Today is Reformation Sunday, a day on the church calendar in which we remember when Martin Luther who lived in the 16th century ignited the Protestant Reformation. This is why our opening hymn this morning was, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Martin Luther wrote the words and the music of that hymn in 1529, twelve years after he had nailed 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church to protest the theology and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
He did this on October 31st, which was All-Hallow’s Eve, the day before All-Saints Day because he knew that there would be a big crowd in worship that next day and people would see these protests attached to the door.
If social media or digital signs would have been available in Luther’s day, he probably would have chosen that method of posting his complaints about the church, but in that time, the way you got the word out was by nailing a document to a wooden door in a public space for all to see.
At the heart of Martin Luther’s protest was his push back against the church’s teaching at that time that we become saved by doing good works rather than by God’s grace alone. Luther was also pushing back against the sale of indulgences which was the practice of giving money to the church in exchange for helping someone who was in purgatory to make it into heaven.
The church of his time was also encouraging people to earn salvation by making a spiritual pilgrimage or by doing other acts of piety and devotion.
In order to reform the church of his day, Martin Luther emphasized four foundational components that would shape the Protestant Reformation that continues to this day. The four components are 1) faith alone, 2) scripture alone, 3) Christ alone, and 4) grace alone.
Martin Luther’s most famous point of emphasis was the phrase, “justification by faith.” This is the theological view based on the Apostle Paul’s writings, that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our salvation. All that we can do is receive God’s gift of salvation by faith.
This is why some people will share a testimony and can tell you the year and the day when they received Jesus into their lives. In one of the churches I served, an elderly man in the congregation came up to me before the beginning of worship one year and said to me, “Pastor, today is my spiritual birthday.”
By that, he meant that it was the birthday of when he accepted Jesus into his life when he was a little boy. He told me that it was in April of 1947 when he accepted Jesus into his life. He was in his late teens at the time.
Every once in a while, somebody on Facebook will post that it’s their spiritual birthday that day. Or as Martin Luther would say, when “they were justified by faith alone.” That’s a very Protestant thing to say. This gets emphasized again and again throughout our Protestant tradition.
Now, if you’re sitting there wondering why you might not have a spiritual birthday where you can recite the exact year, month, day, and time when you received Jesus into your life, if it helps any, I can’t either. Even though I can’t share my spiritual birthday with you, I do believe that I have been justified by faith, and I have received Jesus into my life, but I don’t remember the first time that I consciously made that decision.
I’ve shared this with you before but asking me when I first received Jesus into my life or when my spiritual birthday is, is like asking me when I first knew that my parents loved me.
I can’t point to that first moment because I was blessed to have very loving parents. And because I grew up in a very loving church who shared the love of Jesus with me in so many numerous ways, I can’t point to that first time when it suddenly dawned on me that Jesus loved me.
I kind of feel left out, but it’s OK because the really important thing in all of this is that having Jesus in my life has given me joy, purpose, hope, peace, and an assurance that has carried me throughout my life. I can’t even begin to imagine what life would be like if Jesus wasn’t in it. That’s a great question to ponder. What would my life be like without Jesus?
This is why our appointed Gospel reading is so important today especially on this Reformation Sunday. This is a justification by faith story where somebody was saved by faith, by saying “yes to Jesus.” I’m talking about Zaccheus.
Anybody here know the old Zaccheus song that talks about this story here in Luke 19? Let’s sing this old classic together!
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, And a wee little man was he, He climbed up in a sycamore tree, For the Lord he wanted to see, And when 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!'
Isn’t that a great song?? If you knew that song by heart, I’m guessing that you attended children’s Sunday School or Vacation Bible School back in the day!
So that’s the story that we find here in the Gospel of Luke. And by the way, Luke is the only one of the four gospels that includes this story of Zacchaeus meeting Jesus. And the reason for this is because out of the four gospels, Luke is the one who is most known for how Jesus went beyond the boundaries of his day in reaching out to people who were seen as outside of God’s circle.
Luke is especially known for telling these stories where God’s love and acceptance is extended to people who were often ignored during that time including women, children, the poor, sinners and outcasts, and in this case, Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector.
In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were Jews that Rome had appointed to collect hefty taxes from their own people, the Jewish people. And not only did they collect these high taxes from their own people, they charged them even more than what was required to make an even higher profit for themselves.
They got extremely rich at the expense of their own people. They were seen as traitors and definitely outside of God’s circle.
So, no wonder in this Gospel reading, we have Zacchaeus not in the front of the crowd to get a glimpse of Jesus, but he had been pushed to the very back of the crowd. There’s more going on in this story than Zacchaeus being too short to see Jesus. It was really because he was seen as unworthy and outside the reach of God’s grace.
And this exchange between Jesus and Zacchaeus is priceless. Jesus looks up and spots Zacchaeus and tells him to come down from that tree because he wants to go to his house, yes to this despised tax collector’s house.
And the amazing thing about this story is that Zacchaeus hurries down and was so happy to welcome Jesus. The better translation of Zacchaeus’ reaction is that Zacchaeus was “joyful” when Jesus wanted to spend time with him. Joyful and rejoicing are the better words in translating this verse.
And this is an important distinction because joyful and rejoicing are words that are to remind us how Jesus began his ministry earlier in the Gospel of Luke.
Back in chapter 4, Jesus is in a synagogue where he reads from the Prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recover of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
That phrase, “the year of the Lord’s favor” is referring to the Old Testament commandment for Israel to celebrate the Year of Jubilee. This was to happen every 50 years where people’s debts were forgiven, where slaves were freed, and where wealth was reallocated so that everyone would be able to start over again.
When Jesus announces that he has come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, he is referring to this Year of Jubilee. In other words, Jesus has come to liberate us from our sins, our systems of economic exploitation, and the many injustices that are in our world.
And this is what we get throughout Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is announcing this good news of liberation especially to those who have been forgotten and brushed aside. The Year of the Lord’s Favor which is referring to this Year of Jubilee is the good news that Jesus was announcing throughout the Gospel of Luke.
So, notice what Zacchaeus does after Jesus spends time with him in his home. This despised tax collector who was seen as unworthy of God’s grace let alone of Jesus’ willingness to spend time with him, ends up receiving God’s gift of grace and salvation. Zaccheus is so filled with joy that he even tells Jesus that he will share half of his wealth with the poor and pay back anybody he has defrauded.
Zacchaeus is a living example of the Year of Jubilee. He becomes a changed man not because of his worthiness but because it was grace alone that saved him. And this leads Jesus to say, “Salvation has come to this house!”
I can imagine Jesus smiling when he said this since everybody knew that this isn’t something you see everyday when a greedy tax collector says, “I don’t want the money. I found something so much better, and I’m going to make things right.”
How often do you see something like this in our everyday world, where someone is awakened in a moment to a whole new way of living that fills them with so much joy and then leads them to make such a radical change in how they live to reflect that change? It is a beautiful thing!
I guess that’s why they call it the Reformation. The church is called to be continually reformed into the joy-filled and loving people God has called us to be. And like Zaachaeus, we are continually invited to come down out of that tree, receive Jesus into our lives by faith, and live in such a way that reflects that change.
We are called to live a life of jubilee where our newfound joy in Christ can’t help but lead us to be the change that God wants to see in the world,
A world where children feel safe going to school; where the hungry are fed, where the lonely and grieving are comforted; where greed is transformed into generosity; where racism is replaced with understanding; where nations don’t invade other nations; where unjust systems are replaced with opportunities for all; where those who are in danger find refuge, where the hopeless have hope; where the oppressed go free; and where we proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
I love how Jesus says, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
My niece bought a new house, and she sent us a picture she took of it. I love the sign that the realtor put in front of the house after she closed on it. It says, “Celebration in progress.”
There was definitely a celebration, a jubiliee in Zacchaeus’s house that day.
May salvation come to our house and to our world this day, just as it did for Zaachaeus.
Let the jubilee begin!
