How To Be A Good Guest

How To Be A Good Guest
Sycamore Creek Church
Luke 19:1-10
July 25, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

Have you ever had a quirky guest show up at your house? While we were in seminary, Sarah and I lived in a hospitality house called Isaiah House. It was kind of like living with your small group in the local homeless shelter. We offered hospitality to women and children in transition. We had two or three rooms available for guests to stay for up to six months. We had a lot of quirky guests, but the quirkiest guest was a young man who showed up on our doorstep one day named Steve (not his real name). He knocked on the door, and when Sarah opened the door there standing before her was an early 20s young man with a light-blue bed sheet draped over his body that had a hole cut in it for his head. He introduced himself and said that he was a traveling evangelist. He had heard that we had another traveling evangelist in our house who was staying there. We did. She was one of our longer-term guests. He was there to talk to her to receive guidance. While he had a huge heart, Steve certainly needed some guidance. He stayed with us one night and it was quite a wild experience. When he left, we later found a small note tacked to a cork board with suggestions for how we could be better Christians. Steve was a quirky guest.

Maybe Jesus wasn’t quite so quirky, but he did have a kind of quirkiness about him when it came to being a guest. It’s a quirkiness that I think that we can learn from as we are guests ourselves. Let’s see what happens when Jesus is a guest of a man named Zacchaeus.

Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)
1 Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was one of the most influential Jews in the Roman tax-collecting business, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowds. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree beside the road, so he could watch from there.
5 When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the crowds were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have overcharged people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a son of Abraham. 10 And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek and save those like him who are lost.”

This is God’s story for us today. Thank you, God.

This is a great story about Jesus being a guest. In it we see that Jesus is both an active guest and a passive guest. Let’s begin by looking at how Jesus was active.

Active Guest
Jesus was an active guest in two ways. He seeks and he saves. Did you notice that Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house? He says, “I must be a guest in your home today” (Luke 19:5). What nerve! Jesus doesn’t wait around to be invited as a guest. He seeks Zacchaeus out. He’s assertive. He didn’t wait for Zacchaeus to ask him. He seeks Zacchaeus out.

I’ve been trying to pattern my own life as a guest after Jesus. You all know, I hope, that I’ve been trying to have one-on-one meetings with each of you who regularly attend SCC. I haven’t waited for you to ask me to get together. I haven’t waited for a crisis to hit your life when you’re in need of pastoral care. No. I’ve tried to be assertive by following Jesus’ example and inviting myself into your life. OK. So I didn’t take it so far as to say, “I must come to your house today.” We’ve been meeting at the church office or in coffee shops or for breakfast or lunch, but the same principle is at work here. As your pastor, I’m seeking you out. Who is someone you need to seek out to be a guest in their presence?

Another way that Jesus seeks out Zacchaeus is that his visit is unplanned. Surprise! This certainly isn’t something that Zacchaeus was expecting. Or was he? Perhaps God’s grace had prepared Zacchaeus’ heart to receive Jesus’ seeking. We read that “Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree” (Luke 19:4). This is sometimes called God’s prevenient Grace. “Pre” means “before” and “venient” comes from the Latin word for “to go.” So God’s prevenient Grace goes before we even recognize it. God prepares the way.

While Sarah and I lived in Petoskey we took a boarder into our home named Alex. Alex rented a room from us. Actually, Alex still rents a room from us. Alex is Russian American, and he has a Russian accent when he speaks English. One day we got a knock on our door from a young man who was looking to use a phone. He also spoke with a heavy Russian accent, and his English was not the greatest. We put together that he was a college student who had come to Petoskey for a summer job, but when he got here the job turned out to be not nearly what he had expected. He was currently living in the local campground and working on getting back home with the second half of his round-trip airfare. He had a calling card and was trying to call family back in Russia, but the card was not working on pay phones. So he was going up and down our street looking for someone who would let him use their phone.

We invited him in and about that time Alex came out of his room. He took one look at Alex and new immediately that Alex was also Russian. The two of them broke into fluent Russian right there in my living room in Petoskey, Michigan. You could see the stress and anxiety running out of this young man as he found someone who spoke his own language. We were eventually able to help him get where he needed to go to fly home. This young man took a risk that someone would be hospitable to him, and he sought to be a guest in someone’s home. It wasn’t planned on our part, but it was exactly what he needed. In some ways, it was also exactly what we needed.

I think that Jesus is ultimately following the lead of the Holy Spirit as he seeks Zacchaeus out. Jesus says, “I must be a guest in your home today” (Luke 19:5). Jesus is compelled. He may not even fully know why. He is fully God, but he is also fully human.

One time I was compelled to attend another church’s Sunday evening prayer service. I had been feeling a need to worship with another church for a while. When you help lead on Sunday morning, it is important to find other places where you can worship without leading. So I had picked a Sunday evening prayer service at another local church to attend. When I got there, the pastor who I knew came up to me surprised to see me. He was even a little shocked. He said, “You apparently heard?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. It turns out that on that Sunday morning, he had announced his resignation. The church had been fighting about something, and he was done. He was moving on. In that moment, I realized that I had been compelled to be there not because I needed to pray for myself, but because I was there to pray for that church and pastor.

Jesus is an active guest by seeking.

Jesus is also an active guest by saving. We read that “Zacchaeus was one of the most influential Jews in the Roman tax-collecting business” (Luke 19:2). Jesus picks someone very different than himself to invite himself over. This has bad appearance written all over it. As a tax collector, Zacchaeus was essentially a Roman sell-out. Romans would contract with local Jews to collect taxes. These Jews would pay the contract ahead of time and then try to make a prophet on the contract by collecting excess taxes. As you can imagine, Jewish tax collectors weren’t particularly liked by their fellow Jews. Being a tax collector also made Zacchaeus religiously impure, and he was considered a sinner.

Some of this has to do with his wealth. We read that “Zacchaeus had become very rich” (Luke 19:2). Interestingly enough, this story of Zacchaeus follows on the heels of the story about the rich young ruler. A rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to obey God’s commandments. The rich young ruler tells Jesus that he does so, and then asks what else he must do. Jesus says there is only one more thing left for him to do to be perfect: sell everything he has and give it all away to the poor. The rich young ruler leaves dejected. Later Jesus’ followers ask him about this and Jesus says that it is harder for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. His disciples are astounded. Who then can be saved, they ask. Jesus responds that, with humans, it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

After this story, one would imagine that Jesus isn’t going to spend much time with wealthy people, but here he is inviting himself over to be a guest. Jesus risks his own reputation to save Zacchaeus, someone who is living very differently than Jesus is.

Jesus sums the active side of his guesthood up saying, “I, the Son of Man, have come to seek and save those like him who are lost” (Luke 19:10).

Passive Guest
You would imagine that after all that activeness, Jesus would really have something important to say to Zacchaeus, but something happens that we’re not expecting. Jesus is really quite a passive guest. When he gets to Zacchaeus’ house, this is what he says: … Nothing! Jesus says nothing to Zacchaeus. He is simply present to him. He is who he is. It’s just that he is who he is in Zacchaeus house.

Jesus doesn’t stay silent forever, because after Zacchaeus responds in such a positive way, Jesus does interpret that response as God’s action in Zacchaeus’ life. Jesus says, “Salvation has come to this home today” (Luke 19:9).

Have you ever had someone who just listened to what you had to say, and after listening they offered a simple insight that cleared things up completely. This past week I was talking to Jeremy Kratky, our worship leader, about this. He told me about a moment when he was trying to discern whether to take this job as the worship leader or not. He sought out several friends to listen to him. One of those was Jana Aupperlee. Jana listened to Jeremy talk about all the ways that he wasn’t qualified enough for this job. He didn’t have enough experience. He wasn’t trained enough. Bla…Bla…Bla… When Jeremy was done talking, Jana said, “Won’t all that come with time?” Bingo! Jeremy hadn’t thought of that. He hadn’t thought about how his talent and experience would grow. Jeremy continues to be thankful for Jana’s simple insightful response. Aren’t we all thankful too?

Jesus was present to Zacchaeus by simply being there and listening, and then interpreted the response as God’s saving work in Zacchaeus’ life. So what were the results of Jesus’ active and passive guesthood?

Results
Jesus is quite a guest. He gets perfect results! The first result he gets is repentance. Zacchaeus was going one way with his life and he turns that around. He says, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have overcharged people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” (Luke 19:8). He had been a cheat, and now he’s reforming his ways. He’s even following after Jesus’ own example by beginning to build relationships with people who are different than he is. He is rich, and he is soon to have many poor friends!

The second result Jesus gets is salvation. Did you notice what Zacchaeus called Jesus? He calls him “Lord.” Zacchaeus recognizes in the presence of Jesus that someone worth calling Lord is standing before him. His life turns around, and he begins a long journey of being in a right and loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ final result is immediate. All this happens today. He begins by telling Zacchaeus, “I must be a guest in your home today” (Luke 19:5), and he ends by saying, “Salvation has come to this home today” (Luke 19:9). Today! By being both an active and passive guest, Jesus gets results today. By seeking out Zacchaeus, salvation comes today. By unexpectedly inviting himself over, Jesus gets results today. By following the lead of the Spirit, Zacchaeus calls Jesus his Lord today. By risking friendship with a rich man, Jesus brings repentance today. By listening to Zacchaeus, Jesus gets results today. Who do you need to be a guest to today? Seek someone out today! Listen to someone today! Help bring salvation to someone’s house today!