Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Resources

1. In the Catholic/Lutheran option of the Revised Common Lectionary, this same passage falls on Proper 22C, just four weeks earlier. See the reflections on this text at Proper 22C.

2 Thess. 1:1-4, 11-12

Resources

1. James Alison, Raising Abel, p. 120; the skipped-over verses, 2 Thess. 1:6-8, are quoted as an example of apocalyptic language from Paul. Alison takes on the view that Jesus was wrong about expectations of the coming of the Lord's Day. See an excerpt of his basic argument from pp. 124-127, "The Apocalyptic Imagination."

2. N. T. Wright is also challenging the view going back to Schweitzer and Bultmann that Jesus was wrong about apocalyptic expectations. He argues that Jesus used apocalyptic and prophetic language to correctly predict the "earth-shattering" events of the Roman-Jewish War as the logical end to insistence on military revolt as the way to liberation. For more on this, see Part III of "My Core Convictions" essay. (Another good source on Wright's views here is his Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians.)

Reflections and Questions

1. Once again I wonder about deleted verses -- in this instance, verses about apocalyptic expectations that especially make sense out of verses 11-12.

Luke 19:1-10

Resources

1. Andrew Marr; link to his online essay "The Town of Jericho and Zacchaeus."

2. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, sermon from November 4, 2001 (Woodside Village Church).

Reflections and Questions

1. In 2010 I'm seeing this passage as a companion to last Sunday's Gospel (Proper 25C), the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector. Luke's redaction places the end of Mark's journey to Jerusalem (Mark 10) in between these two uniquely Lukan passages about tax collectors. But the lectionary skips over the Markan material to bring these passages together in consecutive weeks, making it easy for the preacher to connect them. If a tax collector such as the one in the parable, for example, goes home delivered from his sin ("justified") and empowered by the Spirit to live a life of repentence, is Zacchaeus an illustration of what that life looks like, by his promising to pay back his ill-gotten profits to the poor?

Here are some further comparison's between the two stories:

• Instead of a Pharisee who lives by human justice based on divisive categories such as righteous-unrighteous, we have Jesus following God's justice of mercy and reconnecting Zacchaeus to the family of Abraham and Sarah (and Hagar?).
• Instead of the Pharisee looking down his nose in judgment on the tax collector, we have Jesus literally looking up in mercy at Zacchaeus in the tree.
  
• Instead of a tax collector going to God's house, the temple, praying for salvation, we have God in Jesus going to the tax collector's house, proclaiming salvation.
  

2. In 2004 we moved this lesson up a week to use for our "Commitment Sunday" (stewardship pledge campaign) since it otherwise falls on either Reformation Sunday or All Saints Sunday in the most common of Lutheran practices. It speaks well to the claim that discipleship makes upon one's life. Jesus calls Zacchaeus to be follower and that makes immediate changes upon how he must live out his vocation: "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much" (Luke 19:8).

We paired this text, however, with a different text from the Hebrew Scriptures to help ring out our overall stewardship theme of "Sharing Our Blessings." That text is Genesis 12:1-3:

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

3. "I will bless you, so that you will be a blessing" has also been a personal/family motto as we adopt to children from Liberia. Link to an article that appeared in our local Racine newspaper under the banner of this verse, "'You Will Be a Blessing.'"

4. In 1995 I preached a sermon, indebted to Robert Capon's work on the parables (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, Part 3, Ch. 6, pp. 412-425), entitled "Salvation Makes a Housecall."