Preaching at St Mary’s Church Rufford for the first time since being Authorised as a Lay Minster Geoff Lyon posed the question: “Do you give off the fragrance of Christ ?” 

Read his sermon in full :

What’s that sweet smell in this hot Palestinian air? It’s the scent wafting from the great palm forest and the famous balsam groves which surround us here in Jericho, “The City of Palms”. Dotted with rose gardens, this is such a lovely place.

And an important place strategically. Here in the Jordan valley Jericho commands the approach to the river crossings to the lands to the east, and controls the approach to Jerusalem, about seventeen miles away. They say that’s where Yeshua is heading.

It’s a hard pull from here up to Jerusalem and a rocky, dangerous road. Tag along with a protected rich man or an army group if you go that way, otherwise you are liable to be robbed and beaten, and no-one’s likely to risk stopping and helping you – not even a passing priest.

Jericho here is an important place economically, for the Roman occupiers trade our dates and balsam via their new-fangled roads and then by sea far and wide through the empire. So it’s hardly surprising that Jericho is one of the greatest taxation centres in Palestine.

No wonder the tax collectors are all hated. None of us likes paying tax, especially not to fund the ruling Romans and especially not to the Romans’ lackeys – some of our own people, who make a nice living for themselves by fleecing us.

It’s a crooked system. The Romans farm out the taxes. They assess a district at a certain figure, then sell the right to collect the taxes to the highest bidder. So long as the winner gives the Romans the assessed figure at the end of the year he is entitled to keep whatever extra he can squeeze out of us taxpayers – and we have no way of knowing what we should really be paying. If we can’t pay, the tax-collectors lend us the money at extortionate rates so that they get us even more firmly in their clutches. No wonder we rank them with robbers and murderers and bar them from the synagogues. They are rapacious traitors.

And the chief tax collector round here is little Zacchaeus. He is great in wealth, but small in stature, which is handy for us tax-payers when he comes out and about by himself. When the streets are crowded like today it is only too easy for us to “accidentally” knock him or kick him. I managed to get a good sharp elbow right into his ribs myself this morning… You seem to disapprove, but everyone was doing it and I bet you would have joined in too. It’s always difficult not to join in with the crowd, don’t you find?

And why were we all out? Because Yeshua is passing through town. We have been hearing about him for a couple of years, but he arrived in Jericho yesterday. Even at the entrance to the city he had been stopped by a blind beggar, who heard the crowd and commotion, and called out to Yeshua for mercy, just as if he were petitioning Yahweh Himself. The crowd told him to shut up, but he called out all the more, and Yeshua came over to him.  “Receive your sight, your faith has healed you” he told him and the beggar was cured just like that! No wonder we were all out on the streets to see what would happen today.

And what did happen was also remarkable and, quite shockingly to most of us who were there, focused on Zacchaeus. He, like the rest of us, wanted to get a glimpse of the famous Yeshua. It might have been because we had already knocked Zacchaeus about a bit, or it might have been just because he is so short, but he dodged round the back of the crowd and climbed a tree further up the main street. Even he could climb a sycamore-fig tree, with its short but sturdy trunk and spreading branches.

The very moment Yeshua got to him, he told Zacchaeus to come down because he was inviting himself to stay at Zacchaeus’ house – the house of a ‘sinner’, can you believe it? That didn’t go down well with us in the crowd, as you can imagine, but apparently Yeshua has done this sort of thing with tax-collectors before. In fact he has a reputation for saying and doing provocative things. He’d better watch himself when he gets to Jerusalem – if he doesn’t he could get into real trouble there, especially with the festival coming up.

Anyway, just as amazing as Yeshua’s words was Zacchaeus’ response. Talk about changed! He was like a new man. He stood up and declared that he was giving half his possessions to the poor and paying back to those of us whom he had cheated even more than what the law said he ought to pay back.

Well, I was very pleased about that, as you can imagine. But Yeshua has left me with a challenge. Am I (and the rest of us) really to welcome Zacchaeus, whom we have hated for so long, into the synagogue? For Yeshua called this new man “saved” and “a son of Abraham” – that is a true Jew, not just descended from Abraham but one who walks the walk in the footsteps of Abraham’s faith. Zacchaeus in the synagogue? That’s a tough one to mull over in the scented evening air of Jericho…..

Now we leave ancient Jericho for the somewhat cooler climes of modern Rufford and ask, what lessons can we learn from little Zacchaeus?’ You probably expect me to offer you three points. I shall oblige!

Firstly, don’t let other people come between you and Jesus. The crowd came between Zacchaeus and Jesus. It is always easier to follow the crowd than to walk with Christ. We must “enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”. Are we with the crowd – the many – or with Jesus? Don’t let other people come between you and Jesus – and that includes individuals too, even our own family members – for “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, (says Jesus) will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life”.

Secondly, don’t let money come between you and Jesus. Zacchaeus realised that wealth does not bring true joy – only a right relationship with God and therefore with man does that. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Whether we are rich like Zacchaeus or poor like the widow with her mite, we have to keep checking that we have the right attitude to money. One’s treasure and one’s heart are always found together – and that is a discomforting challenge to many of us. Mammon or Jesus – whom do I really serve?

Thirdly, give off the fragrance of Jesus. In 2 Corinthians Paul uses the lovely image of Christians giving off the fragrance of Christ as they walk the walk by walking in his way. Such fragrance and such walking cannot go unnoticed, not least because it is marked by repenting of sins and doing good works, as with Zacchaeus. Everyone could see Zacchaeus was a new man in Jesus, it was obvious from his lifestyle and his good works. He did not just talk the talk, he walked the walk. The impact of Jesus on him was obvious. How about me? How about you?

To recap –

Never let other people come between you and Jesus.

Never let money come between you and Jesus.

Finally, live so that people ask “What’s that sweet smell in this cold Lancashire air?” and the answer is… “It’s Christians giving off the fragrance of Christ.”