After scouring the internet for sermon and worship helps this afternoon, here are links and excerpts from some of the best resources I found. Click on the links to read more. Also, check out the following sites for further materials for your use:
Sermons and Liturgies - Richard J. Fairchild
Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources
Resources: Based on the Revised Common Lectionary
THE TEXTS
| Roman Catholic | Revised Common | Episcopal | |
| PSALM | Psalm 145 | Psalm 119:137-144 or Psalm 32:1-7 | Psalm 32 |
| LESSON 1 | Wisdom 11:23-12:1 | Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 or Isaiah 1:10-18 |
Isaiah 1:10-20 |
| LESSON 2 | 2Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 | 2Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 | 2Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 |
| GOSPEL | Luke 19:1-10 | Luke 19:1-10 | Luke 19:1-10 |
The Book of Common Prayer Lectionary
Roman Catholic Lectionary Readings
IMAGES
Isaiah 1:18, Heartlight
Luke 19:1-10, Misioneros Del Sagrado Corazón en el Perú..
Ordinary 31 at Cerezo Barredo’s weekly gospel illustrations.
Bulletin Covers Powerpoint on Luke 19:10 by Don Silva at Sunday Graphx
Zaccheaus in a tree at Kerr Resources (Black and White)
All Saints Bulletins (Color and Black and White) at Kerr Resources
SERMON PREPARATION
In an article for The Christian Century (reprinted on Religion Online) called Gasping For Air, Michael Battle writes:
‘When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood" (Isa. 1:15b).
Instead of perpetuating a world of violence, Isaiah proposes a vision that demands another reality — a reality that requires peacemaking: doing good, seeking justice, rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan and pleading for the widow. These skills enable the people of God to envision a future even in the midst of destruction. This doesn’t sound like the world we know, where there is always a war in progress, and diverse people are praying with folded hands for the defeat of their respective enemies. We learn from Isaiah, however, that our enemies are not external to us, they are in fact us — with hands full of blood.
In "Hope for the Upwardly Mobile," John R Donahue, writes:
In contrast to the crowd’s description of his house as that of a sinner, Zacchaeus proclaims his fidelity to God’s law and shows that his wealth is not an obstacle to salvation. He gives half of his possessions to the poor. Such generosity reflects Tob. 4:10-11: “Almsgiving frees one from death…and alms are a worthy offering in the sight of the Most High.” If he has extorted money (which tax collectors were wont to do), he restores it fourfold. Fourfold restitution is demanded in Ex. 21:37 and was also known in Roman law.
Jesus then pronounces that salvation has come to this house “today,” and calls Zacchaeus a son of Abraham. Though classed as a sinner and socially marginal, he is really one who follows the Jewish laws on almsgiving and restitution. In ironic remembrance of the rich man who cries out from Hades to Abraham as father, only to have his prayer rejected because his wealth blinded him to the needs of the poor, Zacchaeus is a true child of Abraham by using his wealth in the service of justice and charity.
From Dylan’s Lectionary Blog comes this reflection on the Gospel lesson.
Our translation of verse 8 and 9 doesn’t help. That’s where the NRSV has Zaccheas saying, "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." It’s an OK translation in every way but this: the verbs Zaccheas using are not in the future tense, but are in the present. The crowd presumes that Zaccheas hoards his possessions and not only cheats the people, but fails to pay the penalty, and so when Jesus invites himself to Zaccheas’ house, Jesus joins their set of THOSE people, the sinners. But Zaccheas is not a cheat, nor does he hoard his wealth; as he says, "I give half of my wealth to the poor, and if I find I have defrauded anyone, I pay back four times as much." These are things he is already doing, even before meeting Jesus. This chief tax collector, who receives only disdain from his neighbors, is actually far more generous and intentional about doing justice than is the respectable ruler of Luke 18:18-25.
Fr. John Foley, S. J. of the Center for Liturgy writes, concerning the gospel:
A lot of us harbor a false belief. We think that we must live right and do the right things or else God will not love us. How wrong that idea is.
We are cherished by the “Lord and lover of souls.” We don’t have to be perfect in order to be loved.
Zacchaeus in the Gospel is a prime example. The reading says he was small of stature (symbolizing all of us?), and in fact he climbed a tree to see over the crowd to Jesus. Seeing this, Jesus laughed. He said, “Zacchaeus, you are up a tree! Come down quick. I want to have dinner in your house tonight. You cannot reach the food from where you are!”
John J. Pilch (has this to say in an article at the same website: Center for Liturgy:
Sometimes “rich” can mean “greedy” in the Bible, but as this story progresses it will become clear that Zacchaeus does not seem to be greedy.
First, he admits to giving half of his possessions to the poor. Zacchaeus uses the present tense, which in the Greek language describes repeated, customary practice. Zacchaeus does this on a regular, ongoing basis. Most translations use the future tense (“I will give”), which is grammatically possible but less plausible. In Luke, giving alms is a sign of righteousness (6:30-31, 38; 11:41; 12:33; 16:9; 18:22, 29).
Second, he pronounces a conditional clause: “IF I have cheated someone,” whose form in Greek does not imply that he consciously committed extortion but only that if he discovers that he has cheated, then he has a plan whose details are truly amazing. He restores what he has inadvertently cheated fourfold (400 percent)!
In Blogging toward Sunday, Michael Pasquarello III says:
Few stories in the Gospels show us a more thorough and life-changing conversion that goes “all the way down.” Few demonstrate a spirit as generous as this wealthy tax collector when he is surprised by joy. He scrambles down from his vantage point to join Jesus, joyfully invites him into his home, happily confesses his less-than-stellar business practices, pledges a full half of his earnings to the poor and promises to repay—fourfold—damages to those he has cheated.
FULL SERMONS
"How To Do Prayer Right," Dean William Willimon, Duke Chapel, 2001.
What is the acid test of “good” prayer, the sort of prayer to which Almighty God will condescend?
Put away the evil of your deeds…. Pursue justice and champion the oppressed; give the orphan his rights, plead the widow’s cause.The test of prayer is ethics. Bad deeds can silence the most eloquent of religious words. The test for what we do here from eleven until noon is what we do out there Monday through Saturday.
God goes so far as to say, Pray yourselves until you drop dead, I won’t listen to those of you who pervert justice, who champion the cause of the rich and powerful, who take advantage of the vulnerable and the powerless. Go ahead, have yourselves a worship service. I won’t be there.
In his sermon here, the pastor of First Mennonite Church of Champaign-Urbana states:
When people are sincere in their worship … incense and prayers, music and rituals can be a sweet, sweet smell and sound to the Almighty. But when they are just smoke screens, hiding them from who they really are and what their lives are really about … then the same acts became repulsive and repugnant to God. As Isaiah and other prophets such as Amos make so clear. PDF Version is here
In a sermon found here, Richard Hinkle of the Terrace View Presbyterian Church writes:
. . . new studies have shown that the connection between cleanliness and godliness goes way deeper than having everyone keep their germs to themselves. Dirty hands, in fact, seem to correlate with a dirty soul.
Researchers Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University define it as the "Macbeth Effect" after the famous scene in Shakespeare’s play where Lady Macbeth obsesses over washing her hands after committing cold-blooded murder. Guilty consciences, it seems, seek hygienic hands. Says Zhong, "When people feel morally challenged, they literally feel as if they are dirty."
Zhong and Liljenquist conducted several experiments with college students, separating volunteers into two groups. In the first group, students were asked to recall times in the past where they had acted unethically, while the other group was asked separately to remember incidents where they had done the morally right thing.
In one round of experiments, each group was then asked to fill in the blanks to complete words such as W__H and S__P. The students who had been contemplating their bad behavior were more disposed than the others to spell out WASH and SOAP rather than WISH and SOUP. The first group of students were also more likely to pick an antiseptic wipe over a pencil when offered the choice of either as a gift.
Zhong and Liljenquist realize that they aren’t on to something new here, just confirming what people across many cultures have known for centuries. Whether you are in Beijing or Boston it’s not unusual to describe a person who commits a crime as having "dirty hands." Cleaning one’s hands is a kind of psychosomatic way of cleansing the soul - a concept that has its roots in a wide variety of spiritual practices. PDF Version here
Tim Zingale on his website tells a story about the importance of a single nail and then relates that story to people in our local churches.
As the story goes, they built a new church building and people came from far and wide to see it. They admired its beauty! Up on the roof, a little nail heard the people praising everything about the lovely structure-except the nail! No one even knew he was there, and he became angry and jealous.
“If I am that insignificant, nobody will miss me if I quit!” So the nail then released its hold, slid down the roof, and fell in the mud.
That night it rained and rained. Soon, the shingle that had no nail blew away, and the roof began to leak. The water streaked the walls and the beautiful murals. The plaster began to fall, the carpet was stained, and the pulpit Bible was ruined by water. All this because a little nail decided to quit!
But what of the nail? While holding the shingle, it was obscure but it was also useful. Buried in the mud it was just as obscure, but now it was useless and would soon by eaten up by rust!
The moral of the story – every member is important to the church! You may, like the nail, feel obscure at times, but just like the nail, your absence is felt. When you are not present for worship, in some way the body of Christ hurts. We are ALL a part of the Lord’s ministry.
David Beswick brings a more traditional interpretation to the gospel reading at his site Worship and Liturgy Resources
Where are you in this picture? Are you amongst the band of followers from Galilee, filled with wonder and excitement at all that is happening? Are you up the tree with Zacchaeus, and coming down to meet the man who is causing all this excitement? Are you in the crowd watching and trying to work out what is going on? Take a moment to think about it. Imagine you are really there. What do you see? Who are the people? What do they want? What do they say? [Pause] What do you think? How do you feel? [Pause] What happens next? [Pause]
To understand how people felt about what was happening you need to know something about Zacchaeus and the people who lived in Jericho. If you were a citizen of Jericho you would have called Zacchaeus a sinner because he belonged to a despised class of people, the tax collectors who worked for the Romans, occupying your land. What is more he is cheat who had made himself rich by squeezing much more money out of defenseless citizens than the Romans required. He has put himself outside the family and the nation. He was no longer counted as being among the covenant people of God. You would believe that he did not keep the law of the God and if you went to his house you would be corrupted by eating food that was not clean, not prepared in the proper way. If you felt particularly generous you might just be able to imagine inviting him to your house, but you would never go to his house because you would feel revulsion at the prospect of being made unclean. He was "dirty", to you as Jew, like a person of another race, outside the special family of Abraham to which you belong and from which you know who you are. Indeed it is because you are a child of Abraham that you are so excited at the suggestion that Jesus is the Messiah. How then do you feel when Jesus invites himself to dinner at the home of this traitor, this dirty sinner?
The following was written by and is posted here by Barry Robinson. He writes "Keeping The Faith in Babylon: A Pastoral Resource For Christians In Exile," and for more information about this excellent material, you can contact Barry at fernstone@fernstone.org for samples further subscription information. As a past subscriber myself, I highly recommend that every preacher subscribe to this valuable preaching resource.
There are some stories in the Bible that are so good that they just sort of sum up what it is all about - it meaning you and me and all the other peculiar people of our lives and this crazy thing we call the gospel of Jesus Christ and that strange breed of men and women we call ‘the church’, whose behaviour is enough to drive you to drink at times and, at others, enough to make your heart break.
The story of Zacchaeus. When I was growing up in church, it was one of my favourite childhood stories; and I suspect it still is a favourite with every kid who has ever felt small or out of it and ends up, instead, being the centre of attention. But Luke didn’t write it for children. He wrote it, I think, because it somehow epitomized for him the peculiar mystery of what continues to happen in and around Jesus of Nazareth. He wrote it because what happened in Jericho that day was what was happening in his own church fifty years later just as it is, no doubt, what is happening, one way and another, in your church and mine.
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