Church is welcoming community
Luke 19:1-10
What sort of welcome did you get today as you came to church? What sort of welcome have you given to others?
Church researchers have shown that the kind of welcome that we give a visitor or a newcomer, even the kind of welcome we give one another, is the major factor determining whether that person will come back[1]. Most people decide to commit to joining a church, not because of the preaching, not because of the singing or the nice building, but because they perceive that have been welcomed, that they are building friendships, and that they have a role to play in that church[2]. So, welcoming matters.
Now, by our very nature, church should be a welcoming community. Why? Because that is Jesus' nature. He welcomes every one, no matter who; no matter what the past, no matter what the present. Jesus welcomes.In a few moments we are going to see that Jesus interaction with Zacchaeus puts our welcoming in its true context. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and so we welcome them.
But before Jesus meets Zacchaeus he already has a reputation for welcoming strangers and outcasts, spiritual heavy weights and notorious sinners—anyone at all, really. Anyone who truly wants to meet him.
And that is why the Pharisees had accused Jesus of being,
Luke 7:34 … a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners.' [3]
Let's pause and think about that for a moment. What sort of life must a person be living to get that sort of reputation? "Oh, Jesus? Yes, he was at the pub last night with all the wild-party boys, and kicked on with them even after closing time. Yes, Jesus. He always seemed to be at the centre of some kind of party, some kind of gathering—dinner with those shady-dealers and tax-collectors, lunch at that prostitute's house, supper at someone else's place…." That's the sort of thing that must have been said about Jesus to develop a reputation for being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners.'
It's no surprise that we read in Luke 15,
Luke 15:1 Now the tax collectors and 'sinners' were all gathering around to hear [Jesus]. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.' [4]
So Jesus willingly receives and accepts the 'sinners'. He becomes their friend. Notice that he is not merely friendly towards them—you know, that initial 5 minute chat where you find out what work the other person does, where they live, if they have any kids and, yes, isn't it warm for this time of year… Jesus is not merely friendly; he becomes a friend. He welcomes and shares meals with all kinds of people.
And so that is why church is a welcoming community. We simply follow Jesus' lead. We do what Jesus did.
Jesus' meeting with Zacchaeus is one such example of Jesus welcoming. If you haven't already, you might like to open your Bibles to Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus
This incident is well known to many because Zacchaeus is the little guy who climbs a tree to have a discreet sticky-beak at Jesus, only to find Jesus invites himself over to his place for lunch. But we should not think of Zacchaeus as a lovable little underdog who gets one up on the grumbling crowd—at least not the way Luke presents the story to us.
The first thing we learn about him in verse 2 is 'he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy'. In other words, Zacchaeus is a notable bad guy: a tax collector.
Now I used to live across the road from a very nice tax collector. Graeme worked for the Australian Taxation Office, and really, as a neighbour, you couldn't want for a better bloke—trustworthy, friendly, kind, looking out for others. Well Zacchaeus is not that kind of tax collector. Instead, imagine we are all Iraqis in Baghdad, and one of our countrymen is collecting tax money from us to pay the American army to continue their occupation. Oh, except this tax collector likes to make a bit extra on the side, to feather his own nest as well as that of the occupying forces. That's the kind of tax-collector we have in Zacchaeus. He was taking money from his struggling fellow Jews in order to pay the Roman Army to continue their occupation of Israel[5].
And not only was Zacchaeus a tax collector, he was the chief tax collector. He organized others to serve the enemy as well.And to complete the picture, we are told that Zacchaeus was 'wealthy.'[6] That is to say, he was fraudulently wealthy at the expense of his countrymen[7].
And next, verse 3 tells us something else about Zacchaeus. He is also short and he is a celebrity watcher. We might imagine him to be like the people who go to Hollywood during the Oscars and buy tickets to sit in a grandstand to watch celebrities arrive and walk along the red carpet, as they go in to watch the Oscars. (No, true, there are really people who do that!) They buy tickets to watch the people who will watch the people who win the Oscars. They fascinated by the lives of celebrities. They just want to see what these people are really like—conveniently and at a bit of distance. It seems that Zacchaeus, although vertically challenged, was one such fame junkie. He wanted to see Jesus.
Jesus
So Jesus arrives under the Fig Tree, looks up and says:
Luke 19:5 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.'
Of course, in verse 7, with their attitude towards tax collectors in general and Zacchaeus in particular, the crowd of people did not like what Jesus was doing here and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner'.
It's like Tom Cruise or Heath Ledger has arrived at the Oscars, looked up in the grandstand at a plain sort of lady, wearing shabby clothes, somewhat bedraggled, perhaps she's been making way too much noise, and he has said, 'Would you like to come inside and sit with me at my table?' Surely the crowd would all groan, saying, 'What's she got that I haven't got? Our Tom/Heath is too good for her. Surely, if Tom/Heath has a spare seat on his table, he'd pick…, well, he'd pick me!'
But Jesus didn't back down in the face of the crowd's complaints. Zacchaeus was a lost sheep of Israel. Jesus did not want to leave him in his lost state. He came to Jericho to seek and to save Zacchaeus. He wouldn't leave until that mission was accomplished. So to lunch they go.
We're not told what happened during the meal, or much of what was said. But it is clear that this meal with Jesus was a turning point for Zacchaeus. We know this because of what he says in verse 8. Have a look at it with me:
Luke 19:8 …Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
This is a changed man, a repentant man. He is speaking the only language he knows—money. According to Old Testament law, if a person cheats someone he must make restitution in full and add twenty percent to it (cf Lev 6:5). And, if a person steals from his neighbor he must pay back double as restitution (cf Ex 22:1). According to Roman law, a tax collector who wrongfully confiscated goods had to restore double the value. And, if force was used, a threefold restitution had to be made. But Zacchaeus offers to go far beyond the demands of both Old Testament and Roman law; he offers 'four times the amount.'
Something has happened for Zacchaeus. He is not responding to law or moral obligation. He is responding to being found. Jesus accepted him and welcomed him and he is found.
And then, in verse 10, Jesus explains what has been going on here all along. He says:
'The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost'.
That's why Jesus came to earth as a man; that's why He suffered and died; that's why He was the guest of a sinner.
Seeking means taking the initiative
The Zacchaeus narrative is important for us, as Jesus' church, because we learn, straight from the horse's mouth (as it were) what he was on about. Jesus' mission was to seek and save the lost. He did not wait in heaven for us to seek him. He did not just turn up on earth and expect everyone to rush to greet him. God came to us, became one of us. And walking the dusty streets of the 1st century, he went out of his way to find the lost. People like Zacchaeus.
And as a result, quite a lot of people didn't like Jesus.
He welcomed sinners. He took the initiative in seeking the lost[8]. He went first. He said hello to Zacchaeus, not the other way around.
You might identify with the Funkey Monkey's video clip that we opened the service with.
So at very least, 'seeking' means we take the initiative.
Of course, as church, we are not always welcoming 'sinners' and lost people. Very often we welcome Christians who are looking for a new church home. Perhaps they've just moved into the area, perhaps they just need encouragement. Maybe they were invited along by a friend. As church, we welcome anyone and everyone, and we take the initiative in doing so.
The seeking is for saving
And as we reflect on Jesus' words in verse 10, we recall that he came not just 'to seek' but 'to seek and to save'. The seeking is for saving. If I might translate that into our situation as the church gathered on a regular Sunday; our welcoming—no matter who it is or where they are up to, our welcoming is another step along the salvation pathway.
That's why it's so important that we welcome well. When we recognise that each person we welcome is somewhere along the pathway towards Jesus, maybe just at the beginning, maybe just getting back on track after a little deviation, maybe they're well advanced, we see that open acceptance and friendship is so important.
So if Jesus' seeking is for saving our welcoming should have the same motive.
Church growth researchers all agree that well organised welcoming will inevitably mean that our church will become bigger, more popular, and with more members. But that is not why we do welcome. Instead, we are to be motived by Jesus' love for lost people.
Seeking and welcoming is not the beginning of a production line whose goal is mega-church.
A short video was viewed:
Q: What was wrong?
Q: What did the church have right? They had a process: a welcome pack and a morning tea
Q: How do you know a person has been welcomed well for the right reasons?
Getting the process right does not ensure that people are truly welcomed and helped in their progress towards Jesus Christ. We could become the slickest operation, with well organised and trained welcomers lining the footpath to Avalon/Palm Beach, but soon both we and our community would become cynical. Our welcome is only genuine when we see ourselves as part of Jesus' work of seeking and saving the lost, no matter where along the pathway we may find ourselves.
Welcoming has a cost
But lets be honest about this welcoming thing. It can, on occasion, be quite difficult. It can be difficult because the new person is not like us at all or on the other handit might be difficult because our comfortable relationships are shared around.
This is the cost of welcoming. Not everyone who comes along to church for the first time has life all sorted out in the neat packages like ours. Perhaps that is the very reason that they have come to church. They need acceptance and understanding, not judgement. They need our love and compassion. A commitment to being a welcoming church means that, for the sake of the newcomer or visitor, we open up our friendships to new people. We don't remain with the same old crowd, just our little circle. Instead, we accept others, no matter who they are; and invite them to join us.
This accepting of others might even mean that we need to change. Are you prepared for that?
When welcoming gets hard, that's when we need to remember our motive. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and so we welcome them. As the community that Jesus has sought and saved, we adopt his attitude towards outsiders and newcomers.
Church is a welcoming community. Why? Because that is Jesus' nature.
[1] Peter Corney, The Welcoming Church (Sydney, AIO, 1992)
[2] People may become occasional attenders if they like the music or the preacher; but they will only become committed members if they are welcomed, if there is friendship and relationship.
[3] Cf Matthew 11:19
[4] Cf Matthew 9:10-13; Mark 2:15-17.
[5] In the Roman provinces there were three main kinds of taxes: a produce tax on all the crops and goods produced, a universal poll tax assessed every resident, and a toll or customs tax to be paid as goods were transported from one province to another. To collect this last tax, custom booths were located at the border between provinces on all the major highways and trade routes.
[6] Jericho was a very profitable place to be a tax collector. It was the crossroads of several lucrative trade routes. It also was the center of a rather rich and prosperous area for agriculture. And remember, where there are products and trade,
there are always taxes. Lots of taxes.
In verse 8, where Zacchaeus says, "if I have cheated anybody out of anything…" the original language suggests that this is indeed true. In the Greek we have a conditional sentence in which the condition is assumed to be real or true. It might be translated, 'If I have, and of course I have, cheated anybody out of anything…'
[7] And so it was no surprise that in the religion of Jesus day, Jewish tax collectors were regarded as 'unclean'. They did not meet the ritual requirements to worship God or to offer sacrifices in the Temple. Ceremonially, they were impure and were not fit to meet with God. So they were banned from all but the outer area of the Temple. They were regarded by the Rabbis as renegade children of Abraham. In other words, they had forsaken their Jewishness; they had abandoned their religion; they were not counted as sons of Abraham anymore. They no longer had the rights of citizenship in Israel. They couldn't appeal to a Jewish court of law and they could not appear there as witnesses in a criminal proceeding.
According to the Rabbis there was only one way people like Zacchaeus could again be counted as sons of Abraham: they had to repent and make financial restitution to all their victims. This, of course, was quite impossible since Zacchaeus wouldn't know or remember or be able to get in contact with all his victims. According to the Rabbis, then, Zacchaeus was outside of Israel – forever lost, forever doomed, a son or daughter of destruction!
[8] And he calls us to act as he has; to love the lost,
to show our family likeness to our father in heaven.
We are to be merciful as he is merciful (Luke 6:32-36).
So we take the initiative in seeking the lost, just as Jesus did.
