A Close Encounter with Jesus of the Best Kind

24  Pentecost, Cp26, October 30, 2016

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 Psalm 119:137-144

2 Thessalonians 1:1-5 (6-10) 11-12 Luke 19:1-10

  
Lectionary Link

Catherine:In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  You may be seated.

  Caroline, I get it that it is Halloween tomorrow, but really an ET mask?   That really is 1980's and you weren’t even born then.  Are you trying to be really retro?

Caroline: Well, Andrew, is going to a party with me and he is the UFOologist.  So he told me that he would wear thick horned rim glasses and be the scientific Geek studying extra terrestrial life.

Andrew: That's right, I am a UFOologist, strictly scientific though.

Catherine: Scientific?  What do you mean?

Andrew: I deal with just the facts.  I follow the classification system for contact with alien life.

Caroline: What is the classification system?

Andrew: There is what is called Close Encounters of the First Kind and it goes all the way to Close Encounter of Eighth Kind.

Caroline: Well, then the Movie Alien ET must have been the closest encounter of all.

Catherine: What is a close encounter of the first, second and third kind?

Andrew: First kind is a visual sighting of a UFO, an unidentified flying object...a flying saucer.  The second encounter in when animals respond or when interference occurs in radio or radar signals.  The third in when a live alien is seen.  The fourth is when a human being is abducted or kidnapped by an alien.

Caroline: Wow, all of this sounds really spooky, but scientific.

Catherine: I understand it is Halloween and so we have the ET costume and the UFO-talk, but we are giving a sermon so how can we change ET and a UFOologist  into a sermon?

Andrew: I'm glad you ask.  Today we read about the levels of encounters that the man Zacchaeus had with Jesus.

Caroline: So how would you classify  the kinds of close encounters which Zacchaeus had with Jesus?

Andrew: Well, at first Zacchaeus had a close encounter of the curious kind.

Catherine: What do you mean?

Andrew: Well, Jesus was a popular prophet and teacher who gaining many followers.  And Zacchaeus was curious about the attention which Jesus was getting.

Caroline: Why do you think Zacchaeus was curious about Jesus?

Catherine: Well, he was a tax collector.  The Roman armies controlled nation of Israel.  The Roman administration collected taxes from the Jews.  But they used Jews to collect the taxes from their own people.  Zacchaeus had to collect money from his fellow countrymen.

Caroline: So Zacchaeus was not very popular with the Jews?

Catherine: No, because tax collectors overcharged in order to make a profit.  They hung out with non-Jewish people and so they were regarded to be sinners who did not follow all the Jewish laws of purity.

Andrew: So if Zacchaeus was hated by religious people, he probably thought that he did not ever have a chance to be a faithful person who was accepted for believing in God.

Caroline: He was curious about Jesus because Jesus seemed to make friendship with all kinds of people, people who were just like him.  People who were regarded to be lost sinners by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Catherine: So if being curious about Jesus is a close encounter of the first kind for Zacchaeus, what would be a close encounter of the second kind?

Caroline: Well, Zacchaeus heard that Jesus was coming to his town, the town of Jericho.  So he went out to see him, but he could not see Jesus.  He was short man and so he could not see over the shoulders of the crowd.

Andrew: So, he climbed up a sycamore tree in order to see and hear Jesus.  When he made the effort to see and hear Jesus, he moved to a close encounter of the second kind.  But then he got a big shock.

Catherine: What do you mean?

Andrew: Well, you would really be shocked if an extra-terrestrial, an alien, began to speak with you and call to you.

Caroline: Well, Jesus noticed Zacchaeus in the tree and so he spoke to him and he told him to come down from the tree.  And he told him that he was going to come to his house.

Andrew: So Jesus went to the home of Zacchaeus.  I think this qualifies for a close encounter with Jesus of the third kind, don't you?

Catherine: Yes, it does.  Because if Jesus came to your home for some dinner and some conversation, this would be a very close encounter indeed.

Caroline: Well, I guess the close encounter with Jesus ended with a visit to the home of Zacchaeus.

Andrew: Not so fast, the close encounter become even closer.

Caroline: How so?

Andrew: Jesus got even closer to Zacchaeus.  He got under his skin.  The wonderful Spirit of Jesus went straight into the heart of Zacchaeus.

Catherine: What happened?

Andrew: Zacchaeus got hit in the heart almost like an arrow of Cupid.  He was immediately changed.

Caroline: He sure was.  He had been a greedy and dishonest tax collector and when Jesus got really close to him, he said that he would repay all of the money that he had cheated others out of and even give them more.  So when Zacchaeus had a close encounter with Jesus, it changed his relationship with his money.  Sounds like Father Phil has a good stewardship message there.

Catherine: So when the words and the Spirit of Jesus got inside of Zacchaeus and changed him into an honest and truthful person, could we call this a close encounter with Jesus of the fourth kind?

Andrew: Whether it is a close encounter of the first, second, third or fourth kind, it is a close encounter with Jesus of the best kind.

Caroline:  That's true.  How can we classify our encounters with Jesus today?

Catherine: What would a first encounter be like?

Caroline: Well, we can all know about Jesus.  We can study about him as a famous person in the history of the world.  That is a first encounter with Jesus.

Andrew: But we can go onto the second and third encounters with Jesus.

Catherine: How do we do this?

Caroline: We can read the Bible.  We can go to church.  We can pray.  We can get baptized.  We can make promises to follow the teachings of Jesus.  We can receive the bread and the wine of the Eucharist as an experience of Jesus becoming very close to us.

Andrew: But how can we become like Zacchaeus and have close encounters with Jesus of the best kind?

Caroline: I think the encounter with Jesus of the best kind is when we let the Spirit of Christ get inside of our hearts and begin to change our lives in such a profound way that we begin to love God more and we begin to love our neighbors better.  But will you excuse me now?

Andrew: Why do you need to be excused?

Caroline:  I'm getting a call.  I phoned home and this is perhaps a return call for my ride back home on an Uber space ship.

Catherine: , bye ET.....Jesus did go back to home with his Father in Heaven.  But he did leave us the Holy Spirit.

Caroline: Yes, He did.  And with the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we can still have close encounters with Jesus of the best kind.

Andrew: Yes, my friends, I wish for all of us here today an encounter with Jesus of the best kind.  Zacchaeus had his life changed by the best encounter with Jesus.  I hope that all of us can have our lives changed in this way too.  Amen.