Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! That is where I wanted to begin today – with thanks and gratitude. I am thankful today – first, for being together. Thank you for saying “Yes” to the Vision of the New Creation so that we can continue this journey together in discovering how God is calling us to love and serve God and our neighbor. Thank you for showing up! Showing up is an important part of your response to God’s incredible gift of love and grace and mercy embodied in our Savior Jesus.
Zacchaeus showed up. He wanted to see Jesus. But he was short. I can relate. It’s frustrating to be at a concert or a play and all you can see is the back of the people in front of you. I shouldn’t complain because I’ve also noticed that tall people are often very aware that people can’t see around them and if they see me trying to peak around them, they often will move a little or if we are standing, they will let me stand in front of them because they can just look over my head. Luckily, at church, there are always plenty of seats up front.
But Zacchaeus had another problem besides being short. He was a tax collector and people did not like tax collectors. So, people weren’t moving aside to let him see. They may have even been intentionally blocking his view. We don’t know his back story. Did he deserve his bad reputation? Maybe. Maybe not. We only know that he wanted to see Jesus. In those days, “looking respectable” was incredibly important. Men did not show their ankles. But Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus so much that he climbed a tree – I’m sure he didn’t look very “respectable”. Although - maybe he was so used to feeling invisible in crowds that he thought no one would notice.
But Jesus noticed. Jesus sees him; calls him by name; and invites himself to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. Everyone would have been surprised. Rabbis normally shunned tax collectors – and they certainly did not eat with them. That was the ultimate honor. But Jesus didn’t divide up people based on their status or money or fame but he ate with all kinds of people – from tax collectors to Pharisees, sinners, Sadduccees, prostitutes, fishermen and…everyone else.
For his part, Zacchaeus was so overwhelmed with gratitude for being seen, called and invited that he immediately responded with generosity. He gave ½ of all that he had to the poor; he offered repayment for anyone that he had wronged – and not just a shekel for a shekel, but 4X what they thought he had wronged them. Just being seen, called and invited to the table transformed Zacchaeus. In his gratitude, he became generous, instead of collecting money from the poor, he was giving to the poor and paying an extravagant amount of restitution to those he had wronged. Again, Jesus notices and restores Zacchaeus to his community saying, “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.”
Did you notice the giving and gratitude loop that Jesus creates?
Jesus gave to Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus responded with gratitude by giving to others. In response to Zacchaeus’ generosity, Jesus proclaims him a son of Abraham, and in doing so, Jesus is repairing the breach between Zacchaeus and the community so that they too can join the giving and gratitude loop and proclaim: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”
The giving and gratitude loop begins with God. As Paul writes, “ God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.” In response, you could just say, “Thank you” and enjoy God’s gifts all by yourself.
But the Holy Spirit is calling us to do more than simply enjoy God’s gifts all by ourselves. God calls us into community. As Paul writes, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that, - these two little words are important -- so that, by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” In other words, God’s purpose for us is to be a part of the giving and gratitude loop for it blesses us as we care for our neighbor so that they can join with us in proclaiming, Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
The challenge for us is that trusting in God isn’t always easy. If you only have a few seeds in your pocket, it takes a lot of faith to not just take them home and feed them to your hungry kids instead of throwing them into the ground and trusting that God will provide the water and the sun to make them grow and flourish. But that is the only way for those seeds to produce more fruit. And yet, we are tempted to hold on to those precious seeds rather than release them and let them grow.
A few years ago, I took a class from Rev. Susan Beaumont at Luther Seminary. She said that when she first joined the pastoral staff at a large congregation in Pennsylvania, she was told the story of Ada Mae, the matriarch of congregation. As the story goes, early in the church’s history, the church had fallen on hard times – the attendance dwindled and they couldn’t even afford a pastor. But one of the older members, Ada Mae, every Sunday, faithfully lit the candles in the sanctuary and every year she filed the paperwork so that they could stay open as a congregation. The congregation loved this story. They told the story when celebrating their anniversary. They told the story to new members. Everyone knew about Ada Mae and how she lit the candles and filed the paperwork until the church grew again. It’s a sweet story of faith and resilience.
But Susan wondered: Well… how did the church grow again? What happened? She asked the pastor. He didn’t know. She asked the council. They didn’t know. She asked some long-time members. They didn’t know either. The only story that they seemed to know about their past was that Ada Mae faithfully lit the candles and filed the paperwork until the church grew again.
Susan then asked the office volunteers if they could check the archives to find out what happened. How did the church start to grow again? So, the volunteers searched in their closet and found records from over a hundred years ago, the time of Ada Mae. It turns out that something else did happen. One year, Ada Mae and the handful of faithful members of the church that were left, decided that they needed a pastor if they were going to grow. So they prayed. They did Bible study together. They prayed so more. And then, that prayer and Bible study led Ada Mae – and this group of faithful members to give sacrificially until they had enough money saved so that they could hire a pastor. And then he joined them in praying and Bible study and giving sacrificially. And then… they went out into their neighborhood and invited people to worship.
The Holy Spirit was clearly at work. Ada Mae, this faithful group of worshippers and their pastor were responding to God’s call to pray, to study, to give and to invite. Out of the faith that God had given them, they were sowing seeds. And Ada Mae was still lighting the candles. Everyone assumed that this was the end of the story. But it isn’t.
They were doing everything “right”. They were praying, studying the Bible, giving sacrificially for the sake of the ministry, and inviting others. But the church still wasn’t growing. And so, they prayed some more.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit works in surprising and completely unexpected ways. That certainly was the case for Zacchaeus when he climbed a tree to see Jesus. Jesus gave Zacchaeus the gift of seeing him, calling him by name and inviting himself to dinner. That began the giving and gratitude loop that restored him to his community.
God also saw Ada Mae and her church friends and heard their prayers… but not only their prayers. For what the volunteers found when they looked back in the records, was that Ada Mae – who had spent a great deal of her life lighting the candles and filing paperwork because she loved her church - led the charge to sell the building and join together with another congregation who was also praying. And together, they proclaimed: Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, let us join God’s giving and gratitude loop, responding with gratitude for all of the gifts God has given us and generously sharing the gifts that we have received so that, together, we too can join in proclaiming, Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! Amen.
November 8, 2026 Pastor Pam Stalheim Lane