 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. again. It's great to be here Yeah, you know, this is it's it's hard enough being a guest speaker and you know to come in and preach on something You know less controversial from this topic. So this is a little a little more intense at least it's not politics or Preaching on masks or something more controversial than LGBTQ related questions, but we're gonna be in Luke 19 today Luke 19, I'm gonna be reading from Luke 19 verses 1 through 10 This is a very well-known story. Some of you may even have it memorized or nearly memorized This is a story of Jesus's encounter with Zacchaeus Luke 19 1 through 10 Verse 1 says Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through and a man was there by the name of Zacchaeus And he was a chief tax collector and he was wealthy and he wanted to see who Jesus was But because he was short he could not see over the crowd And so he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way When Jesus reached the spot. He looked up and said to him Zacchaeus come down immediately. I must stay at your house today So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly and all the people saw this and began to mutter saying He has gone in to be the guest of a sinner But Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord look Lord here now I give half of my possessions to the poor and if I've cheated anybody out of anything I will pay back four times that amount and Jesus said to him today Salvation has come to this house because this man too Is a son of Abraham for the son of man keep came to seek and to save the loss the word of the Lord You know one way to summarize Jesus's ministry is that he had a a very high ethical standard and yet he Radically loved people who fell short of that ethical standard He not only loved them. I mean if I could say like this. He actually seemed to like them He wanted to be around people that fell short of the ethical standard that Jesus had no problems preaching loud and clear and not only did he love being around these people But they seem to also like being around him And Zacchaeus is a perfect example of somebody like this I mean Zacchaeus being a tax collector will impact what that means, but he was you know shamed and shunned and Marginalized by the religious people of his day And the religious people would say yeah, that's because this guy is doing really bad things And so they might even have an argument of why they were marginalizing people like Zacchaeus and so whether there were massive tensions between the Jewish religious leaders and Between the tax-collecting community and so I want to look at this passage with a question in the back of our minds Are there any parallels? Are there any parallels between how Jesus? relates to and Approaches Zacchaeus are there any parallels between this and how Jesus's followers today how we might relate to an approach LGBTQ people Now to be clear this passage isn't directly about Homosexuality or transgender identity, so I don't want to force this passage to say more than it is But there's you know clearly there are similar tensions between the church today and the broader LGBTQ community And so there's some similarities between how Jesus approached tax collectors in his day and how the church I would say Should imitate the way of Jesus in approaching LGBTQ people today now look I know that this topic is is very volatile very controversial So let me just let me just say a few things up front first of all. I'm a die-hard Bible guy, okay? I'm 45 years old. I got saved at 19 years old and before I got saved I I didn't read a I read one book before the age of 19 My first book I read cover-to-cover was actually grapes of wrath if you're wondering a great book couldn't put it down I was like man this reading stuff isn't too bad, you know, but that was I waited 17 years before I read a book cover-to-cover And I actually got a high GPA in high school. I went to school in California But that's just odd how I was actually a good student, you know without knowing how to read but But when I got saved at 19, I you know when you when you don't when you don't Read a lot you tend to not know a lot, right? And so I remember getting saved and I read that verse in James 1 1 5 that says something like you know If anybody lacks wisdom let him ask of God and God would give it generously and I I prayed that prayer And I kid you not I thought that God would sort of like do the matrix You know I download all this knowledge in my head and wake up the next day smart and woke up the next day And I was still pretty stupid, you know, but something happened that was just short of a miracle. Maybe it was a miracle. I overnight became Intensely addicted to studying the Bible. I Couldn't stop. I would lock myself in a closet with like, you know My mom had a couple Bible study tools and I had you know Bible and some cassette tapes You know back in the day when sermons run cassette tapes And I would sit there for like seven hours eight hours just pouring over God's word And somebody said well, man, you have a you seem to have some kind of issue going on here You should go to Bible college like great sign me up with the Bible college studied the Bible for several years and then Said what's next? Well, you can go to seminary like great sign me up So I studied the Bible for another three and a half years of seminary and then said what's next? Well, you keep I guess you can go get a doctorate in the Bible I'm like does that that's a thing like sure sign me up So I went and did a PhD in the Bible and said what's next, you know, my wife said I'll tell you what's next You're getting a job So I said great. So I got a job Teaching the Old Testament every single day of the week to a bunch of college students year after year I was a kid in a candy shop If the God who breathed stars into existence also breathed out his word Then what else should we spend our time doing then pouring over every single word? In God's inspired scripture. So so that's that's where I'm coming from You don't need to be there. You're like, I'm not sure I love this Bible that much, but that's fun That's just this is where I'm coming from I also want to clarify just my theological position that I do think that God designed marriage to be between a man and a Woman and that they all sexual relationships outside of that covenant bond are our sin I'm not going to unpack that this morning. Now tonight. We'll actually dig deeper into that theological position But that's that's just that's where I'm coming from as I approach this passage So luke chapter 19 verse 1 Jesus enters Jericho He's on his way to Jerusalem. This is toward the end of his earthly life And he's mobbed by a bunch of people and luke in verse 2 singles out this person Zacchaeus who he describes as being a chief Tax collector who was rich? Not only was he a tax collector. He was like Above the other kind of on the ground tax collectors And he was a really good tax collector because he was a wealthy one Now you you if you've grown up in the church for more than five minutes, you know that tax collectors were bad people But I don't I don't know if we can even it's hard to wrap our minds around just how Just how many layers layers and layers and layers of issues that tax collectors might have had I mean they they were they were committing Religious and political treason. Okay, as you might know a hundred years before Jesus, you know, the Roman Empire kind of took over Israel and they were ruling over Israel And in many ways they were oppressing Israel and they were just taxing the socks off of them And uh, that's nothing that Jewish people could do but some Jewish people became tax collectors They started working for the very people who were oppressing Their fellow brothers and sisters Not only were they committing political and religious treason, but they were known for kind of living Really immoral not let's just say non religious lives Some Jewish people considered them on par with thieves and murderers other Jewish people said they're past the point of repentance Like there's just there's no hope for these tax collectors And so Zacchaeus was not very well liked by anybody He probably wasn't even very well liked by other tax collectors under him because he was probably skimming off the top of what they were collecting There's really not I mean just there's no modern parallel to ancient tax collectors I mean some people say politicians and it's like well that comes close but not quite, you know or the irs It's like it's it's a different story today You almost have to create like a like a like a separate kind of person Like if you if you think of somebody who might be like a a pimp And a drug dealer and he runs a porn studio on the side and he takes half of his money and sends it to ISIS And he's living next door collecting your money and you know where that money is going and there's nothing you could do about it And he started covid, you know I mean there's there's there's I guess there's reasons why the religious people would have said man this guy is just an abomination and and Jesus enters Jericho looks around at all the various people there And he singles out Zacchaeus And says hurry Zacchaeus hurry you you've got to come down now because I need to stay at your house today He invites him over to Zacchaeus's house I let a little strange but Jesus doesn't have some you know summer house in Jericho So he's got to go somewhere so he invites him over to Zacchaeus's house, but that is that is a bold move He doesn't just say hey Zacchaeus. We need to have a conversation out here under this tree. He says I want to come into your house And if you've traveled The world there's there's other cultures where you you know that you know going to somebody's house Is a massive Relational statement I've been to several countries where man, you know, you get invited over somebody's house even if they're just dirt poor You're gonna get fed very well They might they might spend their entire you know a week's worth of money just in providing a great meal for you You can't just come and go. This isn't a 45 minute visit. This is like a four hour visit I used to um I lived in scotland for a number of years and uh, you know, it's Scotland's a western country, you know But I mean even even in scotland, you know When we get invited over somebody's house after church, we would always You know church is pretty long there and then we go to their house We'd always have a huge meal and it was expected that you stay there the entire afternoon Have you know tea and cookies Halfway, you know into the into the kind of your stay there and then you would have dinner This is like three hours after lunch because you had to go to the evening church service And it was like you had to like you couldn't just say hey, I got a run like if you get invited over it is a whole day of fair Because it's not just come under my roof. You know, this is like I want to get to know you I want you to get to know me. I want to spend time together. We're gonna share a meal We're gonna have a conversation. That's what it means to stay at somebody's house Jesus didn't just say I want to come under your roof. Jesus says I want to get to know who you are I want to ask you questions. I want to get to know you. I want to know your story I want to share a meal with you and he did that at the cost of being ridiculed By other people, you know in verses six to seven the crowd becomes incredibly hostile This man has gone in to be the guest of a person who is a sinner and they can't believe it I mean, you know Jesus could Jesus could have gained a huge following here if he had just called Zacchaeus Out on the carpet come down here you wee little man He could have grabbed him by his little ankles and shook him upside down for all the money He's stolen he could have laid into him and said dude you look you're greedy You're a thief you're committing treason. What do you think you're do? Look at all the things you're doing He could have shamed him in front of everybody and he would have had a massive following I mean, this is a terrible church planning strategy He could he could have started the largest synagogue or church in Jericho And if Jesus had done that if Jesus had laid into Zacchaeus, here's what's so scandalous about the story If he had done that he would have been both truthful and just If Jesus had called Zacchaeus out on all of his many sins Jesus would have been still the sinless Savior because all of that would have been true And he would have gained a large following would have won the crowd He would have won the crowd because when it comes to bad people the mob will always prefer justice to grace But instead Jesus says I must I must stay at your house today Now the word The Greek word translated must here is actually a really Interesting word. It's kind of hard to fully translate into English and then just I'm not the kind of Preacher that likes to wax eloquent weak words when it doesn't matter. You ever hear about hopefully this isn't Lee I'm gonna guess this is you know, I don't know so I haven't listened to your last sermons, you know, but I mean after preachers, you know, they'll You know John 3 16 for God's to love the world and you know the Greek word for world is Cosmos and everybody goes. Oh, what does that mean preacher? And Oh, it means world Wow Sometimes having a year of Greek is worse than not having any at all But so so I I I don't I don't like to pull out Greek words just to make myself look smart I gave that up a long time ago The the Greek word lying behind the word translated here must when Jesus says I must stay at your house is the Greek word Day like it's a pronounced day not daylight, but like d e i is how you might Transliterate it into English d e i and it's often It's it's used throughout the Gospels To convey something that is of divine necessity Something that is sort of like written into the script of Jesus's divine Mission, let me give you a couple examples In Matthew 16 21 Jesus says I must that's the word day d e i I must go to Jerusalem Suffer many things from the elders and priests and scribes be killed and be resurrected It's all like Jesus was like, hey, I kind of fancy getting crucified today. That sounds interesting You know, no, this is like this is why I came. This is the divine blood pumping through my veins I can do no other I must go to Jerusalem. I cannot be stopped. This is why I came In Luke 4 43, uh, Jesus says I must Day I must preach the gospel of the kingdom in all these other towns This is part of the divine script that I came to follow And likewise Jesus enters Jericho and and looks at the crowd And singles out somebody who is the most marginalized by religion And says I can do no other I can do no other this crowd's gonna hate me They might throw things at me. They're gonna get all upset But just in as much as I need to also go and get crucified I need to go to your house because I came to seek and save the lost I came to reach those who have been marginalized by religion I came to seek those who think they are past the point of repentance I came to seek those who have been shamed and shunned by religious people. That's why I came And I imagine people are upset, but he's a traitor Jesus He's a thief and a liar. I mean this guy. Why would you ever go to his house? And he says that's exactly why I need to go to his house according to Jewish tradition according to the The Mishnah, which is a Jewish writing a couple hundred years after Jesus according to the Mishnah It says that if if a tax collector entered your house The entire house is considered unclean Like you would have to like like scrub your entire house like get one of those ancient You know like like canopies or whatever and just blast the whole house because this guy has contaminated your whole house Well, if that happens if a tax collector comes into your house and imagine you going into a tax collector's house People were just appalled. I can't believe this Self-proclaimed Messiah is actually going into this person's house And it says that he has gone in the crowd says he has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner And so there's there's kind of like a a slight change in scene here You can almost imagine Luke really quickly goes from like the city square where the sycamore tree was out in Jericho And and now he's inside the house of Zacchaeus And once he's inside the house all of a sudden, you know Zacchaeus is like running around repenting all over the place like he's grabbing all this stuff and saying Jesus I need to give all this back to the poor. I've stolen stuff from people I need to I need to give back this and give back that I want to go give more money to the poor You know according to Jewish law Well, he uh, Zacchaeus says if I defrauded anybody I'm going to give back four times what I defrauded them For so like if he stole 100 shekels, he's going to give back 400 shekels according to Jewish law You're supposed to give back 100 and 100 percent at a fifth so 120 percent So according to Leviticus if you steal 100 shekels, you're supposed to give back 120 shekels Zacchaeus goes far beyond what the law requires and gives back he says I'm going to give back 400 percent Because you beat somebody over the head with the law and you can get compliance. I'm a parent. I've tried that it can work But to get radical obedience you need an encounter with love You need to experience God's grace. You need to know that you are accepted by God before you can actually respond in radical obedience To God theologians call it justification precedes red letter five. Those are really not really popular anymore Jesus speaks twice in the story. He speaks first when he says Zacchaeus. I must stay at your house today in expression of Desire to be in relationship with Zacchaeus and then the only next time he speaks Is in verse 10 when he says You just got saved dude. I mean I quite like you know, yeah salvation has come to this house Because you had an encounter with love and responded in repentance It's almost as if love pushes obedience out the other side of Zacchaeus or Paul says it like this In Romans 2 4 that it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance. I thought that That that's that's becoming I think a life verse For me that it's a kindness of God that leads to repentance And not just the kindness of God, but also the kindness of God as it's embodied in God's people You know, we are the body of Christ and and that's not just a metaphor like we are the tangible representation of God on earth when peoples Want to encounter God? Hopefully they can encounter God through encountering the body of Christ And so if it's true that it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance, then we should have the reputation of being a kind group of people Not at the expense of being can having convictions Not at all. Jesus had a very high ethical standard, but he was known for embodying the kindness of God But if you ask your LGBTQ friend, neighbor, co-worker, son, daughter And he said hey, I got a question for you when you think of the christian church in america. What's the first thing that comes to mind? Will it be kindness If we care about repentance, that should be the knee-jerk reaction Hey, you know my My gay neighbor, you know, hey, when you think of the church, what comes to mind? Oh, you know What you know, I'm not a I don't go to church, but man if I ever want to experience kindness Oh, I'm I'm racing to the nearest church because all I know is that group is a kind group of people Does that mean they don't have any ethical standards? Well, no, no They had their beliefs and they fought they try to strive after their beliefs consistently and humbly But man, if I just want to experience kindness, I want to go hang out with a bunch of christians Until that's the knee-jerk response that I would suggest at least for you consider that we might not be embodying The presence of god on earth as as we are called to do Throughout christ's ministry christ had no problem calling people to repentance Declaring his ethical standard to people saying come follow me. It's a hard road, but it's worth it But whenever whenever he encountered somebody who is like extra marginalized by religion, he always front-loaded Love and kindness Just three quick examples the the woman at the well. Here's a Samaritan Woman who's living in sin. There's three reasons why a jewish leader should not be talking to this person But he goes and he looks into the eye and he starts talking to her and even his disciples like why are you talking to her? She's a samaritan woman And yes, he does kind of bring attention to her sin that does come up But that's after he led with Love the prodigal son. I love the story of the prodigal son and luke 16 that the parable that jesus told where you know the son You know, well, you know the story He the son asked for the father's well then his inheritance and he went and he squandered it on reckless living and and then he kind of comes to when he's when he's You know Feeding the pigs and he says, you know what? I'm sick of this. I'm going to come back and I'm gonna I'm going to beg my father for forgiveness And we even read in the story about him kind of memorizing the script if I'm gonna tell him I'm sorry. I'm gonna repent and I'm you know, he's all apologetic But then when he comes running over the hill and the father sees him The father in this story doesn't know that he's repentive. He just knows that's my son My son is back for all he knows the son could be coming back to ask for more money We don't I mean he and according in the story this father doesn't know he just sees the son and says I delight in my son I'm so excited to see him again and he gets up and runs and he meets his son starts kissing him and and the son starts He kind of starts into his repentant speech and the father kind of cuts him off halfway in and says we need to celebrate Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, great. Awesome. You're repentive. I'm so excited about that I'm just so excited to see you as my son The woman caught in adultery Woman caught in the act of adultery, which makes me wonder. What were the jewish leaders doing? I mean peeking through the window or what, you know, there's all kinds of questions this story raises But she's caught in the act dragged in front of all the leaders and they're about to stone her to death and jesus jumps in the middle of the firing squad And says the one without sin can throw the first stone. They start dropping their stones and Woman looks up and jesus says who's left to condemn you and she says no one and he says neither do I condemn you And then he and then he says go and sin no more and some some of us, you know, we love that last part Go and sin no more. But yeah, but he took a massive risk Standing in the midst standing next to the woman As these jewish leaders were going to throw stones at her probably hit him a few times as well You know, I when I read the stories in the gospels asked often asked myself Which character in the story would I have been? would I have been The jewish leaders with stones in my Hands, I've I've been in that position before Would I would I've been like the woman, you know the one who was caught in sin? Or would I have been like jesus Willing to jump in and stand next to somebody who who who had done something wrong And maybe some of you are like, you know, not to be falsely humble or anything But no, I think I would have been jesus. I would have I would have jumped in and and stood next to the woman caught in adultery would you have Done that would you have jumped in and stood next to the person if the person was a gay man caught in adultery You know the more I look at the life and pattern of jesus, I have to ask myself Am I like well not am I more specifically like which religious people am I offending because I am embodying grace so aggressively That it tends to offend some people I love in luke 15 chapter luke 15 verse 1 it says that tax collectors and sinners were Drawing near to hear jesus It's it's it's one of those kind of throwaway verses that when you're reading through the bible You kind of can easily pass over it but think about that jesus had no problem preaching a high ethical standard You ever read the sermon on the mount matthew five to seven And then try to like do that like it's impossible like he it's It's so impossible that jesus had to walk out of a grave so that we could actually you know do it right So I mean jesus had no problem preaching a high ethical standard He was not ashamed of this high calling that he was calling people to And yet for some reason The very people who were falling short of that standard In luke 15 one that they were drawing near to hear him They were seeking him out There was something so compelling about the presence of jesus that even the very people that were falling short of the things He was talking about they wanted to be around him You see love Should not be against the truth sometimes we think truth and love are like You know kind of battling each other are you being truthful or are you being loving are you being loving or are you being truthful? I hear people say well I'm gonna err on the side of truth Well, I don't think the bible makes that distinction between truth and love being loving is being truthful And being truthful is being Loving if you're not being loving you're not actually embodying the holistic truth of god's word And if you're not being truthful, you're also not loving people the way jesus calls us to Our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt Because the greatest apologetic the greatest defense of the truth is love A few years ago. Amy and rachel walked into or they decided to go to church one sunday. Amy and rachel were Lesbians who weren't religious at all. Um, they were living together and one day. Amy looks over to rachel and says Hey, let's go to church today And rachel's like what? No, I hate church I hate christian like no. Why would I ever want to go to church? She goes and he said no, no, no Let's just go and stir things up. Let's go for fun You know what their motto is their motto is come as you are but everybody know everybody in the gay community knows That's come that means come as you are unless you're gay Let's go show them how hypocritical they are Amy writes later that you know, she says I came on a mission to shock people Rachel and I would hold hands in front of people but instead of the disgusted looks of contempt that we expected People met eyes with us and treated us like real people Now I find that statement both, um Encouraging and disturbing I find it disturbing because I wonder why would they Think why would they expect to go to a christian church and people would be just like just disgusted at them That's what they were expecting That's what most I've got over the years. I mean my full-time job is helping christian people think through The lgbtq conversation. That's that's just my tuesday morning. This is what I do, right? So over the years I've gotten a lot of lgbt people Some that are in churches some that are out of churches some that were in churches or not out of churches almost the almost the most well almost universally lgbt people are scared to enter into a church building Sometimes christians are like oh, we're nervous if they come in here or whatever, you know Well get to know somebody as lgbt and how Sometimes it's not just I dislike church, but I I'm scared to actually be in a room full of christians And that's amy and rachel. We expected people to be disgusted at us, but they treated us like real people and that was shocking But they did they looked hey, what's your name rachel nice to meet you rachel and amy nice to meet you I'm so glad you're here Thank you for coming Not long after that. Um, oh no, no that'd be so they kept coming back and and Amy says they kept moving closer and closer to the front each week. I wish I could have seen this I wasn't here. This is I heard about the story later But they kept moving closer to the front kept kind of demonstrating more and more pda Putting their arms around each other giving each other kisses and stuff just to try to get a rise out of people But when we couldn't shock people we stopped trying to shock them and we started to learn Not long after that rachel and I stopped seeing each other. Amy says But I kept coming to church because I was searching for something There was something inside of me that just kept drawing me back to this house of kindness The more I listened and the more I learned about the teachings of jesus the more I started to actually believe that god Did love me and I heard more and more about being his masterpiece about being created in god's image And the more I believed that god could actually see something of value in me. I ended up trusting in him Not because I heard endless sermons condemning the gay lifestyle or whatever But because I Actually came to believe that god valued me that he delighted in me that he saw me as his image bearer And I saw that belief embodied in the lives of the christians at that church Amy ended up coming to christ and I don't share this as Some kind of formula that oh if you're just kind of people they'll get saved You know that that doesn't always work But our job is not to control the outcome our job is to embody Both the truth and grace of jesus in a world that needs Both our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt I want to close in prayer. Thank you lord for loving us both with your grace and your truth Thank you for extending your kindness to us Lord give us the courage to embody both the grace and truth of jesus to hold fast to what your bible says about sexuality and marriage and And and to do so unapologetically lord I pray that we would first follow what your word says in our own lives repent from our own sin And then I pray lord that we would humbly and graciously embody The radical kindness and welcome of god in this world in christ's name. Amen