Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga; November 3, 2019
Year C, 20 Pentecost, Proper 25
All Saints’ Sunday + Commitment Sunday + Baptisms

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 119:137-144; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Like many of you, my family celebrated Halloween for much of this past week.  One thing I love about Halloween is the element of surprise at every turn.  At my kid’s school, I bumped into another mom in a mask whom I didn’t recognize at all until she said her name.  And it was fun to figure out which kid was which during trick-or-treating.  Halloween is full of wonderful surprises like that. 

But, what we might not realize is that the day after Halloween sometimes has its own surprises, too.  The day after Halloween is All Saints’ Day, one of the major feast days of the Church – a big enough deal that we continue to celebrate it through today, the Sunday that follows it.  So, this morning, we remember that whole communion of saints that has come before us, the people who have lived joyful lives of loving obedience to God.  They’re people like St. Mary the Virgin and Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa.  But there are others, too, saints you might be a little surprised by.  People like the 16^th century German artist Albrecht Durer or the 19^th century African-American liberator and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth or the more contemporary William Mayo who established the now-renowned Mayo Clinic.

And, if you want to start really getting into details, there are other surprising folks whom we call “saints” in their own way: the colleague who works next to us and the waitress who serves us, the volunteers and the guests at MetMin, and the people who show up beside us in church on Sunday.  These folks, too, are living joyful lives of loving obedience to God – or at least trying to!  There’s even two 6-month old babies who are about to be welcomed into this vast communion of saints today: June and Pendleton Ward. 

So, All Saints’ Day certainly has its own surprises!  And who better to remind us of all the surprising saints by whom we’re surrounded than Zacchaeus? 

Now Zacchaeus doesn’t seem much of a saint at all.  Luke’s gospel tells us that he’s a chief tax collector.  We heard about tax collectors last Sunday: they’re the folks from within the Jewish community who are employed by the Roman empire to extort money from their own people to contribute to the wealth of the occupying Romans.  And Zacchaeus is one of the chief tax collectors and very rich.  He must have seemed like a real traitor to his community, a man whose wealth was assumed to be a testament to his treachery.

But right there in that sycamore is where, if we look closely, Zacchaeus’ saintliness is revealed to us, in three steps.

First, Zacchaeus wants desperately to see Jesus.  Luke’s gospel says that Zacchaeus ran to find a place from which he could “see who Jesus was.”  Zaccheaus wants to know Jesus and he’s willing to go out on a limb (literally and metaphorically) to do so.  And this is the first step in becoming a saint: a desire to see and know God.

Zacchaeus does see Jesus.  More importantly, perhaps, he is seen by Jesus (again literally and metaphorically).  Not just seen beneath the leaves of the sycamore, but also seen for who he is.  In the dialogue with Jesus, we learn that God has already been at work in Zacchaeus’ life.  The translation we heard this morning has Zacchaeus saying that he will give half his possessions to the poor and make fourfold restitution to any he has defrauded.  But, in Greek Zacchaeus speaks in the present tense here.  Not that he will give away his wealth, but that he is doing so.  So Zacchaeus knows he’s a work in progress and that’s what he tells Jesus – and the grumbling crowd around them.  Look, I know I’m not perfect.  But I’m trying to do what’s right.  By stating publicly his actions, Zacchaeus bears witness to the ways God has already been working in him. And Jesus affirms Zacchaeus.  Becoming a saint is an ongoing action that God works in and through us.  And that’s ok.  That’s how it’s supposed to be, in fact, “for the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” 

And, lastly, once Zacchaeus and Jesus see each other and Jesus calls him down from the tree, Zacchaeus is “happy to welcome” Jesus into his home.  Zacchaeus responds joyfully to Jesus.  And this response is the final testament to Zacchaeus’ saintliness.  Despite his imperfections, despite his failings and flaws, Zacchaeus does not fear to welcome Jesus into his home and his heart.  In fact, he does so happily, delighting in Jesus’ will for him. 

These are three traits of saintliness: wanting to know God, witnessing to the way God works in our life and responding joyfully to God’s will for us.  Zacchaeus may be a surprising saint, but he is a saint nonetheless. 

And today, we welcome June and Pen into this communion of sometimes surprising saints.  When they are baptized, their parents and godparents will make promises on their behalf, but all of us make promises, too.  We promise to support them in their life in Christ.  Which is another way of saying that we promise to teach them the way of saintliness.  We promise to show them to seek Jesus, to bear witness to the ways God works in them, and to respond to God with joy and thankfulness. 

And the only way we can teach them and show them these things is by living them in our own lives.  Because, of course, through our own baptisms, you and I are called to live into our roles as members of the communion of saints, too.  We do so when we come together as a community day after day, week after week, to support each other in our saintliness, through worship and breaking bread together, through serving each other and the communities around us, and through giving joyfully of our time, talents and treasure to the work of Christ. 

So, you see, it is fitting that, on top of everything else, we also celebrate Commitment Sunday today.  Our financial commitments to Thankful are just one sign of the ways in which we, like Zacchaeus, are already living saintly lives together in community and of our joy in and thankfulness for the many gifts God has given us both as individuals and as a parish family. 

Today, on this All Saints’ Sunday, we welcome June and Pen into that family and into the whole communion of sometimes-surprising saints like Zacchaeus, like you and me, trusting that “God will make [us] worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in [us] and [we] in him.”  Amen.