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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] ♪ Born on board ♪ ♪ Lord, you meet my loving Savior ♪

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♪ Down by the riverside ♪ ♪ Down by the riverside ♪ ♪ Down by the riverside ♪ ♪ Lord, you meet my loving Savior ♪

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♪ Down by the riverside ♪ ♪ The heap born on board ♪ (chanting) [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] ♪ One of more ♪ ♪ And a steady one of more ♪ ♪ And a steady one of more ♪

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♪ And a steady one of more ♪ ♪ And a steady one of more ♪ [choir singing] Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Our scripture lesson is in the Gospel according to St. Luke, the 19th chapter, is the basis of our message today.

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And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press, because he was of little stature. And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said unto him, "Zacchaeus,

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make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house." And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured,

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saying that he was going to be a guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, behold Lord,

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the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him for whole. And Jesus said unto him,

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this day is salvation come to this house. to this house. For inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham, the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. The subject of the message, "When Jesus comes to our house." When Jesus comes to our house.

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This passage of scripture gives us the story of an encounter that Zacchaeus has with Jesus, And it concludes with Jesus going home with their kids. That's a rather intimate relationship to go home. I don't know how many of us today, some of us in this crowd, just encountered you after this service and say, "I'm going home with you."

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And we'd be ready for that visit. To say nothing about Jesus going home. Now just Zacchaeus, let's look a moment at his life. - Zacchaeus is a tax collector.

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This scripture calls him a publican. Some people have read this the wrong way and thought of him as the Republican. But he is a publican.

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And as a publican, he is a tax collector. He is under the supervision of Rome. And the Jewish people at this particular period of history under Roman rule.

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Rome is considered the oppressor. They require taxes. They take census from time to time, and they increase the taxes as they will.

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Zacchaeus is a Jew, but he is a tax collector for Rome, and he gives a certain fee to Rome for the privilege of collecting taxes in his district.

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Then in turn, he is at liberty to charge whatever fee, whatever taxes he wishes to charge and keep that for himself. He puts that in his pocket. So he was rightly called the chief of sinners.

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He was not just an ordinary sinner. He was chief of sinners. And he had amassed considerable wealth in a fraudulent manner.

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We know how we feel. I think it's Mark Rich who amassed a fortune in the commodities market. And we want to see him punished.

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We don't want to see him go free. Many people don't because of that. In the New York Times today, there is to be an article about a boy

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who made a fortune wrongfully in the market. So here's a man who makes a fortune. And just like it is today, people in that day didn't like him. His own countrymen did not like him because he was taking advantage of them.

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And he was doing it by working with the oppressor. Rome was the oppressor at one level and here is Achaeus the oppressor at another level. So, in spite of all this, Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus. So there is something good about this man.

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There's a yearning in his heart. He wants to see, oh he's heard about him. No doubt he has been near places where Jesus was. But now Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He's on his way to Calvary and he comes

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through Jericho. Crowds are assembled because the word is circulated far near that Jesus is coming to die. And so Zacchaeus goes and is in the crowd, but he's a short statue. He's a little man, powerful but little. And many people are like that, powerful and little. And he discovered that in the midst of this crowd, he is too short of stature to see Jesus.

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Others are all around him. Many times we can't see Jesus for the crowd. crowd assembles. And so Zacchaeus sees a tree, a sycamore tree, and he hastens to climb the sycamore tree. Some say he took the bark off of the tree, making his climb. And he is at this tree, and out on the limb,

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where he can see a seat in the tree. A lot of people like to have a seat somewhere in the tree where they're covered by the leaves and the like. They can't see, but they can see what's happening. Some people who come to church, they want to sit in the balcony.

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They know there's plenty of room downstairs, but they want to be in the balcony. Or where they can be casual observers rather than meaningful participants. Seek in the tree. Seek in the tree.

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Where we sit in, seek in the tree. But Jesus comes that way. And as he comes, he comes to the very place where that is. looks up in the tree and says, "Zacchaeus, come down,

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for I'm going to your house today." We used to sing a little song when I was working with youth. They'd say, "Zacchaeus, come down. I'm going to your house today.

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I'm going to your house to stay." Another part of it is that kid was a wee little man. A wee little man was he, climbed up in the sickle mower. Jesus tells him he's going

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to his house to stay. To stay. Well, he was there

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in the tree, but now he receives a word from Jesus that he's going home with him. Going home. We don't know what sort of family Zacchaeus has, but Jesus invites invites himself home to spend time, to stay with Zacchaeus. He invites himself to the family. And I thought as we celebrate this Liberation Day Sunday, it would be a good

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I think the focus for a few moments on the black family, black family. Family is the primary institution. And I looked at a publication that is about,

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I guess over 30 years old, closer to 40, put out by the Labor Department of the United States, of time ago, the Negro family, in which they talked about our family. Why is the family the way it is? So many dysfunctional families. So many children born out of wedlock. So much

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crime in the black community. Oh sure, we've got good families. In fact, the article goes on to point out that one half of us are middle class.

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So we can say we put ourselves in that half. But the other half, not middle class. And the problems are worse with that other half than they have ever been before in our history.

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Problems, word. They say the problems, some of the problems of the family because so many of our families have absentee fathers.

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And so many of our families have matriarchal families, families that are ruled by women. And I can understand the argument there because we live in a somewhat patriarchal society.

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So we say if the family isn't ruled by a man, then it isn't gonna be a good family. And they, but as they move on, the main thing they point out that I want to lift up

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is they said that the roots of the problem, the roots of the problem, slavery. Now some of us would like to forget it. And we are so sophisticated

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that we don't want to ever remember that we were once slaves. But as we celebrate liberation Sunday, we ought to remember.

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You read over and over again in the Old Testament that as God speaks to his people saying, you were once slaves in Egypt. Slaves, slaves.

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And we ought not ever forget that. Jewish people don't forget it. they consider that an essential part of their history. And in a sense, we've had the Holocaust.

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And they don't let us forget that. And I don't blame them. And we ought not let the nation forget that we were once slaves in Egypt.

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But the statement that was made in the report that sort of gripped me, it was a confession that black people had come so far, African Americans had come so far,

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that no other people in the world have made such rapid strides under such adverse circumstances. And most people who have encountered

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the kind of circumstances that we've encountered have been wiped off the face of the earth. And somehow we are still here. The family, with all of the problems that we've encountered,

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The family with its brokenness, the family with its pain, the family is still here. Indians, once they're almost gone.

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Every now and then, we see an Indian. But we have grown in numbers, and we have prospered by the grace of God, and we have much to celebrate.

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celebrate as a family. So Jesus goes home. And if many of the problems that trouble us as a family today are to be solved, it's necessary for Jesus to go home with us.

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some years ago I preached a series of sermons on religion in a five room cottage and I went into the living room the bathroom, the nursery

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and into the bedroom with Jesus in all of these rooms and we needed him We need him in the bathroom, so we'll be clean.

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Cleanse our minds, cleanse our hearts. We need him in the living room where we do our socializing. And we need him in the bedroom where we have our most intimate relationships

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and our sexuality. We need him. We need him in the nursery. We're rearing our children, and over and over again,

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I look through TV and I see parents who have little children, five, six years old, they can't control them. I can't do anything with them.

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And we need him there, and he goes home with that kids. - Yes. - He goes home.

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And when he goes home with Zacchaeus, there's a radical, radical change in the life of Zacchaeus because the master goes home with him. He doesn't force him to do anything.

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He says, "Lord!" He confesses. "Lord!" And volunteers, "If I have taken anything from you,

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A half, he's possibly a multimillionaire according to the standards of that day, but he said a half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have fraudulently taken anything from any person,

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I will return it fourfold. - Yes, yes. - Four times. Now that brings me to another subject as the focus of this message.

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That is what we call reparations. Would you say that after me? Reparations? Reparations.

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Most people don't know what that means. They don't know what reparations are. Reparations. And there's some who know what it means have been brainwashed.

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In other words, reparations has to do with something that somebody has taken from you, and they need to give it back to you. They need to pay you back.

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That's what he's doing. He's already taken it. And he's talking about paying it back, reparations. Now, we can't begin

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to talk about what has been taken from us. as a people. Our history has been taken from us. Oh yes. Our history. We don't know our history.

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We're still delving. We're trying to go back. We had a glorious period back in Africa and they took it and tried to bury it. And we've had historians working and laboring to restore

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to get back what we may consider our stolen legacy. Stolen legacy. Jacque has stolen from his own people. And he said he had returned how many times?

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Fourfold. Half he's gonna give to the poor and he's gonna restore the other four. Now we were promised 40 acres and a mule.

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That's what we were promised. And we are still waiting on those 40 acres And maybe you got yours, but I'm still waiting for the 40 acres. I don't know what I'd do with the mule, but I'm still waiting for the 40 acres of mules.

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[laughter] 40 acres of mules. Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, head of the Justice Commission of Congress, has been submitting this bill to Congress for a number of years. He hasn't been able to get it out of committee that we ought to receive reparations.

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We ought to receive reparations. The reason we're so far behind is so much has been taken from us for so long, for so many years, hundreds of years, two centuries and more, taken away from us.

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And he hasn't been able to get it out of the committee. We're still waiting. I remember when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And our nation uprooted all of the Japanese

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that belonged to Western Coast because they thought it would be a danger to our security. Y'all remember that? I thought it was wrong then, I was in college.

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I thought it was wrong to do that. They were American citizens. But just because they were Japanese ancestors, we had gone to war with Japan, we uprooted them

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and put them in concentration camps and the like. But we've given them reparations. I read sometime ago that we're gonna give them, it's been sometime ago, $25,000 to each one.

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Not much money, but that's something. Now the Jewish people who went through the Holocaust, and they were so maltreated by the Germans, have received reparations from the Germans.

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Why is it such a foolish idea when it comes to black folk? So if you all know, please tell me. Here it is, here it is, here it is in scripture

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that when Zacchaeus met Jesus, and Jesus went home with him, he was willing to pay reparations. And somehow, I believe in my heart

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that as time goes on, this is an issue that is going to be more and more on the front burner. We may be gone and not be able to see it, but in spite of all of this, we as a people, and this again is in the labor report, have distinguished ourselves by our patience and by our contributions, not only to this

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society but to the world. Because basically we have, as a people, have had deep religious experience and that we have encountered this Jesus in our lives. One author calls it the Jesus bag that black folk have. Jesus, this Jesus, well that's what brought us where we are. Over and over again I can hear our ancestors, my

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my grandmother and the like, things will be going this way in the wrong manner. I said, "Well, leave it to the Lord. He's going to work it out. And He is going to work it out. Zacchaeus goes home and he works it out!" Zacchaeus' life is changing. And we are here today because somehow, somewhere,

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along life's way, we encountered Jesus. And he went home with us. - Yes Lord. - And as a wonderful change that occurs in our life

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because Jesus goes home with us. - Yes. - Woman looked at her house and it was all disarranged this way and that way,

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and she brought in a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and she put it in the living room, and she looked, and she said, "I've got to clean up this room."

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- Yes, Lord. - Because of these flowers, they changed the appearance of everything, and caused her to clean up.

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And then she cleaned up that living room, then she said, she looked at the next room, said, "I've got to clean this one up." - Yes.

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- And she cleaned it up, and on, and on, until she had cleaned up the entire house. When Jesus comes, he cleans house. He changes us, he changes our hearts,

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he changes our thinking, he changes our way of acting, he changes our way of, oh, since Jesus, since Jesus. Since Jesus came into my heart, I have joy in my soul, which long I have sought,

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since Jesus came into my heart. Since Jesus came into my heart. Since Jesus came into my heart, I have joy, joy, joy in my soul, like the sea billows rolling.

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came into my heart. So when all of the celebration is over, how wonderful it is if we take Jesus home with us. All of the pomp and splendor is over.

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Take Jesus home with us. As we sing now the hymn of invitation, extend the privilege of the church. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.

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The door of the church is open. You may come by letter, by Christian experience, or on professional faith. [MUSIC PLAYING] The door of the church is open.

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May come, caring for baptism, a profession of faith, by letter, restoration, come. (soft piano music) ♪ Lord I want to be a Christian ♪

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♪ In my home, in my home ♪ ♪ Lord I want to be a Christian ♪ ♪ In my home, in my home ♪ ♪ In my home, in my home ♪

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Lord, I want to be a Christian in my home. Lord, I want to be more loving in my home, in my home. Lord, I want to be more loving in my home, in my home, in my home. Oh, in my home.

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♪ Lord, I want to be like Jesus ♪ ♪ In my home ♪ ♪ Lord, I want to be like Jesus ♪ ♪ In my home, in my home ♪

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♪ Would I want to be like Jesus ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ Oh, in my heart ♪

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♪ Lord I want to be like Jesus ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ - Those persons who stood celebrating birthdays this week, would you come now to the rear of the sanctuary?

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Would you rise and come with me to the rear of the sanctuary of everyone who stood celebrating a birthday this week? [BLANK_AUDIO]