Sermon by Pastor Brian - November 12, 2025
Sermons
Household Salvation
Luke 19:1-10
The long-haul truckers, running gold up from Arabia and volcanic glass down from Turkey, yanked on their air horns, frustrated by the idle line of freight. The local drivers, saddled on their camels, cussed the choke point as they waited for entry into Jericho. Zacchaeus, chief tax collector at the crossroads of trade in the ancient world, slowly weighed every commodity pallet, collecting the official duty, and grifting the rest.
Over his decades colluding with the Romans and profiteering off the misery of others, Zac never left his air-conditioned toll booth. If he wasn’t putting his thumb on the scale, he was phoning in another bank deposit.
As he listened to his account balance and counted the zeros, a commotion of people passed by on Main Street. The rowdy parade followed a homeless preacher from dirt-poor Nazareth.
Excited by the rumors that Jesus welcomed publicans, Zac left the cash register drawer open and sprinted ahead. Locating an outstretched Sycamore tree, he clambered up, still wearing his Armani suit and polished penny loafers, until finding a leafy perch. When Jesus stopped, he looked up and said, “Let’s go! Dinner is at your house.” But the crowd murmured, complaining, “How can a rabbi share table with a fraudster?”
Before Jesus responds, Zac begins a public accounting of his crimes: “Yes, I swindled you out of millions, but now I’ll start paying reparations. If it means bankrupting myself, then let’s start liquidating assets.” As bags of money exchange hands, Jesus declares, “Today, the chief tax collector is delivered, liberated from his self-inflicted bondage. Brother Zacchaeus is free!”
In today’s text, what do we learn about salvation?
Luke 19:1-10 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “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.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
Congregational Responses:
In Luke’s Gospel, it often involves sharing your money.
May require you to look foolish in public like Zac running and climbing.
It’s God’s prerogative, not the bystanders.
Despite being thrice married, mocking the disabled, glorifying sexual violence, demonizing immigrants, and flaunting the truth, Donald Trump won 80% of evangelical voters in 2016.1 Seeking to comprehend this contradiction, Angela Denker, a Lutheran minister and author, wrote Red State Christians. Crisscrossing the country, she interviewed M.A.G.A. supporters in rocking chairs and wooden pews. On July 4th, Angela visited Prestonwood Baptist in Plano, where the members sang the Pledge of Allegiance in a sanctuary festooned with flags. At River Church in Tampa, a sign warned, “This is not a gun-free zone. The pastors are heavily armed.” In Houston, Arab Americans argued that our billionaire President proves the prosperity gospel works.2 While the final chapter doesn’t resolve the paradox, Angela, after years of reflection since the book’s publication, ultimately assigns blame, not to Trump but the Church, writing, “The popularization of an individualistic salvation… has done wide damage. It perpetuate[s] a white Christianity in which you [can] ignore your African American neighbor… even as the structures of a so-called Christian government conspire against his people. It absolve[s] the church of responsibility for establishing and sustaining communities of believers, the church’s raison d’être for millennia.” 3
Individualistic salvation is a modern American phenomenon. After bowing at the altar of conversion and reciting the sinner’s prayer, Jesus becomes my personal Lord and Savior. With my name written in the Book of Life, securing my place in eternity, the private transaction is complete. In today’s text, however, Jesus is talking about saving a soul for paradise or rescuing a lone tax collector.
Refusing to define salvation as singular or as occurring only after the grave, Jesus says, “Today, salvation has come to this house.” Liberation is happening now, not just for Zacchaeus but also for the servants cleaning his mansions, the slaves tending his fields, the legion of employees laundering his money, and the thousands of vulnerable citizens impoverished by his scheming. Everyone in Jericho is finally made whole.
Salvation, we learn, isn’t primarily about orthodoxy- right belief- but about orthopraxy- right behavior. When someone responds collaboratively to God’s intervention, far more than one person is affected. Wallets are emptied; casseroles are cooked; outcasts are included; wounds are healed; doors are unlocked; systems are dismantled; dictators are toppled. To be blessed is to be a blessing for the entire community.
After Zacchaeus joyfully gave away his last pair of loafers, he, according to tradition, replaced Judas among the inner circle of disciples. But Luke intentionally doesn’t tell us what happened next, leaving us to wonder- Is he still out there, working the intersections and sharing the Good News with anyone who will listen? Asking, “Are you estranged from God and neighbor? Grown weary of me, myself, and I? Try climbing a tree.”
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1 Pulliam Bailey, Sarah. White Evangelicals Voted Overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, Exit Polls Show. The Washington Post, 9 November 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/09/exit-polls-show-white-evangelicals-voted-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/
2 Denker, Angela. Red State Christians: Understanding the Voters Who Elected Donald Trump. Fortress Press, 2019.
3 Denker, Angela. After the Personal Salvation Gospel: The World Won’t be Saved by My Prayers or Virtuous Desires. Christian Century, 24 July, 2019 https://www.christiancentury.org/guest-post/after-personal-salvation-gospel