The Essence of Worship

I am moved by Eugene Peterson’s translation of Psalm 108 in The Message.  The psalm begins by expressing uninhibited delight in God:

            I’m ready, God, so ready, ready from head to toe.

            Ready to sing, ready to raise a God-song:

            “Wake, soul!  Wake, lute!  Wake up, you sleepyhead sun!”

            I’m thanking you, God, out in the streets,

            singing praises in town and country.

            The deeper your love, the higher it goes;

            every cloud’s a flag to your faithfulness.

            Soar high in the skies, O God!  Cover the whole earth with your glory!

            And for the sake of the one you love so much, reach down and help me—answer me!

To express uninhibited delight in God is the height of worship.  This psalm, then, is a song of worship.

William Temple remarks,

            “To worship is:

• To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God;
• To feed the mind with the truth of God;
• To purge the imagination with the beauty of God;
• To open the heart to the love of God;
• To devote the will to the purpose of God.”

We find these elements in Psalm 108.

To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God is to arouse one’s attention to or to wake up to how great God is: “I’m ready, God, so ready from head to toe.  Ready to sing, ready to raise a God-song: ‘Wake, soul!  Wake, lute!  Wake up, you sleepyhead sun!’”

To feed the mind with the truth of God is to chew upon the wonderful things we know about God’s enduring character: “The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud’s a flag to your faithfulness.”  The truth is that we can depend on God’s love and faithfulness throughout eternity.

To purge the imagination with the beauty of God is to tune our hearts to the beauty of God’s creation and to the beauty of God’s character: “Soar  high in the skies, O God!  Cover the whole earth with your glory!  And for the sake of the one you love so much, reach down and help me—answer me.!”

To open the heart to the love of God is the most fulfilling habit we can participate in: “The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud’s a flag to your faithfulness…. And for the sake of the one you love so much, reach down and help me—answer me!”

To devote the will to the purpose of God ought to be the focus of our lives.  Thus, the psalm concludes, “Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless.  In God we’ll do our very best; he’ll flatten the opposition for good.”

God’s Glory; Our Service

Isaiah 6 begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died….”

Why does this matter? 

Uzziah became king of Judah at the age of 16.  He reigned as king for the next 52 years.  Through most of his reign, Uzziah was a wise, faithful and powerful king, extending the territory of Judah, bringing the nation to its greatest prosperity.  2 Chronicles 26:5 says of Uzziah, “As long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.”

The problem is that Uzziah stopped seeking the Lord.  2 Chronicles 26:16 tells us, “But when he had become strong, he grew proud, to his destruction.”

In the temple, it was the job of priests to do the work of God.  But Uzziah entered the temple to burn incense on the altar, even though Scripture stated that it was for priests alone to burn incense on the altar.  The chief priest, along with 80 other priests, confronted Uzziah, telling him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to make offering to the Lord, but for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who are consecrated to make offering.  Go out of the sanctuary; for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God” (2 Chronicles 26:18).

Uzziah raged at them.  But as he raged, God intervened.  God struck Uzziah with leprosy.  The king who looked upon himself as high and lofty became a leprous outcast.  By law, a leper had to live apart from others, so 2 Chronicles 26:21 reports that Uzziah “lived in a separate house,” which is a polite way of saying that the king was quarantined as a leper until he died.

In that year that Uzziah died, Isaiah had an encounter with God that stands in sharp contrast to Uzziah’s experience in the temple.  Uzziah had entered the temple as though he, himself, was high and lofty.  But Isaiah beheld God “sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.”  He beheld angelic beings flying around God and crying out to God, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

Uzziah’s focus had been on his own status.  As a result, he experienced the judgment of God.  Isaiah’s focus was on the glory of God.  As a result, his soul was filled with a sense of awe before God. 

Many years ago, when Paul Newman was in his prime, a woman in a Haagen-Dazs store in the Kansas City Plaza bought an ice-cream cone, then turned and found herself face-to-face with the handsome movie star, who was in town filming a movie.  He smiled at her and said, “Hello.”  Looking into his deep blue eyes, her knees trembled.  Shaken deeply by the thrill of meeting this dashing celebrity, she barely managed to pay for her cone before leaving the store.  Outside, when she regained her composure, she realized she didn’t have her ice-cream cone.  Starting back into the store, she ran into Paul Newman on his way out.  “Are you looking for your ice-cream?” he asked.  Unable to speak, she merely nodded.  He said to her, “You put the cone in your purse with your change.”

If she could be so shaken by an encounter with a handsome actor, how much more deeply would Isaiah have been shaken by encountering the glory of God!  He cries out, “Woe is me!  I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 

Then things become even more exciting.  The voice of the Lord calls out, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Isaiah replies, “Here am I; send me!” 

A genuine encounter with the God of glory inspires Isaiah to service.  To go forth with God and in God’s service is the most fulfilling joy of life.

In his book Lessons from a Sheepdog, Phillip Keller describes how he learned this truth from his sheepdog Lass: “It was stimulating to watch her work with such enthusiasm.  She flung herself into the task until every sheep was brought out.  There was a cost to the dog in all of this.  She would become very weary.  Her face would be scratched and torn by the thickets.  Her coat would be clogged with burs and debris.  Sometimes the pads of her feet would be lacerated with the sharp stones. 

“Yet she went gladly, with happy abandon.  She knew I knew what I was doing.  And all she desired was to be a dynamic part of the whole project.  Not once did she hesitate to hurl herself into the toughest tangle to gather up the flock.  Her selfless abandonment to my wishes made an enormous impact upon me.  In quiet moments of reverie, I would ask myself the soul-searching questions: ‘Am I this available to my Master?  Am I as willing to fling myself into His work?  Am I so devoted to Him?  Does the matter of suffering deter me from duty?…. 

“I never sent Lass into hard places to hurt her.  But I put her into challenging circumstances to save the sheep.  And it was out of all these endeavors together that she gradually matured and developed into a magnificent worker…. Many of us fail to realize what a noble honor it is to be called the friend of God.  We are not often shown what a stirring challenge it is to be called to suffer with Him…. Then let us trust Him fully.  Let us follow Him fearlessly.  Let us fling ourselves with glad abandon into His enterprises.” (p. 66-68) 

As Isaiah put it, “Here am I; send me!”          

Be Conscious of our Treasures

Thornton Wilder once remarked, “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” 

Psalm 107 is a psalm that aims at helping us to “be alive,” for it tunes our attention to “our treasures.”  Specifically, Psalm 107 highlights the treasure of God’s care for his people throughout the ages.

Psalm 107 recounts the many struggles the Jewish people experienced through the centuries, and it recounts how they turned to God in prayer and experienced answers to their prayers.  Four times in Psalm 107, we read, “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble” (verses 6, 13, 19 & 28), and four times we are told, “and he delivered them from their distress” (verse 6), “and he saved them from their distress” (verses 13 & 19), “and he brought them out from their distress (verse 28).

In response to the repeated answers to prayer, the psalm challenges the reader repeatedly, “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind” (verses 8, 15, 21 & 31).

Since, as Thornton Wilder observed, “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures,” the psalm concludes with the challenge: “Let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.”

When we pay attention to the care that God has shown to his people in the past, we take to heart that God continues to be the God who cares for his people and answers our prayers in the present. 

Robert Holden notes, “The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see.” 

As we practice gratitude by looking at and thanking God for the ways in which God cared for his people throughout the centuries, we begin to see the world differently.  We see in our world the God who loves us and who still answers prayers, so that, with the psalmist, we will be able to “thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.”

Turn Away from Absurdity

At a time of deep depression, the prophet Elijah needed to be rejuvenated by God.  He had fled to Horeb, “the mount of God,” and hid himself away in a cave.  But God called out to him, saying, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11).

In the midst of despair, Elijah needed an uplifting encounter with God in which his soul coild be recharged and set aglow again.  So Elijah went outside the cave, and “there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord” (1 Kings 19:11).  Surely it would be in such a wind that God would reveal himself to Elijah, for God had often made use of great winds.  During the plagues in Egypt, Moses stretched out his staff and God sent an east wind across Egypt, bringing a plague of locusts (Exodus 10:13-14), then God changed the wind and blew the locusts into the Red Sea (Exodus 10:19).  As the Israelites were escaping Egypt, Moses stretched out his hand and the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind, dividing the waters (Exodus 14:21-22).  Nahum 1:3 tells us that God’s “way is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”  It would be natural for Elijah to look for God in the mighty wind that broke rocks in pieces, but the text tells us that “the Lord was not in the wind” (1 Kings 19:11).    

Elijah looked again, and he experienced a great earthquake.  Surely God would be revealed in the earthquake, for great earthquakes were known to accompany the appearance of the Lord.  Before delivering the Ten Commandments to Moses, God “descended” upon Mount Sinai, and “the whole mountain shook violently” (Exodus 19:18).  When God brought judgment on Korah and his followers for their hostility against Moses, God caused the ground beneath them to split apart and swallow them (Numbers 16:31-32).  Nahum 1:5 declares, “The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who live in it.”  It would make sense for God to be revealed in an earthquake, yet the text tells us, “But the Lord was not in the earthquake” (1 Kings 19:11). 

Elijah looked again for the appearance of the Lord.  This time he saw a fire.  Surely this is where he would find God, for it was in a burning bush that God first revealed himself to Moses (Exodus 3:2).  When Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet the Lord, the mountain “was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln” (Exodus 19:18).  Exodus 24:17 reports that “the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”  Wouldn’t a fire be the place to behold the presence of the Lord?  Yet the text makes it clear that “the Lord was not in the fire” (1 Kings 19:12).

After the fire, Elijah experienced “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12).  At this, Elijah “wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave” (1 Kings 19:13), and through this, Elijah heard God speak to him. 

We imagine that we should look for God in the magnificent—in the thrilling displays of God’s power and might.  That’s how it had been for Elijah up to this point, with miraculous provisions of food from ravens and from a jar of meal that would not empty, with a widow’s son raised from the dead, and with lightning from heaven that consumed an offering.  But if we look for God only in the magnificent, we rob our souls of the rich ministry God provides through silence.  Flashy displays of power stir up our excitement, but through silence God reaches into the deep recesses of our spirit. 

William Penn remarks, “True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” 

Mother Teresa argues, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence.  We need silence to be able to touch souls. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.” 

It is no accident or minor matter that God presents himself to Elijah in silence. 

In his book The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan writes, “Silence is the condition for true listening.  But I have too little of it.  Silence came visiting and found me already occupied.  The element of silence is for me scanty and thin.  My existence is a welter of noise.  Henri Nouwen noted that the root of the word absurd is the Latin word for ‘deaf,’ surdus.  Absurdness is deafness, where the voice that speaks truth in love, that wounds to heal, that gives clear guidance amidst many false enticements—that voice is lost in the cacophony.  We cannot hear it.  We are deaf to it.  For lack of silence, our lives are absurd.”

Elijah’s life included many great displays of God’s might and power, but at Mount Horeb God reminded Elijah that walking humbly with God involves learning to meet God not merely in the dramatic but also in silence. 

Beware the Danger of Following Cultural Norms

Psalm 106 is a psalm of praise, opening with a focus on the joy and hope we have because of God’s forgiving and steadfast love: “Praise the Lord!  O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” 

But as a result of the foundation we have in God’s forgiving and steadfast love, Psalm 106 is also a psalm of confession, looking sincerely and remorsefully at the sins of our spiritual ancestors.

Let me draw your attention particularly to the confession made in verses 19-21: “They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image.  They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.  They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.”

Concerning the sin of making the golden calf in the desert, the New International Version Archaeological Study Bible shares, “When the Israelites were encamped at Mount Horeb they worshiped the image of a calf cast in gold (Exodus 32; Psalm 106:19-20), a practice they had no doubt learned in Egypt.  The Cairo Hymn of Praise to Amon-Re describes the chief Egyptian god variously as the Goodly Bull, the bull of Heliopolis and the bull of his mother.  The bull’s two eyes were the sun and the moon; both bovine and solar images were incorporated into the cult of Amon-Re.  He was worshiped as the creator god who generated heaven, Earth, humankind and animal life, and was believed to have been the father of all other gods and the sustainer of the Egyptian kings…. When the Israelites formed the golden calf, they insulted God by depicting him using the same image employed to portray Egyptian…gods, possibly even attributing his saving acts to one of these false gods…. It is important to recognize that the worship of the bull god was in keeping with everything the Israelites had learned in Egypt and that it was, in their view, entirely appropriate.  Although their sin was an obvious violation of God’s commands, the culture of their day no doubt convinced them that what they were doing was proper and acceptable.”

As Psalm 106 confesses this sin, it faces the fact that the behavior of the Hebrew people was influenced by the cultural norms in which they grew up, and it calls us to face the fact that we, too, are inclined to follow cultural norms that may contradict God’s ways.

Psalm 106 recalls the sins of God’s people not for the sake of rubbing our noses in the stench of past sins.  Rather Psalm 106 begins by rubbing our noses in the rich aroma of God’s forgiving and steadfast love.  On the basis of that foundation, we can and should face the sins of our spiritual ancestors so that we will be careful not to go that wrong way again.

George Santayana once remarked, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Sadly, Christians have often forgotten this lesson about the dangers of following cultural norms that are in violation of God’s ways.  As a result, our nation has a tragic history of slavery, or driving Native Americans from their lands, and of Jim Crow laws because these sins matched our cultural norms.  We did things that brought tremendous harm to others because we gave preference to the values of our culture than to Biblical values. 

With Psalm 106, may we stand on the foundation of God’s forgiving and steadfast love, and find in that love the courage to look sincerely and remorsefully at the sins of our spiritual ancestors, so that we will be careful to learn from what they did wrong and turn in better directions.

Humility: Measuring Greatness Properly

Micah 6:8 tells us that one of the top three things God wants from us is that we “walk humbly with [our] God.”  Yet we do not tend to aim for humility as one of our life goals. 

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines humble as “ranking low in a hierarch or scale.” The Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language defines humble as “not proud or not believing that you are important; poor or of a low social rank; ordinary; not special or important.”  Who would set such aspirations as the goal of one’s life? 

On the other hand, our English word humble comes from the Latin word humus, meaning “earth.”  To be humble, then, is to be close to the ground rather than being high and mighty.  But perhaps it would be better for us to consider a humble person as one who is properly grounded.

Philip Brooks suggests, “The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.” 

It is popular for people to measure themselves against a backdrop of wealth or popularity or fame or social standing.  But measuring one’s greatness against such backdrops turns out to be a waist.  For example, excavators of the Roman city of Pompeii found the body of a woman.  The position of her body, which was found mummified by the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius, tells a tragic story.  Her feet were pointed toward the city gate and the opportunity for escape, but her outstretched arms and fingers were straining to reach behind her for a bag of pearls on the ground.  In his book Feminine Faces, Clovis Chappel expresses a commentary on her death, “Though death was hard on her heels, and life was beckoning to her beyond the city gates, she could not shake off their spell…. [I]t was not the eruption of Vesuvius that made her love pearls more than life.  It only froze her in this attitude of greed.”    She thought having the pearls would make her great.  Instead, grabbing for the pearls merely revealed the true smallness of her endeavor. 

We need to measure our worth against something more substantial than wealth, popularity, fame or social standing.

Moses found something more substantial.  In Exodus 33:18, Moses said to God, “Show me your glory.” 

The Hebrew word translated here as “glory” is kabod.  Kabod comes from the Hebrew word kabed which means “to be heavy.”  Kabod/glory then has to do with how heavy something is.  If you were mining, and you found a gold nugget, the way to determine its value would be to weigh it.  The weight determined the value—the glory—of the nugget.  But if you dug up a nugget that contained a mixture of gold and other minerals, you could not just weigh the nugget to determine its value.  You would have to melt it down to separate the gold from any other substance.  Kabod, or glory, came to be understood as having to do with melting away the superfluous material to get down to the essential nature of whatever was under question. 

When Moses seeks to measure his value against something of true substance, he turns to God and says, “Show me your glory (your kabod)” (Exodus 33:18).

Yet there is a problem with this request.  How can Moses behold the true essence of God’s full glory?

Because I have endured a detached retina, I see a retinal specialist yearly.  Before each exam, my eyes are dilated to enable the doctor to have a good view inside my eyes.  Following my exam, I put on dark glasses and an extra plastic sunshield.  Nevertheless, when I step out of the doctor’s office into sunny Arizona, my eyes ache.  With fully dilated eyes, the bright sun is too much for me. 

The glory of the Creator is brighter by far than any of God’s created orbs.  To look into the glory of God would be too intense for any of us.

Moses cannot behold the full glory of God—the “face” of God—but, according to Exodus 33:23, Moses will be allowed to see God’s backside.  This is like saying that Moses will see what God leaves behind when God passes through a place.

What is it that God leaves behind?  Exodus 33:19 speaks of God’s goodness passing before Moses, and it speaks of God proclaiming his name—his essential identity—as having to do with God’s graciousness and mercy.  Indeed, everywhere God shows up, God leaves evidence of his goodness, graciousness and mercy.  We begin to understand our worth when we measure ourselves against the backdrop of God’s goodness, graciousness and mercy. 

In his book Lament for a Son, Nichoas Wolterstorff shares, “Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God.  It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live.  I always thought this meant that no one can see his splendor and live.  A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live.  Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.” ((quoted in The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero, p. 153) 

Perhaps when we understand the fullness of God’s love, we realize that is reaches into the depths of human sorrow.  It bears what is too intense for us. When we gage our height against such love, we are, indeed, humbled.

Remember

Psalm 105 calls us to remember the good that God did in the history of the Jewish people.  Verse 5 says it concisely, “Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he has uttered.”  The next 40 verses elaborate on various ways in which God poured out his care upon his people.

I have read that we are told more than 300 times in the Bible to remember.  Apparently it is quite important to God that we concentrate our attention on recalling God’s history of care and God’s teachings. 

Ela Harrison points out that the English word remember derives from the Latin word memorari which means to bring to mind, so the word re-member means to bring to mind again or to bring back to mind.  But Ela Harrison also shares what she calls a “folk” etymology of remember as opposed to the true etymology of the word.  In the “folk” etymology, we can contrast the word dismember to the word remember.  The actual etymology of dismember comes from the Latin prefix dis (meaning “apart”) and the Latin word membrum (meaning “limb”), so to dismember is to tear apart a limb, or “to break down into constituent parts.”  If we are to consider remember in contrast to this (though not actually deriving from re-membrum), we can think of remembering as the “process of putting things back together, taking the separated parts and putting them back together.”  Remembering, then, is what pulls us back together when we feel like we are falling apart.

Leith Anderson comments, “Human memory is a marvelous gift from God.  With it we are able to see, hear and think about the past in ways that influence and impact the present.”  Memory truly is a gift to us from God, for it enables us to return our focus to the good that God has done in our lives and will yet do in our lives, drawing upon the past to influence our present and our future.

A blogger named Hannah shares, “I’ve noticed that I’m most vulnerable to anxiety when I focus my attention on disappointment and pain.  When I dwell on all that seems wrong in my life, the enemy attacks me with doubt, self-pity, and fear.  However, the opposite happens when I dwell on God’s goodness in my life.  I notice the ways that He has been guiding and sustaining my life since the day I was born.  I remember the difficult seasons He has carried me through and the growth that He has done in my heart.”

No wonder Psalm 105:5 counsels us, “Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he has uttered.” 

The Healing Warmth of a Gracious Invitation

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines shame as “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming or impropriety,” or as “a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute.”  Shame may have been the defining characteristic of a man named Zacchaeus, whom we meet in Luke 19:1-10. 

Zacchaeus was a person who had reached the top of his profession and whose income far surpassed nearly everyone else in the land of Judea at the time of Jesus.  But his chosen profession was that of a “chief tax collector,” and his income was ill-gotten.  The taxes he collected were used for the upkeep of the Roman army in Canaan, and the wealth he had amassed came from adding a personal margin of profit to the taxes he extracted from citizens.  He was despised by the people of Israel as a traitor and as a thief.  Since he was Jewish, though, he was also despised by the Romans.  They used him to collect their taxes, but he was just a pawn to them—someone to use then discard. 

Over time, Zacchaeus grew as accustomed as possible to a life of being rejected and disdained.   He grew as accustomed as possible to fleecing his neighbors to pay for the intrusion of enemy troops.  He grew as accustomed as possible to people looking at him with loathing.  He grew as accustomed as possible to a life of loneliness. 

But one day Zacchaeus heard that the teacher from Galilee would be passing through Jericho.  He had heard rumors concerning the former carpenter from Galilee that aroused his curiosity.  He wanted to see Jesus with his own eyes.  But his hope to see Jesus ran into a couple of snags.  Zacchaeus was a short man, so he was finding it impossible to see Jesus over the heads of those in front of him as Jesus was walking through Jericho, and the “good” people of Jericho were not willing to make room for the despised tax collector.  So, Zacchaeus ran ahead of the crowd and climbed into a sycamore-fig tree, the leafiest tree in Israel.  He thought this would enable him to get a glimpse of Jesus while also hiding away from the crowd that despised him.

Hiding is the hallmark of shame.  When we feel ashamed of who we are or what we are doing, we hide.  We act in secret. 

Hiding is not only the hallmark of shame, it is also shame’s most deadly poison.  Paul Tournier points out, “Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.” 

When Jesus arrives at the tree in which Zacchaeus is hiding, Jesus looks up and says to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down.” 

Oh, what potential for further shame this presents.  For starters, how shameful it would have been for a man wearing a robe to have been spotted in a tree, with everyone below looking up at what was exposed to them.  Moreover, it was the hated chief tax collector who was spotted in the tree.  The crowd fully anticipated a verbal thrashing to be unleashed on the man whom they saw as a thief and a traitor to Israel. 

A verbal thrashing may have been what Zacchaeus deserved, but it is not what Jesus gives to him.  Rather than a scolding, Zacchaeus is given an invitation.  Jesus says to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

The crowd is not happy with this.  According to the Mishnah (the written compilation of Jewish oral traditions), “If tax gatherers entered a house, all that is within it becomes unclean.”  They cannot understand how Jesus could defile himself by entering Zacchaeus’ home.  Therefore, they grumble, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 

Likewise, Zacchaeus expects Jesus to humiliate him.  That’s what the “righteous” people of Israel have been doing to him throughout his career.  Zacchaeus has grown accustomed to being shamed and rejected.  But an invitation to come into Zacchaeus’ home for supper catches Zacchaeus completely off guard.    

Brennan Manning points out, “In the East, to share a meal with someone is a symbol of peace, trust, brotherhood and forgiveness; the shared table is a shared life.  To say to an Orthodox Jew, ‘I would like to have dinner with you,’ is understood as ‘I would like to enter into friendship with you.’” (A Glimpse of Jesus, p. 54).  Zacchaeus was not expecting an invitation to friendship from Jesus.  But it was such an invitation that had the power to transform Zacchaeus’ life.  Because of such an invitation, Zacchaeus said to Jesus, “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.”  And Jesus declared, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Many years ago, a Japanese magazine included a creative advertisement: The picture of a butterfly appeared on a page.  The entire page was dull gray in color—until the reader placed a hand upon the picture.  The warmth of the person’s hand caused special inks in the printing to react, transforming the dull gray butterfly into a rainbow of brilliant color.

Likewise, the warmth of Jesus’ words to Zacchaeus—through a graceful invitation—transformed a shamed, lonely, hiding tax collector into a penitent individual who gives half of his possessions to the poor and pays back four times what he has cheated from others. 

Such is the miraculous power of mercy.