 |
 |
|
| Why Am I Not Where I Want To Be? |
 |
 |
 |
|
Why Am I Not Where I Want To Be? In the days of Jesus, Rome ruled the world. Rome also taxed the world, especially the occupied land of Israel. In Israel, Jericho was a prosperous trade city, with lots of transactions that could be taxed. Jericho was also the home to a troubled man named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus held the extremely lucrative position of tax collector for the Romans. Average Jews paid 40% of their income in taxes, and the tax collector took a percentage of all the money raised. If people objected, Zacchaeus could just send in the Roman soldiers. If you think the IRS is fierce, they are nothing compared with a Roman legionnaire. Zacchaeus was not only the richest person in town; he was also the most despised. Actually despised may be an understatement. Tax collectors had the same social status as prostitutes. One of the Jewish laws of the time read this way: "If a murderer comes into your house you are to scrub upon his departure the area in which the murderer stood. If a tax collector comes into your house, you are to scrub the entire house." To add his failures, Zacchaeus was also a Jew. Zacchaeus essentially oppressed his own people for money. Yet, one day as Jesus passed through Jericho he discovered Zacchaeus perched up in a tree. Zacchaeus came to see Jesus because he had such a huge void in his life. Can you imagine living surrounded by stolen wealth and protected by soldiers from your own people who hated you? Zacchaeus was not where he wanted to be. Then, Jesus came by. Seeing this little man up in the tree, Jesus extended friendship to the most hated guy in town. Jesus went to eat at Zacchaeus' home, which just happened to be the most expensive Jewish home in town. After Jesus' meal, Zacchaeus was transformed. Zacchaeus paid back all those people he had swindled four times the money he had stolen. The same man who was once capable of such evil now expressed tremendous remorse and generosity. Zacchaeus is a reflection of all of us. In each of us there is so much potential for both good and evil. In all of God's creation, we are the only creatures capable of love and compassion. We are also the only creatures capable of cruelty and self-destruction. We have discovered cures for terrible diseases, and also weapons of mass destruction. We give generously to disasters in Haiti, and also ignore terrible tragedies like AIDS in Africa. We seem to lose our way over and over again. According to the Bible, our struggle with doing the right thing is linked to our very creation. At the beginning of time, God looked at the sun and the moon and the animals in the sea, sky, and land. God looked at everything and God said, "This is good!" Yet, creation was not yet complete. God needed a crowning act. So, God said, AI will make human beings in my own image (Genesis 1:26)." And God said, “Those people are very good.” We human beings are nothing less than God's own masterpiece. Yet, although we are God's masterpiece, we also have strayed. From the very beginning, from the first people whom we call Adam and Eve, we humans have deliberately sought to do their own thing rather than follow God's commands. Instead of enjoying what God had provided, people always want to disobey God's commands. Every one of us has taken a bite from the forbidden fruit. Created by God for good we run in the opposite direction. Christians call the various ways that we turn away from God with the word Asin." Sin is difficult to describe because it carries a lot of baggage. When we use the word sin, people get a little nervous. We fidget in our seats, perhaps conjuring up an image of a red-faced, finger-pointing preacher. For others of us, sin is an outdated set of morals, with images of proper ladies shaking their heads when we do not hold our forks properly. To avoid sin, "we are not to smoke, drink, dance, or chew, or associate with people who do." Christians understand sin as more than poor social manners. Sin is our rebellion against God, a wrong turn in the direction of our lives, a wrong turn away from God. When the great poet Dante portrayed sin, he wrote, "In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood for I had lost my way." We lose our proper direction in a variety of ways. No one plans on taking a wrong turn. As one preacher [John Ortberg] once wrote: ANobody nurses a grudge in hopes of becoming a bitter, resentful person. People do not give birth to children intending to be so busy that their kids won=t know them. No one sits down and plans on having a mediocre existence . . . It just happens." [John Ortberg. Love Beyond Reason: Moving God's Love from Your Head to your Heart. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988) p.87]. We can point fingers at other people, such as has been done this week with John Edwards. Truthfully, however, fingers can also we pointed at us. We tell a lie. We ignore a friend. We commit adultery. We cheat on our taxes. We love our money too much. There are as many examples of sin as there are persons in this congregation this morning. One bad choice leads to another until we are too far gone to find our way back. Sin does not happen just once. We Christians believe in the widening circle of sin. Sin is not just personal mis-deeds. There is an old saying that "what goes around comes around." If I commit a thoughtless and mean-spirited act, I will eventually be on the receiving end of something similar. Sin acts like the ripples from a stone thrown into a pond, or a computer virus that silently spreads infection from one computer to another. From the moment of our birth, none of us starts clean. Families, communities, and social systems all scar us for life even before we take our first breath. Our godly potential is restricted by the past and present sins of other people, and other people are weakened by our own failures. The deep-seated problems of poverty, pollution, terrorism, and even our current economic crisis are the direct and indirect result of every person turning against the will of our Creator God. Let me describe the pervasive power of sin by describing what happens in my vegetable garden each year. Each spring, I have a dream of a wonderful garden with fresh vegetables. I purchase sets of tomato, green pepper, and cucumber plants. When I plant my tiny little starter plants, I usually ignore the instructions that come with each plant. For instance, the cucumber and squash plants need a wide berth. Every year, I fudge on the directions and put the plants close together. I promise myself that I will keep an eye of them. You know what happens. With its little tendrils the cucumbers and squash reach over the tomato and pepper plants until my garden is one big mess. Now if the plants are intertwined and choking each other on top of the ground, can you imagine what is happening under the surface? The roots of all these plants are tied up in a spider's web of knots, choking the life out of each other. |