 20, 2011 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC as a part of a sermon series preached by senior minister, Dr. John Schluep.
Luke 19:1-10

Introduction
We are in the midst of a series of sermons in which we looking together at how the witness of the scriptures and of our own experiences might paint for us a picture of one way to view the church. In this painting, the church appears before our eyes as a healing center. For all of the wounds that we carry - wounds from things done to us, and things that we have done to others - the church is a place for healing: not a place to cover up the pain, or to distract us from the pain, but a place to heal, and sometimes that healing means that we have to go right through the pain which is at the center of the wound.

Dr. John has been describing this process, the process of cleansing the wound, being honest about our lives through confession, through forgiveness, both received forgiveness and forgiveness given to others, and the process of reconciliation. All of these are a part of healing from our wounds. Today, I want us to think about what God helps us to do to make it right again. I want us to consider this question: after the wounding, what kind of restitution can be made that will help us to heal?

Let us pray: O God of our wounded days and our healing days, we know that there is a time for tearing down and a time for building up, a time to sow and a time to reap. Give us the courage for this time, this day, this hour. Amen.

Zacchaeus is our story today, because Zacchaeus is someone who is wounded. He is wounded both by what has been done to him, and by what he has done to others.
What has been done to him is that he has been shunned by his community. No one likes him, no one acknowledges him, and they pick on the little guy, keeping him in the back of the crowd even though he’s shorter than anyone else and can’t see the famous rabbi who has come to town.

What he has done to them is to collect taxes for the empire. Israel was conquered by the Roman Empire, and now Zacchaeus is collecting the taxes that make Rome richer and Israel poorer. This is kind of like the Star Wars movies (If you will make that leap with me). In Star Wars, a strong empire, led by the emperor and Darth Vader, rules over all the planetary systems in the galaxy, does what it wants with them. And what Zacchaeus has done would be like if Luke Skywalker, instead of becoming a Jedi Knight, had taken a job with the empire and started showing up at all his neighbors’ houses with ten storm troopers behind him, shaking them down for taxes.

Or, if Star Wars isn’t your thing, it’s like Zacchaeus is with the mob, showing up at the neighborhood stores and saying “this is a nice place you got here. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. I bet it’s worth $500 a month to make sure you don’t have any accidents.” The Roman Empire is like having the mob for your government, and that’s only a partial historical exaggeration.

So, that’s what Zacchaeus has done, and maybe he deserves the scorn of all his neighbors. Or, maybe Zacchaeus thinks that they have pushed him around long enough, and he took this job so he could finally get some respect from them after years of being the little guy. And this is the problem with most of the wounds we carry. It’s not always easy to say who’s responsible. Who started it, me or you? Who started it, the person who hurt me, or the person who hurt them before and messed them up?

A few weeks ago, Dr. John preached on the importance of forgiveness in the process of healing, and he defined forgiveness as abandoning all hope of a better past. When we forgive, we accept the past as it is, for better or worse, and we let go of the past, we slip out of the grip that it has on us.

When Jesus comes to Jericho, where Zacchaeus and the community stand against each other, mutually wounded, Jesus doesn’t worry about the past. He doesn’t worry about who deserves blame. Instead, Jesus does a simple thing to restore Zacchaeus to the community. Jesus says that he himself, the famous rabbi that everyone has come out to see, will eat dinner with Zacchaeus.

Sometimes, something happens in our lives to remind us that we are connected to other people, and that they are connected to us. That’s what Jesus did back then, and it’s what God continues to do for us. Whatever wounds we have given each other, we are connected: you to them and them to you. And the next part of the process, the next part of healing from the wounds we carry, is to make things right. Restitution. Restoration of whatever was hurt, or stolen, or broken.

Zacchaeus says “I will give half my money to the poor, and for all the people I have defrauded, I will pay them back four times.” And four times, by the way, comes from the laws of the Old Testament. Zacchaeus wants to make things right. He wants to make restitution.

Now, as we consider restitution, we need to begin by getting rid of bad ideas. We need to say what restitution is not.

First. Restitution is not what we do to earn God’s forgiveness or grace. God does not wait for us to pay our penance, or fix what we’ve done, in order to forgive our sins. That’s not true. What is true is that we are loved, accepted, and forgiven just as we are. Zacchaeus doesn’t make restitution in order to earn the love of Jesus, he does it because it’s a part of his own healing, and the healing of the community.

Secondly, we need to dispel the idea that restitution can make things just the way they were. Restitution will not make things the way they were. There is almost nothing that can be fixed so well that it is like it never happened. Now, if you come to my office and borrow a book, and then your dog chews it up, and so you say “Matt, let me make that up to you” and buy a new copy, that’s like it never happened. But that is small potatoes.

What happens when you have lost or broken something that cannot be replaced? A fragile family heirloom, or a set of letters from the war?

You can’t un-ring a bell. You can’t get the toothpaste back in the tube. You can’t unsay what you have said.

What happens when the damage is intangible, when you have lied to a co-worker, friend, or spouse?
What if there has been abuse in the home?
What if violence has been committed?
What if we have waged war, and the damage is permanent?

So, OK, Zacchaeus can give back four times to the people he has cheated, but what if he has been cheating them for years? What if they have lost their house along the way? What if they lost their jobs and health insurance, and now they walk with a permanent limp because an injury went untreated? Getting their money back now won’t fix those things.

The point of restitution can’t be to make things just the way they used to be. The past is the past, and we need forgiveness. But the past does not have to define us. Our old wounds do not have to define us. And that is why we make restitution. That is why Zacchaeus makes restitution. It’s a way of setting a new course.

I think of Clint Eastwood in the movie Million Dollar Baby, about a stubborn old boxing trainer named Frankie Dunn. No one plays stubborn and hard-edged like Clint Eastwood. In the movie, we learn that Frankie is estranged from his daughter. We don’t know what has happened, but the wounds run deep, and even though he reaches out to her, he can’t make it right. He writes her letters, and they are all returned unopened.

One day, a young woman named Maggie comes to the gym, determined to be a professional boxer. Frankie says “I don’t train girls.” But Maggie keeps coming, and eventually he relents, and then, slowly, he comes to care for her. He gives her the support that she doesn’t get from her family. He gives up much of what he has and who he is for her sake. Just before one of Maggie’s fights, he presents to her a new robe for her to wear for her entrance to the ring. On the back it says Mo Cuishle. Mo Chuishle is a Gaelic phrase that means “my darling, my blood.”

He becomes a father to a woman who needs a father. Restitution. It can come in different forms, and along strange avenues. And just because we cannot undo what has been done, we can work toward restoration in this world. We can work to balance the scales. And in that work, we find healing.

In this congregation’s work with veterans, some of those who have been in war seek to make restitution as a part of their healing. If war has made orphans of children, then let us provide for the care of children in that country: schools and orphanages. Restitution.

If we have been hurt and wounded by others, then let us allow the wounding to stop with us. Instead of retaliation, let us choose restoration. Is there any more holy work, than to make right this broken world, in whatever way we can. Never are we closer to God. And here’s the amazing truth. When we work to restore things out in the world, we find healing in ourselves. And then, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “your light will break forth like the dawn. You will be called repairer of the breach, and restorer of streets to live in.”