Living, as we do, in a part of the world with less and less religion, at least we have our phones. They are a little god-like. For one thing, if most of us spent as much time paying attention to God as we do to our phones, we’d be better off. Just don’t lose your phone. But if you do, you will still be able to find it. The Times tells me that if I lose my phone in the middle of nowhere, where even the “Find My Phone” feature will not work because there is no internet connection, Apple has found another way. They have “turned the world’s 1.4 billion other iPhones, iPads, and Macs into remote detectors for your phone. Any passing iOS 13 iPhone will, unbeknown to its owner, pick up your phone’s silent Bluetooth beacon signal and relay its location back to you.” (David Pogue in The NY Times, Oct 27, 2019)
This solution to a lost phone is fool-proof in a way that losing your keys has yet to catch up with. To address that problem, you could attach a Tile to your keys, so you can track them when you lose them. Tiles are the little plastic square that allow you to keep electronic track of everything from your keys to your kids. The people at Tile tell me that if you upgrade to Tile Premium, for just $2.99 a month, they promise an “enhanced finding experience.” Wow! I can only imagine!
We may still lose our things from time to time, but with all this ability to detect silent beacon signals, and with Global Positioning Systems in nearly every child’s pocket, almost no one ever gets lost anymore. And since we almost never get lost any more, we have become disassociated from that queasy, nervous-making feeling that we don’t know where we are and aren’t sure we will ever find a way out. Instead, we play games - as our parish kids did recently - to remind us what it used to feel like: the feeling of being trapped, with no apparent way out, no escape... the feeling of being lost, without knowing if we will ever be found.
Of course, in real life, people are trapped all the time - in relationships that don’t work, jobs that aren’t rewarding, and debt they can’t pay, etc. But when the sweat breaks out on the back of our necks, we don’t, any more, associate that clammy wariness with the feeling of being lost. Because usually there is a nice woman in our phones who tells us that in five hundred feet we can make a U-turn, then turn Right, and thus return to the route.
We are less and less likely than we used to be to experience the sense of disorientation and anxiety in actual space and time. So as a metaphor, being lost has lost a bit of its zing. So it is that it’s only when we’ve lost things that we believe ourselves to be in need of an “enhanced finding experience.” Now, this is a phrase so luscious that I want to roll it around on my tongue a little: enhanced finding experience: Yum!
You know who would have been attracted to a sales pitch for an “enhanced finding experience?” Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus did not have a cell phone, but he would have if he could have, because he was rich. This is almost the only thing we know about him - except for the source of his wealth, and that he was short. It’s possible that these details about Zachaeus are important, especially if the principal purpose in hearing this story is to learn about Zacchaeus. And since we are only two weeks away from Commitment Sunday, and since this story includes the very important development that Zacchaeus gave away half of his possessions, and gave generously to the poor, as a result of his encounter with Jesus… well, I’d like very much to point out this virtue of costly and generous giving, and how Jesus commends these characteristics to us. But I think it is probably a mistake to suppose that the primary purpose of this story is to teach us about Zacchaeus. I think the principal reason that St. Luke includes this story in his Gospel is, rather, to teach us about Jesus.
Zacchaeus, as a rich man, was not accustomed to being lost. He didn’t have an iPhone, and he didn’t have a Tile. But he had many resources available to him, and I strongly suspect that he seldom found himself feeling trapped or disoriented, and unsure that he would be able to find his way home. This is one of the pleasures of wealth: it imparts the frequent sense that you are where you belong, and you belong where you are (whether it’s true or not). And it brings with it the reassurance that if you lose something, you can probably replace it.
Zacchaeus did not know himself to be be in need of an enhanced finding experience. But that was what he was about to get. Thanks to his wealth, from the branches of the sycamore tree, even Zacchaeus’s shortness was no hindrance to him. Who is going to tell a rich man to get out of that tree? Zacchaeus knew exactly where he was, and he was confident that he belonged there. He had not the slightest thought that he was lost.
But of course, Zacchaeus was desperately lost. He was lost in his wealth and in the smug self-assurance that so often comes with it. Worst of all, Zacchaeus was nearly lost to God. Not that God could not find him, but that Zacchaeus could not have located God (had he tried to look) through the opaque tarp of money that he had wrapped around his life. Oh, everything seemed fine inside the money; it’s just that there are so few ways to see past it, especially when you have a lot of it.
Now, in this way, Zacchaeus was a very modern man. For no truth has been so challenged in our own day as the oft-quoted but tenuously-subscribed-to maxim that money can’t buy happiness. Significant indicators all around us suggest that, indeed, money can buy happiness, and that, conversely, the lack of money is a guarantee of misery. You don’t really need me to provide you with a catalog of these indicators; the Christmas versions will be mailed to you soon, and you can see it all easily enough for your self.
So, you and I might as well be up there in that tree with Zacchaeus. Most of us are very like him. Maybe we are not as rich. Maybe we made our money a bit more honestly than he did. But still. We are self- assured, and un-worried about being lost. The only thing for which we require an “enhanced finding experience” is the occasional loss of our keys. For everything else, we have our phones.
In fact, when we come to church, it might be for the very same reasons that Zacchaeus climbed up into that tree: to get a good look, to satisfy some curiosity, or some craving, to take it in from the best vantage point we can claim.
But we have not come to church for an enhanced finding experience... which is too bad, since that is what is waiting for us, if we would only listen, and hear that Jesus is not calling Zacchaeus’s name... not any more.
Now, Jesus is calling to you and to me. Sean! Nora! Bill! Susan! Martha! Barbara! Kyle! Kevin! George! Bob! Claire! Henry! Gabi! Thomas! Betsy! Joshua! Yes, you, up in that tree! Hurry and come down, for I must stay with you today!
Like Zacchaeus, most of us do not realize any more that we are lost. We think that we have come here today to satisfy our own agenda. But actually, we are here because of Jesus’ agenda. And his agenda is to seek out and to save the lost. And one of the great modern spiritual challenges for Americans is to realize that we are frequently lost. The exception to this condition is that the poor often know themselves to be lost and in need of and enhanced finding experience by the hand of God. But we are Episcopalians, so…. we seldom know ourselves to be in need of an enhanced finding experience by the hand of God.
It is precisely because we have been taught at some deep level to believe that money can buy happiness that we are need of finding. For us, too, it is harder and harder to find ways to see past all that money can buy. It becomes harder and harder, this way, for us to other people around us, and harder and harder to see God.
At this point in the sermon, I should now illustrate for you the ways that we are lost - spiritually, for one. Maybe intellectually. Maybe emotionally. I’m sure there’s more. But actually, if we are able to identify at all with Zacchaeus, it should be a little obvious. I mean, all St. Luke thought we needed to know about him was that he was rich, a tax collector, and short: two out of three are meant to serve as obvious indicators that he is lost. Do I really need to make more of a case for you and me?
Next, the sermon should point out what Jesus did to change Zacchaeus’s life. And it would be good if I could do that. But St. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus did, except that Jesus called to the little guy in the tree: “hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” And all we know is that Zacchaeus let him in.
Zacchaeus let Jesus in. That’s it. I call that an enhanced finding experience.
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, who, these days, mostly don’t even know we are lost. But still Jesus calls. And all we have to do is let him in. Everything else follows.
Logic dictates that we cannot know we have been found if we never knew that we were lost. But we have so little practice at recognizing the feeling, that we might not know it when it dawns on us.
So, learn the lessons of Zacchaeus:
Lesson 1: Money cannot buy happiness. No matter how much you make. No matter how strong the markets are. No matter what every signal in American society tells you. Money cannot buy happiness. It is an idol that has wormed its way into every aspect of American society, and it makes us sick.
Lesson 2: Jesus is calling you. He has been calling you since before you knew your own name, and he will never stop calling you, because he loves you, and he will never stop loving you, no matter who you are.
Lesson 3: You are lost, as I am, and we will get lost again, most likely. But we don’t need to stay lost for ever, or even for long.
Lesson 4: Invite Jesus into your life. If you thought you had already done this, do it again. Wake up in the morning, and invite Jesus in, lest you locked more doors and windows in the night than you realized. Welcome Jesus into your life.
Lesson 5: Give your money away. Not all of it, but some of it. When you give money away then you learn what it is really useful for: it is useful for teaching you and me how to share, how to be generous, how to look after those who have less than we have.
Lesson 6: Knowing that you are lost, know also that Jesus is here to find you, and that his desire for you is to live your life near to him, wrapped in his warmth, protected by his power, illuminated by his light, pardoned by his grace, restored by his love. For he came to seek and to save the lost.
And today, for free, an enhanced finding experience can be yours, if you want it. All you need to do is ask Jesus in!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
3 November 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia