The Rev. Anna Carter Florence, Ph.D. delivers her sermon “Bread at the Gate” Sunday in the Amphitheater.
Column by Mary Lee Talbot
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence began her sermon on Monday by telling the congregation what the scripture reading was not telling us. She preached at the 9:15 a.m. Monday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title was “Learning to Climb Trees,” and the scripture reading was Luke 19:1–10, the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus.
“The scripture does not tell us if Zacchaeus is a regular tree climber, if he was nimble and agile. Jesus was coming, the streets were mobbed and in order not to miss out because he was short, Zacchaeus climbed a tree,” she said. “How short he was doesn’t seem to be the point because height is relative.”
Zacchaeus made a problem-solving maneuver, like in improvisation, to say, “Yes, and…” He ran ahead, climbed a sycamore tree, waited and it worked — he had a view of Jesus. He might have hoped that no one would notice him. “The view from the ground of a man straddling a limb is comical at best and humiliating at worst, “ Florence said.
The crowd may have laughed, pointed at him and turned him into a public spectacle, but Jesus did not laugh. Jesus told Zacchaeus to come down because Zacchaeus had dinner plans at his own house. “Zacchaeus had a change of heart that was long overdue and he would repay those he had defrauded,” she said.
Florence told the congregation, “This is not so much a story as an invitation to join Zacchaeus up a tree. That is where we need to be now, or (are) willing to go. People of faith try to see God in the text; Christians try to see Jesus. Just like Zacchaeus, we have to work for it because Jesus is always on the move. We read the New Testament hoping for a word from the Lord.”
Not only are we looking for inspiration in the text, she continued, we are looking to see Jesus in each other. “We are trying to glimpse the Christ from where we stand but we are all too short. We can’t see over other people, we can’t see over the cultures that formed us and we can’t see over the systems that bind us. They keep us blocked.”
Sometimes it makes us want to sit on the curb and cry. “When we can’t get through, we wonder why it always feels like Jesus has left the building. On other days, we realize the problem is where we are standing. If we stood somewhere else, our vision would be different — say up a tree, bruised,” Florence said.
She continued, “This would not be necessary if Jesus were easy to see, if the crowd gathered on a schedule. Zacchaeus was bold: there was nowhere he would not look, nowhere he would not climb. He took an outrageous posture to see Jesus and if we don’t have that boldness, we are missing the gift Zacchaeus’ spirit gives.”
Zacchaeus’ foolishness did not go unrewarded, and his actions shed light on what we have overlooked that brings salvation to our house, Florence told the congregation. There is a word from the Lord, who sees us in a tree and sees the lengths we would go to see Christ passing through.
“Zacchaeus had some accounting to do and so do we. What is this community if not a place to practice? Take time each day to climb new trees. Let’s get really good at it,” she said.
The Rev. Cynthia Strickland, a retired Presbyterian minister, presided. Deborah Hazlett, an active member of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Episcopal, in Baltimore, read the scripture. Sonya Subbayya Sutton, interim director of Sacred Music, played “Hozho,” by Connor Chee for the prelude on the Massey Memorial Organ. “Hozho” is the Navajo concept of balance and beauty. The Motet Choir, under the direction of Sutton and accompanied by Owen Reyda, organ scholar, on the Massey Organ, sang “The Storm is Passing Over,” by Charles Findley, arranged by Barbra Baker. Reyda performed Postlude, Op. 105, No. 2 by Charles Villiers Stanford for the postlude on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by the Mrs. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy and the Alison and Craig Marthinsen Endowment for the Department of Religion.
