"Free to Change" Luke 19: 1-10

The Easter sermon focused on being free to follow Christ.  As we move out from Easter, the sermon series will be based on the idea that the resurrection frees us to be the person God wants us to be and the person we want to be.

This first week is free to change.  the examples are Zacchaeus and the people who heard about Jesus from the woman at the well.

Thoughts as the sermon develops:

1.  Kenneth Bailey, as quoted by Julia Wharff in her sermon for presbytery, notes that dignified men in the Middle East don't run and dignified men don't climb trees.

2. anne Lamott -- we are our best selves when our ligth is brighter than the shimmer of our own candle.

3.  How long did Zacchaeus continue to give away his earnings?  One year?  Two years?  When he realized that he could not add as much to his savings or buy as much, did that change his mind.

4. Zacchaeus' response seems to fit Nouwen's description of a "generous response."

5.  Zacchaeus' change was big -- do we need to do big?

6.  Frederick Buechne's description of Zacchaeus:  Zaccheus stood barely five feet tall with his shoes off and was the least popular man in Jericho. He was head tax-collector for Rome in the district and had made such a killing out of it that he was the richest man in town as well as the shortest. (Here is Buechner’s description of Zaccheus, originally published in Peculiar Treasures and again later in Beyond Words as found in 

Weekly Sermon Illustration: Zaccheus  http://frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustration-zaccheus)

7.  The phrase “if I have defrauded” is not quite an admission of guilt in English, but greattreasures.org says that the word εἰ (if) with the indicative mood (as here) assumes the hypothesis as an actual fact, the condition being unfulfilled, but no doubt being thrown on the supposition. That would mean ‘yes, I have defrauded, but I intend to pay back fourfold.’ (http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/10/who-then-can-be-saved-this-guy.html)