Hugh Anderson - Maundy Thursday Communion Meditation (April 7, 1966)
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| - | To St. Luke chapter 19, reading from the first verse. | 0:03 |
| St. Luke's gospel chapter 19, from verse one. | 0:08 | |
| "And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. | 0:15 | |
| And behold there was a man named Zacchaeus, | 0:19 | |
| which was the chief among publicans, and he was rich. | 0:22 | |
| And he sought to see Jesus who he was, | 0:27 | |
| and could not for the press, | 0:30 | |
| because he was little of stature. | 0:33 | |
| And he ran before and climbed up into a Sycamore tree | 0:36 | |
| to see him. | 0:39 | |
| For Jesus was to pass that way. | 0:41 | |
| And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, | 0:45 | |
| and said unto him, 'Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, | 0:49 | |
| for today I must abide at thy house.' | 0:54 | |
| And he made haste and came down and received Jesus joyfully. | 0:58 | |
| And when they saw it, | 1:04 | |
| they all murmured saying, 'Jesus has gone to be guest | 1:05 | |
| with a man that is a sinner.' | 1:11 | |
| And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, | 1:15 | |
| 'Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. | 1:18 | |
| And if I have taken anything | 1:23 | |
| from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.' | 1:25 | |
| And Jesus said unto him, | 1:31 | |
| 'This day, a salvation come to this house, | 1:34 | |
| for so much as he also is a son of Abraham. | 1:38 | |
| For the son of man is come to seek and to save | 1:42 | |
| that which was lost.'" | 1:47 | |
| The Lord blessed to us, this reading of his holy Word, | 1:50 | |
| and to his name, be the glory and the praise. | 1:54 | |
| Amen. | 1:57 | |
| (bright worship music) | 1:59 | |
| In the name of God the father, | 2:49 | |
| God the son, | 2:52 | |
| and God the Holy Spirit. | 2:53 | |
| Amen. | 2:55 | |
| The usual procedure | 3:04 | |
| for a Monday, Thursday communion meditation, | 3:07 | |
| would be to speak quite directly | 3:10 | |
| to the historical episode of the last supper | 3:14 | |
| which Jesus had with his disciples, | 3:18 | |
| a short time before his death. | 3:21 | |
| But the last supper Jesus did have with his disciples, | 3:25 | |
| is quite organically related | 3:29 | |
| to all the rest of his public ministry. | 3:31 | |
| In as much as the last supper sums up within itself, | 3:36 | |
| Jesus' entire life as a life of constructive self-giving, | 3:41 | |
| the shadow of the cross looms over that supper | 3:47 | |
| as indeed the shadow of the cross looms over | 3:51 | |
| the whole story of Jesus. | 3:55 | |
| It may therefore not be inappropriate for us tonight | 3:59 | |
| to turn to another gospel episode | 4:03 | |
| for our communion meditation. | 4:05 | |
| And so I take as my text, | 4:08 | |
| Luke's gospel chapter 19 verse seven. | 4:10 | |
| "And all the people murmured saying, | 4:14 | |
| Jesus is gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. | 4:18 | |
| Jesus is gone to be guest, with a man that is a sinner." | 4:27 | |
| They meant, of course, | 4:33 | |
| that he had gone to lodge for the night | 4:34 | |
| at the house of this notorious little fellow in Jericho, | 4:37 | |
| by the name of Zacchaeus. | 4:41 | |
| In the course of his public ministry, | 4:44 | |
| Jesus encountered many enemies. | 4:47 | |
| And his enemies at one time and another, | 4:51 | |
| tried to demean him or defame him | 4:55 | |
| by leveling slanderous accusations against him. | 4:58 | |
| But the ironical thing in the gospel records, | 5:04 | |
| is that while indeed their only intention is to demean him, | 5:08 | |
| his enemies often speak about him without knowing it, | 5:14 | |
| words that are profoundly and ever lastingly true. | 5:18 | |
| So it is here in the story | 5:24 | |
| of Jesus' visit with Zacchaeus in Jericho, | 5:27 | |
| his Phariseean enemies declare of him, | 5:33 | |
| this man Jesus, just think of it, | 5:36 | |
| they say to the other folks in the city, | 5:38 | |
| this man, Jesus he's gone to be guest | 5:40 | |
| with a man that is a sinner. | 5:44 | |
| As if he couldn't have chosen | 5:47 | |
| some of the good churchy people in Jericho. | 5:48 | |
| Some of the Pharisees, for example. | 5:51 | |
| You see, Zacchaeus had the meanest reputation | 5:54 | |
| in all Jericho, as a sheer mischief of a man. | 5:57 | |
| He was a tax collector for the Romans for one thing, | 6:02 | |
| and worse than that, he had gotten rich. | 6:05 | |
| Yet, Jesus had chosen this rascal, with whom to lodge. | 6:08 | |
| This dyed in the wool rogue, | 6:12 | |
| in the eyes of his respectable fellow citizens. | 6:15 | |
| And so Jesus' enemies declared of him, | 6:21 | |
| look at him, he's gone to stay with the meanest sinner | 6:25 | |
| in all Jericho. | 6:29 | |
| Well, Jesus enemies didn't know it then, | 6:32 | |
| but they were saying something that was true | 6:35 | |
| about Jesus of Nazareth then, | 6:37 | |
| and is true about him forever and forever. | 6:39 | |
| He can only lodge with the despised, | 6:44 | |
| and the rejected and the outcast. | 6:49 | |
| He cannot make his dwelling place anywhere else. | 6:52 | |
| He is most at home with the nobodys. | 6:58 | |
| He goes to live in the most unexpected of places, | 7:02 | |
| among the sinners. | 7:06 | |
| Not among the self righteous, | 7:09 | |
| or the pious, | 7:12 | |
| or the respectable. | 7:13 | |
| And at this point, Jesus' whole message | 7:16 | |
| matches his conduct perfectly. | 7:20 | |
| For I believe, that the very heart | 7:23 | |
| of Jesus teaching throughout the gospels, | 7:26 | |
| is that God is standing in his mercy, | 7:28 | |
| not toward the self righteous at all, | 7:32 | |
| not toward those who pride themselves in their good works, | 7:35 | |
| but to the sinners who recognize their need, | 7:40 | |
| and really want him to come to stay with them. | 7:43 | |
| This is what Jesus means, | 7:47 | |
| when he says to his Phariseean enemies, | 7:49 | |
| in a way most calculated to wound their pious sentiments. | 7:52 | |
| "The harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." | 7:57 | |
| The same thing is true | 8:03 | |
| in that devastating parable | 8:04 | |
| of the Pharisee and the publican. | 8:06 | |
| It is once again, not the virtuous | 8:09 | |
| or self righteous Pharisee who is justified, | 8:11 | |
| but the tax gatherer | 8:15 | |
| who declares himself a sinner before God. | 8:17 | |
| And the same thing is true again, | 8:21 | |
| in the parable of the prodigal son, | 8:23 | |
| where the older brother represents | 8:26 | |
| the Phariseean type of piety. | 8:28 | |
| And the truth of that parable is, | 8:32 | |
| that God is turning in his mercy with open arms | 8:36 | |
| to receive of the prodigals | 8:39 | |
| coming back from their far countries. | 8:41 | |
| The messianic banquet is prepared for all sinful folk. | 8:44 | |
| The candles are lit, the tables are spread, | 8:48 | |
| and you can see them coming back from their far places, | 8:52 | |
| where they had wallowed in their sin, | 8:55 | |
| and God is running so to speak, to meet them. | 8:58 | |
| Jesus conduct and his message, | 9:03 | |
| correspond exactly to each other. | 9:06 | |
| And it's all very well summed up here | 9:09 | |
| in what he does in Jericho. | 9:11 | |
| He mixes with this particular nobody. | 9:13 | |
| And the question for us tonight before this holy table is, | 9:17 | |
| do we want such a Lord as this who mixes with the nobodys | 9:22 | |
| and only comes to lodge with the sinners? | 9:26 | |
| Or would we rather have another kind of Lord, | 9:30 | |
| higher up on the scale, as men judge things. | 9:33 | |
| Before this question of what kind of Lord we really want, | 9:39 | |
| we are summoned tonight, | 9:44 | |
| to learn a fresh, | 9:47 | |
| that the gospel is not really a very sweet | 9:50 | |
| and pleasant story. | 9:53 | |
| Certainly the last supper | 9:56 | |
| which Jesus had with his disciples, | 9:58 | |
| was not a nice fellowship meal, | 10:01 | |
| for it was portentous with destiny, and with death. | 10:04 | |
| Of course, you and I, in our very human way, | 10:10 | |
| would like to make the gospel story very sweet. | 10:12 | |
| We make our stucco crosses in the advent season | 10:16 | |
| very shining white, don't we? | 10:19 | |
| And we gild our crosses in our chapels and churches, | 10:23 | |
| and we try to make it look all very beautiful | 10:27 | |
| and smooth and comfortable. | 10:31 | |
| But the story of Jesus really at the bottom, | 10:35 | |
| has a very bitter taste. | 10:38 | |
| It tastes as bitter as gall. | 10:41 | |
| And it does so precisely because, | 10:45 | |
| Jesus goes lower than the lowest people. | 10:49 | |
| He goes down into the dark depths of existence, | 10:53 | |
| among the forgotten, the despised, | 10:57 | |
| the scorned, the rejected. | 11:01 | |
| Close to the end of his life, | 11:05 | |
| he will gather with a very ordinary group of men, | 11:07 | |
| and make the common stuff of bread and wine, | 11:11 | |
| symbols of his coming death on Golgotha. | 11:14 | |
| And at the very end, | 11:18 | |
| he will end up on the highest lowest place of all, | 11:20 | |
| crucified on a cross between two common criminals. | 11:24 | |
| And the question for us tonight before this holy table, | 11:29 | |
| is do we want such a Lord as this who stoop so low, | 11:33 | |
| or should we rather have another? | 11:38 | |
| I remember in 1940 | 11:42 | |
| standing in my native village in Ayrshire, Scotland, | 11:45 | |
| some 20 miles from the city of Glasgow, | 11:49 | |
| at the time when German bombers were coming over | 11:53 | |
| to unload their grizzly cargo on Clydebank. | 11:55 | |
| And as we stood there at a safe distance | 12:01 | |
| watching the night sky lit up in vivid tongues of flame, | 12:03 | |
| and hearing the awful crackling of the falling bombs. | 12:07 | |
| I remember what we had been taught since childhood, | 12:11 | |
| as I looked up into the night sky. | 12:15 | |
| Surely, beyond the skies and beyond the stars, | 12:18 | |
| there must live a gracious father. | 12:22 | |
| And I recall very vividly here in this pulpit now, | 12:26 | |
| saying to myself that very moment, | 12:29 | |
| "To hell with such a father. | 12:31 | |
| I don't desire him. | 12:34 | |
| I want rather a God who is not beyond the stars, | 12:36 | |
| but who is down where the bombs are falling, | 12:39 | |
| in the dirty places | 12:43 | |
| from which men would rather turn away their eyes." | 12:44 | |
| And I hope tonight before this holy table, | 12:49 | |
| we can all say the same thing again. | 12:52 | |
| Remembering that Jesus and the God of Jesus, | 12:56 | |
| really are down there amid the barbed wire | 13:00 | |
| and blood of history, | 13:03 | |
| down in the dirty places, in the meanest parts. | 13:05 | |
| And the question for us tonight | 13:09 | |
| in the presence of these elements of bread and wine, | 13:12 | |
| is do we want such a Lord as this? | 13:15 | |
| Or should we rather have another who is higher up? | 13:18 | |
| If we want such a Lord as this, | 13:26 | |
| it means for us something very decisive. | 13:28 | |
| It means that we cannot withdraw | 13:33 | |
| and hide ourselves in the church anymore. | 13:35 | |
| Jesus himself goes outside the religious circle. | 13:40 | |
| He chooses Zacchaeus in Jericho, | 13:44 | |
| this most unlikely and irreligious fellow, | 13:46 | |
| with whom to lodge. | 13:49 | |
| And if we today want to act in Jesus' name, | 13:51 | |
| then that is where we shall be too, | 13:55 | |
| on the outside of the religious circle | 13:57 | |
| among the Zacchaeuses, | 14:00 | |
| to create peace and to join hands | 14:02 | |
| where present there is only hatred and distrust. | 14:05 | |
| Would you forgive me another personal reminiscent? | 14:12 | |
| When I was a minister in a suburban church | 14:15 | |
| in the city of Glasgow, | 14:17 | |
| there was attached to our church | 14:19 | |
| a little mission church in the slums of the city. | 14:21 | |
| And I had often occasioned to visit | 14:26 | |
| in the slum district of Glasgow. | 14:28 | |
| And I used to go rather proudly | 14:31 | |
| to these doors of these poor outcast people | 14:33 | |
| thinking that my being there was very important indeed. | 14:37 | |
| I was proud that I was facing up to this challenge | 14:41 | |
| of going down to the dirty places of the town. | 14:44 | |
| And then suddenly as I would ring a doorbell, | 14:49 | |
| my pride would be checked. | 14:52 | |
| It came home to me that after all | 14:55 | |
| my being there wasn't really very important. | 14:57 | |
| For the truth was, that Jesus of Nazareth | 15:01 | |
| was there already behind the door. | 15:03 | |
| Dwelling with every Zacchaeus, | 15:08 | |
| lodging in every mean place. | 15:11 | |
| That is the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, | 15:15 | |
| forever and ever. | 15:17 | |
| That he makes his home with the lowly and the despised, | 15:19 | |
| and the rejected. | 15:24 | |
| And it is not we, | 15:25 | |
| any minister of the gospel | 15:27 | |
| who is running the church's mission to the world. | 15:29 | |
| It is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ himself | 15:32 | |
| who is on ahead of us. | 15:34 | |
| He's made his home already | 15:37 | |
| in slum districts all over the world. | 15:39 | |
| And today in our challenging time, | 15:42 | |
| he's simply inviting us to | 15:44 | |
| sully forth from our holy places | 15:47 | |
| to be with him there, behind these doors, | 15:50 | |
| where they despised and rejected like Zacchaeus dwell. | 15:53 | |
| And the question for us again, before this holy table is, | 15:58 | |
| do we want such a Lord as this | 16:03 | |
| who makes his lodging in the meanest place, | 16:06 | |
| or should we rather have another? | 16:09 | |
| And then in terms of our own personal lives finally, | 16:15 | |
| do we really want such a Lord as this | 16:19 | |
| who can dwell with us only when we acknowledge | 16:22 | |
| our own individual wretchedy state and our need, | 16:26 | |
| and our sinfulness, | 16:31 | |
| and our unworthiness, | 16:33 | |
| as we fittingly should | 16:34 | |
| before these elements of bread and wine. | 16:36 | |
| Back in Scotland, the great Dr. Duncan, | 16:41 | |
| known familiarly as Rabbi Duncan, | 16:45 | |
| because he was a great Hebrew scholar, | 16:47 | |
| was once celebrating the Eucharist with his congregation. | 16:50 | |
| And in a front pew, he noticed an elderly woman | 16:54 | |
| who when the cup was passed along, | 16:57 | |
| apparently through some sense of her own unworthiness, | 17:01 | |
| was unwilling to take the cup | 17:04 | |
| from the hand of the serving elder. | 17:06 | |
| And she was brushing him aside. | 17:08 | |
| And Rabbi Duncan came down from the holy table himself, | 17:11 | |
| to the front pew and he took the cup from the elder, | 17:14 | |
| and he placed it in the old body's hand. | 17:18 | |
| And in the hearing of all the congregation, he said, | 17:22 | |
| "Target woman, it's for sinners. | 17:25 | |
| Target woman, it's for sinners." | 17:29 | |
| And so indeed it is. | 17:32 | |
| The grace of God and the love of Jesus of Nazareth | 17:34 | |
| the Christ, are only for sinners. | 17:39 | |
| God is standing in his mercy through this table, | 17:42 | |
| only to the lowly. | 17:46 | |
| To those who recognize and acknowledge their unworthiness. | 17:48 | |
| Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, cannot come and dwell | 17:53 | |
| with the proud and the arrogant, | 17:57 | |
| and the hotty. | 17:59 | |
| It is indeed for sinners, this manifold grace of God | 18:02 | |
| which will be dispensed to us tonight, | 18:07 | |
| if as sinners, we are open to receive it. | 18:10 | |
| The Supreme paradox of the gospel, | 18:13 | |
| is that the word that created the whole world | 18:17 | |
| is never more powerful, | 18:21 | |
| than when in the self abasement and humiliation of Jesus, | 18:24 | |
| it finds a resting place in our own self abasement. | 18:30 | |
| Well then, do we want this Lord | 18:37 | |
| whose primary characteristic is that he humiliates himself, | 18:42 | |
| or should we rather have a another? | 18:47 | |
| If we really do want this Lord, | 18:51 | |
| then in our mission and task in the world, | 18:54 | |
| will be intimately connected with his mission and tasks. | 18:58 | |
| And in his name, we shall go forth from this sacred place | 19:03 | |
| and be found in the lowly and humble place instead. | 19:09 | |
| In his name, we shall be found standing | 19:15 | |
| in loving solidarity and redemptive concern | 19:19 | |
| with all common and needyful, | 19:24 | |
| and to our God, | 19:30 | |
| Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, | 19:32 | |
| would we ascribe all honor and glory, | 19:35 | |
| majesty, dominion, a world without end. | 19:38 | |
| Amen. | 19:44 | |
| (tender worship music) | 19:50 |