The Importance of Remembering: A Sermon for Ordination to Ministry

This sermon was preached on August 27, 2017, at First Baptist Church, Raleigh, NC (Wilmington Street) as part of the ordination service for Rev. Belinda Wisdom and Rev. Chris Whitaker.

Exodus 1:8-22

1:8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

1:9 He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.

1:10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."

1:11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.

1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

1:13 The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites,

1:14 and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

1:15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,

1:16 "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live."

1:17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.

1:18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?"

1:19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them."

1:20 So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.

1:21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

1:22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."

Romans 12:1-8

12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.

12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,

12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

12:6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;

12:7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;

12:8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

The Importance of Remembering

The story of the Hebrew midwives is familiar.  Their names are less familiar, but the writers of the Torah made sure to include them so that we could know them:  Shiphrah and Puah.  They are crucial to the history of God’s salvation of Israel, and through Israel, the world.  Let’s say their names:  Shiphrah and Puah. 

They were important members of the community because they played an important role at a crucial moment in everyone’s life.  They weren’t like the bakers or fishers to whom people might go every day for bread or fish to eat.  You didn’t stop by once a week to get any needed supplies.  No one depended on them to lead periodic religious ceremonies, either weekly or monthly.  Children didn’t go to them on school days to practice their reading or math.  But Shiphrah and Puah were important.

When the time came to need the services of Shiphrah and Puah, a family would hate to have to do without them.  Probably someone in any family had some experience with helping a woman through childbirth; however, Shiphrah and Puah were the communal stewards of the wisdom of generations.  Moreover, they had seen it all.  They knew well that every baby did not come into the world in the same way and at the same pace.  They knew that women’s bodies and emotional strength were different.  They had learned ways to encourage and calm and comfort mothers dealing with the pain and anxiety of giving birth.  They could recognize when a baby was under stress or in danger.  When it came time for Shiphrah and Puah to do their job, people would be foolish to ignore their gifts and skill.

That’s why the King of Egypt strategically chose them to carry out his diabolical plan.  He was jealous of the prosperity of the Hebrew people.  He was fearful they might rise up in rebellion.  He was concerned about the loyalty to one another and their commitment to justice.  Over the years, he and his predecessors had found the Hebrews to be useful as cheap immigrant labor.  He knew that the Pharaohs had not always treated the Hebrew workers fairly.  He needed a plan to make sure they would continue to be unable or unwilling to stir up a revolution.

Sadly, the King of Egypt did not understand his own formative history.  He did not know how his ancestors had benefited greatly from the unexpected appearance of this sheep-herding clan from the northeast.  He must not have been told the stories of the visions and dreams that the slave boy named Joseph had interpreted for the Pharaoh.  Someone had not bothered to clarify that Joseph of the Hebrews had been vice-regent of the entire kingdom, supervising an era of great prosperity and power for Egypt among the nations who were their neighbors.  So the Bible tells us that this Pharaoh did not know Joseph.

Not knowing Joseph meant that he was willing to use and abuse the descendants of Joseph for his own greed and ambition.  Not knowing Joseph means he was not thinking about how “all life is interrelated.”  He had not reflected on the fact that “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.”  He apparently did not realize that “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (MLK, Jr.)  Those, of course, are words from Dr. King.  Ken Medema has another way to say it pertaining to our being created by God:  we are “bound together and finely woven with love.”  But Pharaoh did not seem to know that.

He thought that he could get his way by dividing society into warring groups.  If he could make the immigrants seem dangerous in the eyes of others, then he could try to leverage that fear and hate to get some things that he wanted.  If he could single out a group who look and talk and eat and pray differently, then he could get others to flock to his agenda and follow him down any path.

I don’t know who Pharaoh’s advisers were.  I suspect some had big investments in the construction industry.  Some were in the extraction business, cutting and transporting stones for monumental construction projects.  Other advisers probably had trained security teams for managing work projects.  And he kept his generals close to try to make himself seem more patriotic.  He had to know people who knew how to get financing for big projects.  Above all, he loved building big towers to show off his power.  His advisers knew how to manipulate their king to make him feel good about himself while deciding to do things that they wanted him to do.

To build his construction projects—cities, towers, roads, monuments—he needed a ready, inexpensive work force, so he was working the Hebrews as forced labor, drafted into “public service.”  He made their working conditions worse and worse, without adequate compensation.  They had to go home from a hard day of building cities and monuments and work more just to get food on the table.  The King of Egypt had enough insight to realize he might not be able to keep these people down forever, so he huddled with his most devious advisors to come up with a plan.  He was ready to compose and promulgate another Pharaoh-dential executive order.  The one about making bricks without straw had been very unpopular.  His advisers suggested that he work a back channel this time.  They had an idea of where the weak spot was among his opposition.

He called Shiphrah and Puah to a meeting.  He had nice chariot go by and pick them up.  They were brought into the plush palace of the king for a face-to-face meeting.  Anyone might be impressed and honored by such an opportunity.  He was counting on the “wow” factor to win them over.  He tried talking with them like they were buddies and allies.  He explained to them what he wanted them to do.

Shiphrah and Puah were certainly overwhelmed by being in the palace.  They may not have been reacting the way the Pharaoh wanted, but they were intimidated.  They knew the cost of opposing the people in power.  So they played along.  He gave them some parting gifts and sent them back home to do his bidding.

Shiphrah and Puah are the predecessors of some more famous Hebrews who came along many centuries later.  Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were three Hebrew young men who were told by a great king to do something they knew they should not do.  We know them by the names that king called them—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  They had another friend named Daniel, whom the king liked to call Belteshazzar.  But just as these young men understood that they could not meet the expectations of the king if they were to meet the expectations of God, so did Shiphrah and Puah.

The Pharaoh had asked the midwives to do something unspeakable.  He wanted them to kill babies when they were born.  Worried that the Hebrew boys would grow up to be “bad hombres,” Pharaoh wanted them killed before they had a chance to breathe the fresh air of the world God had made them to live in and love in.  Pharaoh wanted to end their hopes and possibilities before they could ever get started.  He had figured out that a secret deal with the midwives would solve his problems.  But the problem with this Pharaoh, this most powerful ruler of his era, was that he had fallen into forgetfulness.

One of the great sins of power is forgetfulness.  Now stop before you jump to conclusions.  I’m not saying that when we sometimes forget the things we meant to do that it’s sin.  I’m not saying that as we get older and names and words slip out of reach in the middle of a conversation that we are sinning.  That’s not what I mean by forgetfulness today.  The forgetfulness I am talking about has to do with the way violence and power work in society.  Often when people scheme and cheat and push and shove to get what they want, they turn around and talk about how they earned it through virtue and character.  This kind of forgetfulness retells the history to make the people with power the heroes.  It retells the story to sanitize out the oppression and violence.  The textbooks don’t call forced laborers slaves, but immigrant employees.  They call forced segregation school choice.  They call slaves happy members of the extended family.  Forgetfulness becomes self-congratulation that erases the memory of violent, murderous schemes to gain and maintain control.

If everything had worked out the way Pharaoh was planning, he would have had little problem forgetting the conniving violence he employed to weaken the Hebrews.  A cover story about disease or genetic defects would have been invented to rationalize so many infant deaths.  All who knew the truth would be paid off or eliminated.  Pharaoh was playing a dangerous game, but the stakes were high and the potential rewards were great.  Pharaoh was willing to do what it takes to achieve his objectives and make Egypt great again.

Shiphrah and Puah returned to their homes and their work with a new resolve.  They would have to redouble their efforts to save the lives of the Hebrew children.  They could not be careless.  If they openly disregarded the Pharaoh’s authority and flaunted their disobedience in order to look heroic, Pharaoh would find other agents to carry out his plan.  And who knows what would happen to them for their rebellion?  So Shiphrah and Puah had to have a workable plan.  They had to get their story straight.  Lives were at stake.

They realized that the very forgetfulness that was Pharaoh’s modus operandi could work in their favor.  The King of Egypt did not know Joseph.  He had forgotten the common history of the Egyptian Kingdom and the Hebrew immigrants.  He had replaced it with a narrative rooted in the logic of difference.  The logic of difference says that if you and I are different in a few ways, then perhaps we should conclude that we are different in every way.  We might even be complete opposites.  If my skin is light and yours is dark, then the logic of difference says that whatever I think is good about me must be the opposite about you.  If I am good looking, you must not be.  If I am hard-working, you must be lazy.  The logic of difference is insidious and demonic.  It hides the obvious truth we could see if we would just look at one another and get to know one another.  It replaces our opportunity to know one another with the assumption of inscrutability, of unknowability.  It is a reasoning process that has shaped the invention of the races in the modern world.  We use it all the time in how we think about men and women, too.  The logic of difference is an intentional kind of forgetfulness.

So when the Pharaoh had time to realize that there were still lots of new little Hebrew boys running around in the ‘hood, he sent his chariot out to get Shiphrah and Puah to bring them before a board of inquiry.  He asked them why they would go against the specific instructions he gave them.  They played on his prejudice.  They leveraged his ignorance.  They offered a story about how Hebrew women were different from Egyptian women.  Of course, he knew that had to be true.  He believed in the logic of difference with all his heart.  So they set him up.  They said that when they got called to help with a birth, these Hebrew women with short labor and fast childbirth would already be finished.  The baby would be born, and their chance to secretly kill the baby boys was past.  They didn’t say whether they had still managed to kill a few of the boys—they let him think maybe they had, or at least they were trying.  Wow! Pharoah thought.  This plan was harder than I thought!  So it seems he sent them away with instructions to work harder and move faster to carry out their plan.  Shiphrah and Puah survived another brush with the empire, and Hebrew parents and children were a little safer for a little longer.

It is a powerful story.  It sets up the story of Moses’ birth.  The desire to keep baby boys alive made it very difficult for Hebrew families in this time.  Eventually, Pharaoh made it a patriotic duty for Egyptians to kill Hebrew baby boys.  That led to the unique turn of events of Moses’ floating in the river and adoption into the household of the Pharaoh.  How many other little boys did not survive the murderous plot against them?  “Rachel, weeping for her children” was a cultural memory that flowed down through the centuries, all the way to the Exile.

This contrast of forgetfulness and remembering strikes me as a crucial message for today.  We gather here in a commissioning service for those who have answered the calling of God to minister among God’s people and in the homes and streets and halls of power where we find the people God loves.  What will be our modus operandi as we do this work?  Will we surrender to forgetfulness and leave behind the people who brought us this far?  Will we use our commission to lord over others and to use them to serve our greed and lust for power?  Will we forget who Joseph was, or will we remember?

This story points to at least three ways in which remembering is crucial to taking up the mantle of servant leadership.  First, we can see that Shiphrah and Puah remembered who they were.  Second, we can recognize that they remembered who called them.  And third, they remembered why they had been called.

The story of Shiphrah and Puah leaves one important detail uncertain.  Were these midwives from the tribes of the Hebrews, or were they Egyptians who worked among the Hebrews?  Some have argued that Pharaoh would have had little reason to trust them to do this horrible task if they were Hebrews.  He would have selected Egyptians with whom he might hope to share a common prejudice against the immigrant Hebrews.  That seems possible.  Many, however, have argued that the midwives were part of the Hebrew community which was where they did their work.  Various rabbis have supported this view down through the centuries.  The wording in the text is ambiguous, but I think it doesn’t make a big difference for our purposes.  In either case, whether Egyptian or Hebrew, these women remembered better who they were than did the Pharaoh.

These women had worked and built relationships among the Hebrew immigrants for long enough that they had become well-known, even respected in their work.  When Pharaoh wanted to scheme with some midwives, these were the ones well-known enough to get the invitation to his palace.  Even though he did not remember Joseph, apparently Shiphrah and Puah did.

Now the text does not mention that they knew Joseph.  But they did clearly know the people of Joseph.  They knew the goodness of family life, the love of friendship, the joy of new beginnings, the struggle of poverty, the pain of grief and loss.  They knew flesh and blood human beings, created by God, made for love, given gifts and strength for work, striving to make the most of their situation.  They knew the stories of cousins and aunts and uncles, of parents and grandparents and great-grandparents.  They remembered the history of where they had come from, whether as Hebrew immigrants or as Egyptians who had cast their lot in friendship with the Hebrews sojourning in their homeland.  They knew the people of Joseph.  They remembered the many ways his character and virtue had been taught, shared, and passed down through generations of Hebrew children.  They remembered the welcome of the Hebrews into Egypt and the gratitude and service the Hebrews offered in return.  They remembered that they stood on the shoulders of giants.  They remembered who they were.

In taking up Christian ministry, can you remember who you are?  Not many among you were noble, not many wise, not many powerful.  But each one has been given grace gifts by the Holy Spirit.  Each earthen vessel is capable of having the power and wisdom of God poured into it for God’s use.  God didn’t have to use you, but God has called you.  The church didn’t have to notice you, but the church has acknowledged your potential and called you to a task.  The Spirit didn’t have to fill you, but you have known the unction that only comes from God.  Do you remember who you are?

In small towns and in some neighborhoods, it was traditional to get to know someone by asking, “Who is your momma?  Who is your daddy?  Are you so-and-so’s boy?  Are you what’s-her-name’s girl?”  It is about figuring out who you are by remembering who you come from.  Are you from Joseph’s people?  If you weren’t born to them, have you been grafted into their family?  Do you remember what kind of people Joseph taught them to be?  Are we going to see Joseph when we see how you live?  Are you going to be the Jesus we see in the world?  If you want to be God’s servant and a minister, then remember who you are.

We can also see that Shiphrah and Puah remembered who called them.  Part way through the story, we might start thinking that the midwives who got called to the Pharaoh’s palace would become the Pharaoh’s agents.  We might think they would be answering the call of their king and becoming his servants.  But the story turned out differently.  He was accustomed to being able to impress people or throw his weight around and get them to do his bidding.  He was used to being the boss and hiring and firing according to his whims.  So he seemed surprised when what he asked Shiphrah and Puah to do did not happen.  When he called them back, he was probably looking forward to getting to say, “You’re fired!”

The story took a different turn.  Not only did the Pharaoh stay oblivious to what was happening in the birthing rooms of the Hebrews, the One who really called these midwives took care of them.  Shiphrah and Puah knew who they worked for.  They knew who had called them out as leaders.  We don’t know how many midwives served the Hebrew women, but it probably was more than two.  So Shiphrah and Puah are representative figures.  Maybe they were the leaders and organizers of the midwives.  Whatever their role, they had a clear understanding who it was they worked for.  So when the Pharaoh stepped in to try to be their new supervisor, they were polite and immediately disobeyed.  They served the one who had put them to their task, not the one who wanted to use them to do his dirty work.  And the story tells us that God stood by them, protected them, and blessed them mightily for remembering that it was God who called them.

Will you remember who you work for?  One of the first things that usually happens in a church when a new minister comes along is that everyone tries to get a piece of her or of him.  Folks want to have coffee or go out for lunch.  They come by the office or call on the phone.  The conversations may start very general and encouraging, but many of them end up playing an angle.  People have grudges against other church members, or they have been upset ever since some group or program got eliminated.  They have visited a church and seen something they like, or they are never satisfied with the way the Bible is taught.  So they start recruiting the new minister to be on their side, to join their cause, or even to do their dirty work.  They plant seeds of suspicion or communicate veiled ultimatums. 

Who do you work for?  Of course, Shiphrah and Puah worked for the families they served at times of childbirth, and you work for the people God is sending your way.  But don’t get that mixed up.  You work for them because you work for God.  Your work for them is to do the work of God, not to join in schemes for power or influence, for greed or status.  You are not their stepping stone, but they are not your stepping stone either.  God is the one who has called, us, and we are pressing on toward the high calling of Christ Jesus.  God took hold of you, and now you are striving to take hold of that for which you were taken hold of by God.  You have to lay aside the weights.  You have to shun the temptations to sin that so easily get your imagination.  You have to leave some things behind so you can reach out for the fresh gifts of God’s Spirit.  Remember who called you.  Remember who you work for.  In all your ways, acknowledge God, and God will direct your paths.  If you want to be God’s servant and a minister, then remember who called you.

Let me highlight a third way of remembering that we can see in the story of Shiphrah and Puah—they remembered why they had been called.  They were midwives.  That was their job.  It was their calling.  They knew they served God’s people.  They knew that it was God who called them.  And they also remembered what is was they had been called to do.  They remembered why they had been called.  Their job was helping families bring healthy children into the world.  They had to learn the traditions, learn from experience, develop the science through observation, be alert and rested for the job, give their best every time, and find the joy and fulfillment that comes from a job well done, a life lived in faithfulness.

Now and then a birth might not go as hoped.  There might be complications and injury to the mother.  There might be problems that keep a child from being born strong, or alive.  Shiphrah and Puah had to be ready for these times as well.  They were called to do their best to help a family bring a baby into the world, and they also were called to support and care for families who struggled with the vicissitudes of life that can come with childbirth.  They had a mission.  They were servants of God and servants of their fellow human beings.  They were called with a purpose, and they could not let that purpose slip away from their vision.

Too often, a change in role can cause a change in how a person relates to others.  We all have seen it.  It can happen in even the most minor of situations.  Sometimes, in a church committee, people have worked together for many years, sharing, speaking up, listening, and carrying their loads as equals, as children of God seeking to do what they are called to do.  Then one of the group who has not been the chair of the committee before becomes the chair.  Suddenly, the new chair acts like a different person.  Because of a title, she or he starts behaving as if the other committee members should only do the listening part, not the thinking and talking and deciding parts.  It starts becoming a one-way relationship of boss and underling rather than equal partners.  And all that can happen when there isn’t even any program money to decide how to use.  Rising into an office can confuse some people so they forget what they were called to do.

Pharaoh thought he could get Shiphrah and Puah to forget that they were called to help life flourish and get them to become murderers and life-destroyers.  He thought that their promotion to being in his inner circle would change their view of their work.  Thank God that he was mistaken.  They could not see any way to accept his orders to kill the baby boys.  They were strategic in finding a plan to make sure they could prevent that from happening under their watch.  They knew their calling, their purpose, and they kept their eyes on the prize.

You are called to be a servant.  Minister is the translation of the Greek word diakonia, which is also translated as servant.  You are not overlord.  You may oversee some programming, some budget, some mission tasks, but oversight is not the same as being the boss of me, the boss of him, or the boss of her.  God has called you to serve.  By now you may know some specific ways in which God wants you to serve.  So if you are called to preach, do so with truth and conviction.  If you are called to teach, study to show yourself approved.  If you are called to evangelize, make your life good news to those God sends your way.  If you are called to hospitality, then receive God’s children with joy and generosity.  If you are called to pray, then make yourself a vessel of God’s work as you are transformed to do his will.

The lectionary epistle text for today reminds me of my own calling to ministry.  It seems centuries ago that I was 18, but at that tender age I accepted God’s call to minister.  I had no idea where it would lead, and could not have predicted I would ever be in a position to stand before you here today.  But in those early days of my calling, I often returned to this epistle text from Romans 12. 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, [I beseech you] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

At 18 I was a mixed up mess of overconfidence and fear.  I had been told by everyone that I was smart and gifted, and I often believed the hype.  But some of the time I knew it was just hype.  I knew I was just a scared kid trying to make it in a bigger world.  I was trying to listen to God and trying to be somebody.  I didn’t want to disappoint my family, and I wanted my friends to like me.  And no small part of me was trying to impress the girls I couldn’t get my eyes off of.  If that’s not a description of an earthen vessel, I don’t know what is.  So when I read Romans 12, it reminded me I had some changing to do.  I needed to grow up from my immaturity.  I needed to put aside the wants and ways of the world that I had learned growing up, and I needed to take on the wants and ways of God.  I needed to follow the way of Jesus, which this verse describes as presenting oneself onto the altar as a living sacrifice to God.  It’s a complicated metaphor.  I was relieved that it said I could be a living sacrifice, even if I also realized in the back of my mind that when Jesus lived that way it had cost him his life.

This giving up of my self-made image, my self of my own construction, was the crucial step to learning God’s will for me.  I longed to hear God’s call, and this epistle text told me that by giving myself, I could find my way to discern the will of God, and that it would be good.  It would be excellent.  That’s what I wanted.  To achieve as high as I could, but within the scope of what God wanted me to do.  I couldn’t think too highly of myself, but had to put myself on God’s altar to be remade, to be transformed, to become God’s servant to do God’s will.  If I would walk that path, God promised to make the most of me for a particular task in my time and my place.

Do you remember why you have been called?  Too many lose sight of it when they get dollar signs, TV ratings, and big buildings on their minds.  Others just want to go their own way and can’t figure out how not to try to be the one who is large and in charge, even if it means only with a tiny flock of longsuffering church people.  God has a good purpose for you.  It means putting yourself aside and letting God replace your ambition and greed with God’s own purpose and grace.  If you want to serve God and be a minister, then remember why you were called.

I rejoiced when I saw that this story of Shiphrah and Puah was the lectionary text for this Sunday.  For any of you who heard it preached this morning, I pray that the Holy Spirit has brought you an additional gift from the richness of the Holy Scriptures as you heard it again.  But there is one more thing I want to point out about the importance of remembering as we close.

There are many times when the Bible lets us down concerning God’s love for and calling of women to lead and work for the Kingdom of God.  Written in times when women had little status in society, too often the texts omit and forget their names.  In the story of the great flood, we never learn the names of the very important characters who are the wives of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Even in the stories of Jesus, a Samaritan woman from Sychar who comes to get water at the well, a Syro-Phoenecian woman who gives Jesus the opportunity to expand the grace of God to Gentiles, a woman who gives all she has to God, a woman who touches his garment in faith, a woman he forgives when the crowd wants to stone her—so many who are central to communicating his gospel life go unnamed.  But this story is not one of those.

We know the names of Shiphrah and Puah.  The Books of Moses tell us their names.  The Torah, God’s gift of love to the people of Israel, names them.  But did you notice, there was a so-called famous character in this story.  He is called the King of Egypt.  He is called by the Egyptian imperial title, Pharaoh.  But we don’t know his name.  Scholars argue about which of the known rulers of the Egyptian empires this character might be.  They compare the dynasties and their writings, and some theories seem sort of right, and sort of wrong, to fit the Bible story.

We don’t remember this Pharaoh’s name.  The Bible doesn’t remember this Pharaoh’s name.  The Books of Moses do not remember this Pharaoh’s name, although surely Moses, who lived in the household of Pharaoh knew who this king was.  But we do remember the names of a couple of midwives who worked among an outcast immigrant people.  We know these women who were instruments of God’s work.   

We know these ministers, even though we don’t know the Pharoah.  He already demonstrated that he had a bad memory.  He forgot what he did not want to know, and he did not know Joseph.  But Shiphrah and Puah knew Joseph.  They remembered who they were.  They remembered who called them.  And they remembered why they were called.  Go forth today in the spirit of Shiphrah and Puah and serve God with the same faithfulness they demonstrated so many centuries ago.  Speak their names.  Remember.  Amen

When Jesus Hung Out With Zack

This sermon was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on October 30, 2016.

I was drawn to the lectionary text from the Gospel telling a familiar story that is often overlooked for its significance in the themes of economic justice.  Yet it is also rich with personal and relational insight into the love of God revealed in Jesus.  A wonderful young man at Mt. Level goes by the name Zack, and I expected to see him in worship on this day.  That gave me an extra motivation to shorten the name in the title to "Zack," as a way to honor my friend's presence and faithfulness. 

When Jesus Hung Out with Zack

Luke 19:1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through it.

A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.

All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

I want to speak on the subject today, “When Jesus Hung Out with Zack.”  Do you mind if I teach for a while today?  I suspect you are used to that.  It is the way of this pulpit.  I’m going to elaborate on the interpretive process as I start out.  Sometimes we leave that work in the background.  Today, let’s bring it to the foreground.

When we read the gospels from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, we tend to receive them as a complete package.  We often blur together the differences between the four gospels, and we just assume all the parts fit together easily without paying much attention to how they fit.

More careful reading of the gospels would lead us to think about the relationship between different parts of a gospel.  There is a flow of the stories, conversations, and speeches.  One part leads to another; one section lays the groundwork for understanding another. The one we read today is a narrative about Jesus’ travels, and in this narrative we find a conversation between Jesus and a man named Zacchaeus.  There is also a third party to the conversation, who are the rest of the crowd who saw this conversation happening in public.

The gospel does not tell us all the details of Jesus’ visit to Jericho on that day.  So to be good readers of the story, we should pay attention to the details which it does provide.  For instance, it says Jesus came to Jericho.  Jericho was a major city in the Jordan River Valley, northeast of Jerusalem.  This detail links the story of Zacchaeus to the longer narrative of Luke.  It tells us that Jesus is making progress on his final trip from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Jesus has explained to his disciples that it is finally time to bring his ministry to its climax of standing up to the empire and the Judean ruling elite.  The conflict between the Jerusalem elite and Jesus has been growing ever since he began to preach and minister to large crowds.  He has had to stay away from Jerusalem in order to be able to teach and serve more people.  He has discouraged people from saying in public that he is the Messiah.  His colleague in ministry, John the Baptist, was arrested and executed, and he knew the powerful people who opposed John would love to do the same thing to him.  So for a time, he did his work at a distance from the capital.  He was training his followers, getting out his message, clarifying his mission, and building a movement.  Eventually, he determined that the preparation was complete.  Rather than stay indefinitely in the remote villages of Galilee, Jesus decided he should face his enemies and bring his message of God’s Kingdom into public confrontation with the kingdoms of this world.  On his way, he was passing through Jericho.

As this narrative was unfolding in Luke’s gospel, another encounter and conversation occurred on the outskirts of Jericho.  A blind man, who stayed alive by begging on the side of the road, had called out to Jesus, calling him Son of David, a name that showed he recognized that Jesus came as the Messiah.  At this time, Jesus did not tell the man to be quiet.  Many who were skilled in the study of scripture and could watch everything Jesus did, had refused to accept the thought that Jesus could be the Messiah.  This man, unable to see, but trusting what he was hearing, sees clearly who Jesus is, even in his blindness.  This blind man’s story repeats a recurring theme about those who can see and those who cannot see, and the irony is that the ones least expected to see actually see best.  He receives his sight and follows Jesus on down the road.

Zacchaeus also had trouble seeing, we are told.  In the midst of a crowd gathered to see Jesus, he could not get a view.  He had to climb a tree to be able to see.  Told here in a different way, we see an echo of the same theme.  The one who was least able to see may be the one who sees most clearly.

The story also tells us that Zacchaeus was a tax collector, in fact the head tax collector for his locale.  The taxing authority was Rome, an occupying army and imperial power.  Collecting taxes for Rome was viewed by the Judeans as treason.  Zacchaeus had gone over to the enemy.  He was enforcing the oppressive laws of the empire.  In addition, many believed that these tax collectors were dishonest.  They made their living by charging a premium on what the Romans expected them to collect.  Within this system, a tax collector might jack up the rates and overcharge the people as a way to get rich.  The story goes on to say that Zacchaeus was very rich.

In the previous chapter, Jesus had told a story about a tax collector.  Two people had gone to the synagogue to pray.  One, a Pharisee, was reputed to be righteous beyond the average person.  The other, a tax collector, was assumed to be rotten through and through.  But Jesus ended up praising the tax collector, who unlike the Pharisee, knew that he was a sinner in need of God.  That parable about the two people’s prayers again foreshadows the remarkable story of Zacchaeus.

By telling us that Zacchaeus was rich, this encounter becomes linked to one of the prevailing themes of Luke’s gospel.  The gap between the rich and the poor was of great concern for Jesus and for the gospel writer.  Chapter 16 ends with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, about greed and neglect of the poor.  Chapter 18 includes the story of a rich man who came to Jesus to brag about his righteousness and ask a question about what more he should do.  He may have expected Jesus to say, “You’ve already done it all.  You lack nothing.  Hey, everybody, look at God’s favorite.”  That’s not what happened.  The rich man was disappointed that Jesus wanted him to give away his wealth.  He went away.  Afterwards, the disciples were deeply puzzled by Jesus’ remarks that it is hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.  They thought riches were a sign of God’s favor.

Still puzzling over this, not really understanding how fully Jesus was committed to Sabbath economics and Jubilee redistribution, they entered Jericho.  Jesus went against the expectations of the crowd and singled out Zacchaeus, the tax collector.  Everyone grumbled about Jesus for doing this.  They didn’t anticipate what the result of Jesus’ visit with Zacchaeus would be.  I suspect the disciples grumbled along with the rest of the folks.  You and I would have grumbled, too.  If Jesus keeps criticizing the rich, why is he going to the rich guy’s house?  And if he is going to hang out with a rich guy, why the traitor and cheat, Zacchaeus?  It took them a long time to realize how thoroughly Jesus was turning the world upside down.

Continuing with this theme of unjust economic practices after his visit with Zacchaeus, chapter 19 shows Jesus next begin to tell a chilling story, one that highlights a contrast to what happened with Zacchaeus in Jericho.  It is a thinly veiled account of how Herod’s son, Archelaeus, became king over Judea.  He wanted to be appointed directly by Caesar, but before that could happen, he had to deal with a rebellion among the Jews.  The Herodian family was known for violence and oppressive rule, and he continued that tradition.  During Passover, his police force retaliated against their protests by killing 3000 of the people gathered for the festival.  Having done that, he went on to Rome and got his appointment as king.  Not surprisingly, he rewarded his friends and punished his enemies when he got back to Jerusalem.  Jesus points out in this parable that the opposite of the Jubilee happens in the world of empire and domination.  Those with much get even more.  Those with little lose what they have.  Rulers get rich by taking what is not theirs.  In the midst of this collection of stories, Jesus’ interactions with Zacchaeus represent a contrast.  Zacchaeus is unlike the rich man who came to Jesus, and because of turning to the way of Jesus, he is unlike the ruler who rewards his wealthy supporters.  When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, he will demonstrate how a king can be an humble servant and a champion of justice.

I’ll finish up this survey of the details from Zacchaeus’s story with a couple more items.  Then we can get to the core of the message.  It says Zacchaeus could not see because of the crowd.  We recall from Jesus’ ministry in Galilee that he was often pressed by large crowds.  When he was tired, he sometimes tried to get away, only to find them waiting for him wherever he showed up.  Jesus’ reputation drew large crowds.  Moreover, as he made this trip to Jerusalem, he seemed to be gathering people along the way.  Remember that the blind man outside Jericho got up and started following him.  Soon in Jerusalem, the crowds will fill the streets with shouts of praise.  With so many people, Zacchaeus faced a problem.  He would have to figure out a way to get a look at Jesus.

The reason it was a problem is that Zacchaeus was short.  In a crowd of average and tall people, he could only see people’s heads and shoulders.  He could not see past them to the center of everyone’s attention.  An unpopular man, he would not be able to get friends to give him a boost.  So he figured out where a tall tree was, a very climbable, very large sycamore tree, and he made a plan to get a view of this famous man coming to town.  No doubt, he had similar questions and thoughts about who Jesus might be as did the rest of the crowd.  He at least wanted to get a look at him.

So we have picked over this story for its significant details.  We have found its links to the longer narrative of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.  We have identified major themes of the gospel of Luke that play a role in this story.  We have analyzed elements of Zacchaeus’s identity which help us to gain insight into the passage.  Perhaps you already find yourself drawn by the Holy Spirit to see how God can speak to you through these verses from Luke 19.

Still, I would like to hone in on a few relevant aspects of this story for our time and place.  What can the story of Zacchaeus say to us at Mt Level, in Durham, NC, at the end of October in 2016?  Let me offer what I see in this text.

First, this short, disreputable, crooked, despised turncoat Zacchaeus was in almost every way imaginable an outcast in his town.  If he grew up in Jericho, which is likely, then people there knew his family.  There were people he played with as a kid.  There were people with whom he had studied the Torah as a boy.  He and others had been to each others’ Bar Mitzvahs.  Maybe he never quite fit in.  Or maybe there was some turning point when he no longer felt it was worth trying to be part of the “in group.”

I recently heard an interview on the radio about the struggles young people face during their middle school years.  One person talked about the experience of feeling like she was always being left out of the best things that were happening in her school.  Often middle schoolers feel like there is a group of kids who are the cool ones, and then a few other kids who get to hang out with that group.  But many kids have this nagging, persistent feeling of being left out.  They always wish they could be best friends with the cool kids, but they never get in on what those cool kids are doing.  I certainly remember that feeling.  Maybe you do, too.

As the radio program continued, the speaker described her research from talking with other adults about their memories of middle school.  She had concluded that almost all middle school kids had a similar experience of feeling they were on the outside, of feeling left out of the group.  Even the cool kids seemed to have that same set of feelings.

Often, when people feel left out, they try to identify just what it is that sets them apart as strange, different, or unwelcome.  Some might think they don’t have the right clothes.  They might believe they live in the wrong neighborhood.  They might feel too fat or too thin, too short or too tall.

I don’t think we stretch our imaginations too far in relation to this text if we surmise that part of what may have led Zacchaeus to draw back from his neighbors was his experience of being shorter than most people.  I admit to having been pretty mean to some of my short friends back in my teen years, teasing them as a way to make myself feel more important.  It’s not uncommon.  There are even standard prejudices about short people:  some people say they are mean and resentful, or that they are inclined to try to control other people.  Some of us remember the Randy Newman song that satirized the prejudice against short people.

At some point, the boy or the man Zacchaeus reached the point of not trying.  He gave up on changing the way things were for him.  He decided to make his own way as an outsider.  He decided to get his revenge by joining up with a different power crowd.  Like so many young people trying to make their way toward adulthood and maturity, he felt shut out and alone.  All he wanted was to fit in, to be normal, to get to join in when people were having a good time.  Deep inside, he still wanted that, but he gave up on ever getting there.  Really, deep within, he wanted more than to fit in.  He wanted justice.  He wanted things to be set right.  He wanted to be in a world where people treated one another well, the way God made us to be.  But I suspect Zacchaeus had become cynical about all that.  If the others were going to shut him out of the community and friendship he longed for, he would just focus on helping himself.

Just helping yourself, just getting yours, has its rewards.  In Zacchaeus’s case, he figured out how to get rich.  It probably meant he had nicer clothes than most people.  He probably had a bigger house than most people.  He might even have been able to throw some good parties, where all the powerful people would hang out.  But based on this story, he was not satisfied.  Some kind of longing was still there, not too far below the surface.  He had heard about Jesus and wondered if he was the kind of leader who could help change the way this rotten world has turned out.

Zacchaeus showed no sign that he expected Jesus to actually talk with him or visit him or even look at him.   Rather, he seems just to want to get a glimpse of Jesus, to try to measure up what kind of man he was.  Somewhere inside was a glimmer of hope that Jesus’ passing by could be a sign that things would change.  But mainly, he figured that from his tree branch perch, he would at least be a distant part of something big that was happening.

The surprising turn in this story is that Jesus stopped and picked out Zacchaeus for a conversation.  Maybe he asked someone, “Who is that guy up in the tree over there?”  Maybe he figured out what he needed to know by looking Zacchaeus over—nice clothes, by himself, too old to be climbing trees, seems small.  We don’t have that information.  We just know Jesus shocked everyone.

It’s a great big crowd.  There are people there who may have made plans for Jesus’ visit.  Some of Jesus’ enemies were counting on a chance to try to make him look bad.  Some of Jesus’ admirers were hoping to have a chance to hang out and talk.  Some sick people may have come for healing.  It was a big crowd, but Jesus ended up under a tree talking with Zacchaeus.

This is the part of the story we know.  It is the part I was taught to sing as a four- or five-year-old.  Sing along if you know it. 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

A wee little man was he. 

He climbed up in a sycamore tree

For the Lord he wanted to see. 

And as the Savior passed that way,

He looked up in the tree. 

And he said, “Zacchaeus, you come down. 

For I’m going to your house today. 

For I’m going to your house today.” 

So what happened when Jesus was at Zacchaeus’s house?  Hospitality would dictate that Zacchaeus provided comfort and refreshment.  Maybe they shared a meal.  Certainly they talked to one another.  If we pay attention to what we have learned about the gospel of Luke and the placement of this story within it, we can probably get a good idea of what they may have talked about.

Jesus was deeply committed to a redistribution of the goods of this world so that there is no need among the people in the community.  This is what the economic system of the Torah had taught.  Moreover, it also taught that when things get out of proportion, as they will, there has to be a plan to set things right.  People who lost their land should get their land back.  People who go in debt and become indentured workers should have their debts cancelled and be set free to provide for their families again.  People who have become wealthy by victimizing the weak and the poor need to return what rightfully belongs to others.  People who have plenty need to share what they have with those in need.  From Mary’s song in Luke 2 after meeting Gabriel, to Jesus sermon in Nazareth in Luke 4, to the Lord’s prayer in chapter 11, and all the way down to chapter 19 and beyond, these economic ideas have been at the center of Jesus’ calling, teaching, and ministry.

We don’t know if Zacchaeus was really ready to hear that kind of talk.  Many people grew angry with Jesus over the months and years of his ministry when he started talking about a revolutionary economic change on the order of the Sabbath year and Jubilee justice.  Zacchaeus may also have resisted.  Today’s Old Testament reading from the prophet Isaiah chapter 1 includes a well known passage in which God is calling Israel to a sit-down conversation.  The King James says, “Come, let us reason together.”  I am drawn to the New Revised Standard translation which says, “Come, let us argue it out.”  Zacchaeus and Jesus may have had some back and forth.  They  may have taken some verbal jabs at one another.  They may have tried to make their case with the best possible arguments. 

Whatever they said and did, however, what is clear is that it ended up with Zacchaeus having an encounter with the Living God.  He came to see that the way of God’s justice is the only path to arriving in that world that he longed for deep in his heart.  If he wanted things to be set right between himself and the people of Jericho, he would have to be ready to take the first step and model the way of righteousness.  The path to a just world is for each of us to live just lives.  Zacchaeus learned this in his encounter with Jesus.  He realized that there could be a better world, and he would need to be the one ready to make it happen.  By aligning himself with the way of Jesus, he would be part of the movement that the Spirit of God was spreading throughout the land.  Although some people in Jericho were sure there must not be any good in Zacchaeus, Jesus saw in him a marvelous creation of God, one whom God declares good from the foundation of the world, and one who by following and uniting himself to Jesus would become a leader of the called out people of God.  The Holy Spirit was able to reach into this corrupted, lonely, bitter, and damaged man to stir up the hope within him and restore the image of God in him.

We live in a world not so different from Zacchaeus’s world.  The gap between rich and poor is wide and growing.  People shut one another out and drive people who are different into dens of loneliness and despair.  Groups try to prevent other groups from voting.  Leaders lie and cheat to get riches and power.  We feel separated from one another and powerless to change things.  Our city is plagued by overpriced housing, low wages, underfunded and unequal schools, and challenges to our systems of policing and justice.  We sometimes feel it’s not even worth thinking about these problems.  We feel weak and powerless.  We feel like giving up and just looking out for ourselves.

But I stopped by today to retell an old, old story of a Savior who walked into Jericho.  It was a divided town.  The relationships were broken and polarized.  People were filled with resentment, hard feelings, and harsh words.  Some had great wealth without justice.  Many were longing for some kind of salvation.  And Jesus came to town and behaved in the most unexpected way.  He found the man most alone, most corrupted, most outcast, least loved—Jesus found the one who felt inside like you and I have felt sometimes.  Nobody wanted Jesus to talk to Zacchaeus, but Jesus does not see the way the world sees.  Jesus does not do the way the world does.  Jesus found this man way up in a tree.  It was a ludicrous situation.  Jesus called him down to stand on his feet.  He went with this man to his house while the town grumbled and griped.  He stayed there until the power of God had won the argument and changed the man.  And he brought him out changed as the leader of a transformation of his city toward justice.

Don’t you give up on God.  God has not given up on you.  Whatever you think can’t be changed in your life, God can make a way.  Whatever you believe can’t change in Durham, in North Carolina, in Washington, DC, remember that God can make a way.  God will come and find you up in a tree or down in a hole or out in a desert.  God has come into the world in Jesus Christ to seek and to save the lost.  You can’t get so lost that Jesus can’t find you.  He came to seek and to save.  Hang out with Jesus and see what happens to you.  Hang out with Jesus and see what kind of change is going to come.  Hang out with Jesus and find out where faith, hope, and love come from.  Zacchaeus tried it, and look who he turned out to be.  Zack tried it, and now his name is in the Bible because he opened his hand and heart to the poor.  You try it.  Have Jesus come to your house.  You won’t regret it.  Amen.