Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Genesis 12:10-20, Luke 19:1-10

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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Abram did a rotten thing. As he was about to enter Egypt he told his wife that she should pretend to be his sister. She was so beautiful that he was afraid that a powerful Egyptian leader would have him killed so that he could take his wife. Abram was afraid, not only of the Egyptians, for the real truth was that Abram was afraid to trust in God. God had promised to him that he would be the father of a mighty nation and that his ancestors would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, but he wasn't ready to really trust that God's promises would come true.

After they entered Egypt, with Sarai posing as his sister, Abram even allowed the Pharaoh to take Sarai as his wife. There's no indication that he even said anything in protest. There's no record that Abram ever even asked her how she felt about all of this. Can you imagine? Few people would consider doing something as wrong and as rotten as this. Abram used Sarai to protect himself, and he used her in a way that treated her as someone of no account. He literally prostituted her, and by so doing caused great harm to both Sarai and to Pharaoh.

Now, bad as his mistake was, we might think about forgiving Abram if he seemed genuinely repentant. But nowhere does our text indicate that Abram ever thinks that he might have done something wrong. In fact, in chapter 20 of Genesis we find Abraham making exactly the same mistake once again in the country of Gerar. Can you imagine? He still hadn't learned.

This is Abram! He's the one that God has chosen! He is to be remembered and revered by all the generations to come as the patriarch, the ancestor of the Israelite people. He's the man who made a covenant with God, the man who was so special that God chose him. Yet he was also the man who at times utterly failed to trust in God and made an absolute mess of his life as a result.

In one way this passage always makes me feel good. It makes me feel good because I end up thinking that if Abram can mess up that badly and still be loved by God, if Abram can be so afraid that he doesn't trust in God and still be chosen by God, then there's room in God's love for you and for me.

And then there's Zacchaeus... a cunning, conniving, thief who masqueraded as a tax collector. Zacchaeus was rich all right. His wealth came at the expense of the poor, the helpless, those he defrauded out of extra tax dollars. The common practice back then was for the Romans to tell the tax collectors how much they needed to collect for Rome, but instead of paying them a salary or a commission, the understanding was that anything and everything that they could collect over the stated amount was theirs to keep. People wanted to be tax collectors. They paid money to receive the job, because when you were a tax collector you literally had a license to steal, to defraud, to cheat others so that you could become rich.

It was that Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector who literally cheated his neighbors, who climbed a tree to see Jesus, and who Jesus called to come down from the tree - not to chastise him publicly, not to punish him for the wrong that he had done, but to tell him that He, Jesus would stay at Zacchaeus's house that day.

Now, most of us don't do things that are as blatantly wrong as the things that Abram did in Egypt, or that Zacchaeus did in the normal course of his job. Yet the mistake that they both made is one that we often make as well. You see, both Abram and Zacchaeus got into trouble because they failed to put their trust in God. Instead of trusting God, Abram trusted his own wits to find a way out of his dilemma. God had called Abram to leave his home and go to Egypt. God had promised to bless Abram and to make of him a great nation, but he didn't really trust in that promise. He wasn't ready to really place his trust in God. Now with Zacchaeus, the only thing that he really seemed to trust was cold hard cash, at least until Jesus came along and changed everything.

Their basic problem was that they were heading the wrong direction. Instead of heading towards God, they were heading away, and there are times when we do that same thing as well. It's difficult to trust God when things seem risky, as they did for Abram. It's tempting to put our own self-interest first, just as Zacchaeus did.

Which way are you headed? That's usually not an easy question to answer. I say that because on the one hand there are times when we really don't want to know the answer because we're afraid of it, while there are other times when the issues seem to have a lot of gray area. These are the times when we aren't sure what it is that God wants for us and from us. We'd like God to speak more plainly. Even Abram, whom God spoke to and told to go forth from his homeland, was confused. He was afraid and uncertain when he entered Egypt. He wanted very much to live and to be a part of this covenant with God, but he wasn't willing to trust God with his life.

There are many markers that we can use to gauge which way we are heading, some are general enough to be true for everyone, while others are very specific to an individual's circumstances. Let me suggest several markers to you this morning. They come in the form of questions.

The first one is, do you run others over or do you run with them? In other words, do you go through life so concerned about yourself and what you want that you can't see the needs and the rights of others, or do you genuinely respect and care about other people?

Are you willing to use and abuse others to get what you want? Zacchaeus did that when he collected taxes. It didn't matter to him what was right. All that he cared about was how much he could get. Abram did that with Sarai. He was afraid for his own life, and so he used and abused her to protect himself. It didn't seem to matter what she wanted, the issue was what would help him to feel safe.

A second question is, do you place your trust in God or only in yourself? One of the things that Jesus did frequently was to challenge people to trust in God instead of in the treasures of this life. He challenged them to have faith and to live that faith out each and every day, letting it be the guiding force in their lives. Abram wasn't ready to do that. It was all right while he could still hear God's voice. When God spoke to him he packed up everything and left his homeland - not an easy thing to do - but, when he got to Egypt, when God's voice was no longer right there reassuring him that everything would be okay, then he wasn't willing to still place his trust in God.

The final question is, who do you love? Are you ready to love God enough to set aside some of the things that you want? Are you willing to accept that life isn't always going to be smooth and easy, that at some points you will experience pain and even suffering? Are you willing to feel God's love not just when you think you need it, but all of the time? Are you sincerely trying to love God with all your heart and mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself?

There's a wonderful old story about an old man who was patiently stroking a cat. Now most cats love the attention, at least most of the time. It calms them and they start purring because they're so happy. The cat in this story however was definitely not purring. It was hissing, complaining loudly and pawing the pavement. You see, the old man was stroking the cat from back to front - literally rubbing it the wrong way, and as he was doing this he kept whispering over and over, "turn around cat, turn around!"

We're often like that cat - headed the wrong way. But God is there loving us and gently urging us to turn around. We're like that cat though in that we usually don't take it very well. We fuss and we scream and we insist that our way is the right way. Patiently, God continues loving us and calling us to turn around, to turn towards God, for that is where we truly belong.

Amen.