{"id":11020,"date":"2025-11-03T12:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=11020"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:23:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:23:02","slug":"zacchaeus-im-coming-to-your-house-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=11020","title":{"rendered":"\u201cZacchaeus, I\u2019m coming to your house today.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Select here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke 19:1-10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the end of the Pentecost Season<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last weekend the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. Two great teams, extra innings. It was quite a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading up to Game 7, there was some talk about good luck charms and rituals that various players on both teams had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Dodger\u2019s Japanese pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, has an interpreter with an unusual good luck charm. Keep in mind, we\u2019re talking about the pitcher\u2019s interpreter, not the pitcher himself. On the days when Yamamoto pitches for the Dodgers, his interpreter always wears special boxers featuring a rabbit shooting lasers from his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of sports figures have good luck charms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The famous Wade Boggs, long time third baseman for the Boston Red Socks, nicknamed \u201cChicken Man,\u201d ate chicken before every game and wrote the Hebrew word \u201cChai\u201d (meaning life) in the dirt before batting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some players have luck socks or special jewelry they wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, pre-game rituals and good luck charms aren\u2019t just superstition. They can help athletes feel more in control, reduce anxiety, and boost confidence. It\u2019s about having the right mindset, as well as tipping the scales of the universe in one\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there are jinxes, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s the famous Curse of the Bambino, which began in 1919 when the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. After that, the Red Sox failed to win a World Series for 86 years<\/em>, finally breaking the curse in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s the jinx of being on the cover of Sports Illustrated<\/em>. Athletes or teams featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated<\/em> have sometimes suffered poor performance or injury afterward and that\u2019s led to thinking it\u2019s a jinx to be on the cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just players who engage in these rituals and charms; it\u2019s sports fans, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was an avid baseball fan who thought he was a jinx to his favorite team. He said: \u201cThe only way they win is if I don\u2019t watch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good luck charms and jinxes. We think there must be some way we can influence what happens, something we can do to get a leg up in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carry a lucky coin. Tie your shoes in a certain way. Don\u2019t walk under a ladder. Step on a crack, break your mother\u2019s back. We\u2019re tempted to see if there\u2019s some way of having things work out the way we want them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know the famous magician Houdini. His mother died in 1913. They had been very close. After her death he tried to contact her through several mediums. But he quickly realized that mediums were using tricks he recognized from his own life in magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling betrayed, he spent the last ten years of his life exposing the scams of fortune tellers, clairvoyants, spiritualists, and mediums. He called them \u201cghost racketeers.\u201d He even testified for four days before the US Congress. He set up demonstrations for the congressmen, showing how mediums used tricks to deceive grieving families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people are tempted by psychics and other such phenomena, like mental telepathy and mind reading. At Rhine Research Center in North Carolina scientists set out to prove that mental telepathy is real and that it works, but their experiments trying to show this failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there were only some way to manipulate the universe!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we approach the end of the church year, we think of all the ways that people try to get a leg up in the universe, to figure things out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We remember, too, how the Seventh Day Adventists came to be. Back in 1844 William Miller, a Baptist preacher, gained tens of thousands of followers by preaching about the end times. Based on his reading of the Books of Daniel and Revelation, he predicted that the end of the world would come in October 1844. Thousands of people put on white robes, gathered in open fields and on hilltops, singing hymns and looking at the sky, waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, but nothing happened. It became what they called The Great Disappointment. Their leaders said: God has changed his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you study the Book of Revelation, at first it may seem fascinating, but it soon becomes boring. All those symbols and numbers have lost their significance over the centuries, and it\u2019s been shown that those symbols and numbers are also found in the ancient Hindu writings called the Vedas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human being, both ancient and modern, is bent toward superstition, trying to know and control the way things go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mark 13:32 says: \u201cBut of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same is true with prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much of prayer is: \u201cIf I use the right words, or more words, or if I spend more time in prayer, or if I join a prayer chain and get more people with me, if I pray more seriously and earnestly, then prayer will work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we are reminded about that little man, Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector and very rich. Because he wasn\u2019t tall, he had to climb high in a sycamore tree to see Jesus when he passed that way. And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and saw Zacchaeus and said to him: \u201cCome down, Zacchaeus, for I\u2019m coming to your house today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Zacchaeus answered: \u201cHalf of what I have I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I\u2019ll pay it back fourfold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that it wasn\u2019t that Zacchaeus had shouted down to Jesus and said, \u201cLord, if you come to my house, then I\u2019ll give half of what I have to the poor and pay back fourfold anyone whom have defrauded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t that Zacchaeus persuaded the Lord to come to his house, and then he would do this. Rather, the Lord simply said to him: \u201cZacchaeus, I\u2019m coming to your house today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some years ago, a layman said to his pastor: \u201cI have prayed to the Lord that such and such would happen, and if it does, I\u2019m going to give a big gift to the congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of weeks later the pastor got a large check from this fellow. The pastor sighed and said: \u201cThis isn\u2019t right; this is trying to bribe the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the bribe comes first: \u201cLord, I\u2019ve been good. It wasn\u2019t easy, but I have been. Now, please Lord, please make this other thing work out for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes the bribe comes second: \u201cLord, if you get me out of this jam, then I\u2019ll change my ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does the Lord work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It says in Matt 5:45: \u201cHe makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.\u201d That\u2019s not our way of running the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it also says in Isaiah 55:8-9: \u201c\u2018For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,\u2019 says the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think we could do it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job lost everything, yet said: \u201cI know that my Redeemer lives.\u201d (Job 19:25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Matthew 6:26, it says: \u201cLook at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or Romans 8:32: \u201cHe who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all [good] things with him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is Lord. You can rest in \u201cthe everlasting arms\u201d (Deuteronomy 33:27). He\u2019s taking care of things far beyond all that we ask or think. His judgments are true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole point of it is we can trust the Lord. We can let God be God. And all the talk about good luck and jinxes and whatever else we do to manipulate the universe is a temptation to get away from letting him be Lord. He is Lord, and beside him there is no other. He is our hope and confidence. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 19:1-10<\/p>\n

A Sermon for the end of the Pentecost Season<\/p>\n

Last weekend the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. Two great teams, extra innings. It was quite a game.<\/p>\n

Leading up to Game 7, there was some talk about good luck charms and rituals that various players on both teams had.<\/p>\n

For example, the Dodger\u2019s Japanese pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, has an interpreter with an unusual good luck charm. Keep in mind, we\u2019re talking about the pitcher\u2019s interpreter, not the pitcher himself. On the days when Yamamoto pitches for the Dodgers, his interpreter always wears special boxers featuring a rabbit shooting lasers from his eyes.<\/p>\n

A lot of sports figures have good luck charms.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a> for a pdf version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11020"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11029,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions\/11029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}