Sermon: "Who Are You Listening To?"

1st in the "Who Are You...?" series.
Delivered November 4, 2007 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 4

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Let us pray: Lord we thank you for your goodness and grace to us at all times and in all places. Now as we open your word we ask that you would speak to our hearts and tell us of eternal things. Lift us above any deceits; any voices that would drown out your voice so that we might by the spirit understand what you are saying to us today. For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

In just a moment we are going to read Luke, Chapter 19, Verses 1 to 10, but before we do I wanted to let you know that we are beginning a new series on our continuing fall emphasis on discipleship, but from a somewhat different angle. In September and part of October Pastor John challenged us with great messages on the five "G's" of discipleship, so I thought as a good professor I would give you a pop quiz. Can you say them with me, the five "G's"? Grace, growth, groups, gifts and generous stewardship or generosity. And it dawned on me as we were thinking about these five "G's" over all that time that we can be engaged with all of them in belief and practice and still be missing something in our discipleship. I think Jesus spoke of this reality all of the time when he encountered the religious people of his day. He was always speaking to them of how their external display was good, but their internal reality did not match up.

Frederick Buechner was often fond of saying again they hit all the right notes, but in the wrong tempo. So this series entitled, "Who Are You..." each week we will complete that sentence with; that is why the dots are there, that each week we will focus on an internal kind of reality that will encourage us in becoming and being as well as learning and doing. We will deal with our characters, as well as our conduct. So today's question is Who Are You Listening To? Whose voice are you listening to about who you really are? Life is loud. We are constantly challenged to defend and define who we are as we are overloaded with voices that can be competing and confusing. One day, we wake up and we think things are good. Another day we wake up and there is a voice that says you are worthless. One day we wake up and things are going fine and another day we wake up and we hear a voice that says, "You are weak. You are inadequate. You are no good". These voices come to us at all times. Sometimes they are exaggerated voices, exaggerated feelings of our own importance. You are really something. Who are we? Who are we listening to to understand who we really are?

Today's scripture passage we see an example of a man, a beautiful example of a man who had been listening to certain types of voices for a long time until another voice called out his name, called him to change and to follow, called him to listen in a new way.

Luke 19: 1-10:

"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.' " But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

If you grew up in church or Sunday school or VBS sooner or later you learned the song, right? Do you remember it? Do you want to sing it with me? Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as the Savior passed on by he looked up in that tree and he said, Zacchaeus you come down for I am going to your house today, for I am going to your house today. Everybody went to VBS here. I would like to suggest that there were three voices that Zacchaeus was listening to in his life and these three voices may be those that you can relate to at different times in your life as well.

The first voice I call the "internal me." It's a self-oriented voice. There are a lot of hints in this passage that he was listening to this kind of self-oriented voice before this life-changing encounter because the text says that Jesus was passing through Jericho. The 21st century reading of Verse 1 could go like this, "Jesus was entering and passing through West Palm Beach, Florida or La Jolla, California or the Hamptons in New York." Jericho at that time was a fabulous place to live. It was the Greco-Roman metropolis that served as Herod's winter capital. Archeologists have determined that it rivaled, if not exceeded the splendor of Pompeii. So to be a chief tax collector in that type of setting, place Zacchaeus among the super rich of his day. He probably oversaw a group of tax collectors responsible for customs dues on goods passing in to Judea. The point blank Verse 2 says, he was wealthy. His house would have been one of the finest homes in the city.

Now being a wealthy, Jewish, chief tax collector meant he had to be listening to some kind of internal voice of materialism and greed because making the choices that he did made him an outcast among his own people. He was a collaborator with the Romans. In Verse 7 when it seemed that Jesus is going to go and be entertained in his house, the word is he has gone to be the guest of a sinner; tax collector and sinner. It is synonymous, like prostitute, tax collector all in the same category. It's also interesting to understand that the name Zacchaeus meant pure one or righteous one. I can just hear the people of his day saying, "Boy you talk about a guy who is not living up to his name. Look at him." In spite of all of that stigma there is this internal voice inside of him that overrode every other voice, the mention of his being small and stature we kind of get caught up in that particular detail; suggests that this voice also might have sounded something like this, "I will show you who the big man around here really is." Yet sooner or later when we listen to false expressions of who we are or pursue goals that are totally focused on ourselves it starts to wear thin.

A month ago Search Ministries hosted a banquet at Martin's West featuring four Christian golfers who played in a senior tournament event at the Baltimore Country Club back in early October. Bernhard Langer the 1985 and 1993 Masters Champion was among them and Larry Moody was interviewing different ones of them and he got to Bernhard Langer and he asked him about his past and he said, "You know" and Langer didn't use the term "internal me," but he said when he was growing up and he worked at a golf course and he started to get the golf bug and he started to get really good he had this thought in his head that said I am going to achieve the heights of this game and, in fact, he did. Yet on the very night when he won what could arguably be called the most prestigious tournament in the world, that very night he felt an annoying emptiness. He remembered how let down he felt after donning that green jacket for the first time. He said it was a sort of, "Is that all there is" kind of feeling.

I recall a time in my own life when this was the case. It wasn't that I achieved some great status or achievement. I remember it was when at age 19 in college I was starting to understand what Jesus was all about and that I believed in Jesus, but I was starting to understand the claims of Christ. That it was about not just believing with my head, it was about turning control of my life over to Christ and when that wrestling started to dawn on me there was this voice in my head that said, it was almost audible, "No one is going to run my life but me, no one" but I couldn't avoid a subsequent sense of emptiness in the light of that focus.

Well how about you? Christian or not, can you relate to a voice that pushes towards self-orientation or voices that try to tell you otherwise about who you are or about who God is, voices of doubt that tell us there is no God or if there is he is not very interested, voices of fear that paralyze us, voice of busyness that convince us that we are not doing enough, voices of selfishness that makes it all about us? You can hear my voice. You can tell my voice is not really what it should be, can't you? I have been fighting illness for three months. Bronchitis, sinusitis, I have been fighting it. You know there is this voice in my head that sometimes says, "You know God is judging you. You have done something wrong that you can't get over this, that you have been to four different doctors and nobody can get a handle on it." I have been on Prednisone, antibiotics, everything. I feel like a medicine cabinet. I was even afraid I couldn't preach today. You know there are all kinds of voices that come in to our head like that.

I can imagine Zacchaeus' voice or the voices in his head that day when Jesus was passing through, "Stay at home today. There are more important things that you can do. Don't climb that tree. People are going to point at you. You are going to look silly. A person of your social standing does not do that." All "internal me" voices. If we are honest we all struggle with these kinds of voices.

But we can see from this account that it doesn't have to stay that way. Internal dissonance reveals that there is another voice that we begin to detect. It's the voice that Bernhard Langer heard in his head the night that he won the Master's, "Is that all there is?" It's coming from some place that I call the 'intermediate me' voice. It's another voice that is self-oriented, but it's not in the same way. It's a voice that says things like "Who am I? Where am I going? Why was I born? What is life really all about?" Around that time I was telling you about in my own college experience, I remember one day waking up, I have shared this with you before I think, beautiful spring morning down in South Carolina. I was hung over, a mattress with no sheets, I was smelling badly. This warm air came rushing in to the room. Birds were singing. Trees were blooming. I heard church bells in the distance. I was kind of like in this daze of two worlds and this voice came to my head that said, "What are you doing? What are you doing?" It was a voice that I needed to listen to and that's that intermediate voice. I think in Verses 3 and 4 we see that that intermediate voice is at work because Zacchaeus is about much more than just curiosity I think. I mean, think about what he was doing; chief tax collector, very wealthy, running along jumping up and down as the crowd is going along. He sprints. He runs up in to a tree. Something was going on inside of him that told him that life wasn't measuring up and that change was needed.

I think about people who are here today; maybe crossing the threshold of this building was about as tough as climbing a tree. I mean you had to break through a bunch of stuff just to get to church today. But you know that all of us who have been, maybe if you are in that place, all of us have been in that place, because when we start to think about what it is that Jesus is saying: that he wants us. He doesn't just want our Sunday, he wants us, he wants all of us, that can be a scary thing, but it turns bondage in to freedom. He came to release the captives, to grant sight for the blind. And so if life isn't measuring up it can be scary, but you are here. You know those trees, those sycamore trees, they have lots of leaves on them. I think it is possible that Zacchaeus was doing a stealth climb, you know just kind of peeking through the leaves, maybe someone is saying today, "Boy I hope no one knows I am here. Boy if anyone in my family knew I was here that would be something." In spite of all of that, that intermediate voice speaks of dissatisfaction and that leads to the obvious third voice and that third voice is the initiating, inviting voice of the Lord of glory of Jesus Christ.

Verse 5 reveals the only voice that can bring freedom to our souls. "Zacchaeus, you come down for I am going to your house today." You know the children's song version doesn't use the word immediately, but that change of inflection is theologically accurate. "Zacchaeus, you come down." When we hear the voice of Jesus speak to our souls, there is often a sense of urgency, there is a sense of anticipation. I remember when I was hearing this voice of Jesus in my wrestling of what it meant to become a Christian was like life can be different. It can be better. Something really good can come of it and that is the dominant tone of this passage. I want you to look at this with me. Jesus is passing through. There is action. Zacchaeus runs ahead. Come down immediately, I must stay today. He came down at once and even in the face of the crowd's criticism he says he stood, he stood up and he took a stand in the moment and he said, "Look here and now" and Jesus pronounces today salvation has come in to this house. And then the ultimate urgency: the last verse of the text. "For the son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." What speed would you be going at if you were looking for a lost child? If you were looking for someone who was lost, what speed would it be? You would be doing everything you could, as quickly as you could. That is the tone of this text. That's the voice of Jesus. Its like life can be different and it could be different today if you will just open your heart like Zacchaeus did.

Theologically speaking this account is the climax of Jesus' ministry before going to Jerusalem. That is why he was passing through. He was passing through to go to the cross. He climbed the tree for us. He took in to his body all the sins of the world and all the scorn of the crowd, more than Zacchaeus or us ever could do. Jesus was certainly responding to Zacchaeus' interest, but the decisive action in this text is in the call of Jesus out of that tree, out of those leaves. Calling Zacchaeus down from that tree is no different than telling the crippled man to take up his pallet and walk. No different than telling the man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand, no different than telling the immediate proceeding context the blind man receive your sight. When he said come down out of that tree that was the call of Jesus to him.

In the Verse 7 criticism he has gone to be the guest of a sinner, the people, the crowd, the voices tried to cut Jesus down and Zacchaeus down in one fell swoop. But look, here is two men that don't care about their reputation, they don't care about what anybody else thinks, they just care about a restored relationship and Zacchaeus seeking to exonerate Jesus from having to go in to be the guest of a sinner says, "Lord, here and now I repent. I changed my mind about my life orientation and I give half of my money to the poor and if I have cheated anybody four times a much I will repay." See he was trying to hit the benchmarks and go beyond the benchmarks of the Pharisees to prove that he had repented publically and Jesus seeks to exonerate him when he says, "Today salvation has come to this house." He gives him a new status and a new identity in the face of all the people.

Did it ever occur to you what a great sport the Lord is? What if someone called you for a date and said, "You know, I tried everyone else I could think of, but no one else could go. How about you?" How fast would it take you to hang up? But you know the Lord isn't like that at all. "God, I have tried everything else. I have tried everything else, how about you?" And he says, "I will find you where you are. I will take you as I find you. I want you to have a restored relationship." Look how much the Lord wants to have a restored relationship. He knew Zacchaeus' name. He knew in all that crowd who was longing and who was looking. He has a sense for this. He knows whose heart really is gravitating toward him and look how responsive he is to those who will respond. No one is discounted based on their past; only on their refusal to listen to Jesus' voice today.

See, discipleship is about following Jesus, which implies listening and learning from his word and always the scripture places more emphasis on hearing than on seeing. Romans 10:17: "Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God." Hebrews: "Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart." How many times did Jesus say, "He who has ears to hear let them hear." And then Revelation 3:20; "Behold, here I am, today, now." That is the way it starts, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." That requires listening. We have to hear the knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Exactly describing what Zacchaeus did, exactly. He opened the door of his heart and of his home. He opened his existence to Jesus and he said, "Jesus, you take over my life, because these voices that I am hearing are all false, but I hear your voice and it's true." You know God puts trees in our life all the time and Zacchaeus had to do something different that day and he climbed the tree.

God can put all kinds of trees in our life. Sometimes they resemble a friend who is trying to point the way. I remember going to the hospital room of a man dying with cancer up in Philadelphia. I didn't know him before I walked in to that room. He was just a church member of a 1,700-member church and he had just found out that he had cancer. By God's grace I was able to share the gospel with him and you know what he said to me before we prayed, he said, "You know I have a friend of mine in another church who has been telling me about this for ten years and today is my day." And he prayed and he asked the Lord Jesus to take over his life. He was gone by the end of the year. But in that time, in pre-Thanksgiving to the end of the year I visited him a number of times. He was reading. He was a new person. His family said he was a new person. See, sometimes trees are people that try to boost us up and it's good for us to consider what kind of a tree are we being. Are we trying to help people get a better look at Jesus? Sometimes I think we ought to paint a sycamore tree behind our mission statement, you know, "moving people towards Christ." That is what we want to do. We want to get them up a tree so they can see and being here today in this church where we want to push you up so you can get a better look could be your day. It could be the vantage point that you are looking for.

The first voice we hear is a contradiction to the things of God. The second voice we hear is a conviction about the things of God; is this what life is all about? And the third voice we hear is a conversion to God himself. I want to ask you to be like Zacchaeus today, to come down from any tree, to come away from any self-oriented kind of lifestyle and Jesus will do what he did for him. He will bring freedom and healing, a release of burdens. What do you need to do? Repent. Change your mind about who is in charge. Sign away your rights to yourself and give them to Jesus. Exchange your life for his. That is what I want to ask you to do today, again. I want to ask you as we close our service to pray a prayer, to silence any voice that says that Jesus is not for you, because he is.

You know he said in John 8, Verses 31 and 32, to the Jews who believed in him he said, "If you hold to my teaching, if you listen to my voice, then truly you are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Trust in Christ. Recommitting to Christ brings a freedom in ways that we can't even think are possible. And today as we gather around this table we eat and drink with him just like Zacchaeus did in his home. It's a sign of eternal fellowship with Christ. See that is what it meant for Zacchaeus to have him in to his home. It was eternal fellowship, complete friendship. It wasn't just about having a meal, it was about starting a relationship.

In The Silver Chair, one of the books of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" there is a suspenseful moment when all the heroes of the story are trapped in an underground room and it's a dark space and there is a sweet lulling smell that comes out of the fireplace and as they wait in that room they are in a debate, forced to listen to the voice of an evil queen that rules the underworld. There is a very real danger that they will believe her words and if they do they will become enslaved to her. Things are looking bad for the young children until the spell is broken by the heroic action of Puddleglum the marsh-wiggle, at great pain to himself because everybody knows that marsh-wiggles don't wear any shoes. Puddleglum stomps out the fire that was part of the evil magic, all the time declaring the truth of what he had learned in the realm of Aslan who is the Jesus figure. Only this deliberate painful effort to focus on the truth sufficed to free everyone from the witch's spell.

When we come around this table and we understand what it is saying about our identity and who we really are, it's a way of stomping out every false voice that would threaten to cause us to believe that God is somehow against us, that God is not with us. It stomps out every voice and tells us that we are God's child, that we belong to him. The same grace expressed at this table is the same grace that comes from that baptismal font that says we belong to God. He claims us. We need his strength and I want to call you all to repentance today in whatever way that means for you, as we gather around it, because it will be the power to free us in Jesus name. So let us pray.

Lord, we ask as we come to this table, as we confess our faith, as we sing our songs that we would do so with a sense that your words are true, that every voice that would seek to tell us something false about ourselves or about you, we pray that you would stomp out and that we would hear again the truth of the cross, the resurrection and the hope we have in Christ. We pray it in his holy name. Amen.

© 2007, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org