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The Illusion of Separateness

The Illusion of Separateness

Last updated on: October 25, 2026 at 2:01 pm by Rob Giannamore

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The Illusion of Separateness 2026-10-25T14:01:55-04:00 Rob Giannamore

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Miller’s Station UMC| 25 October 2026| Anchor Verse: Luke 19: 1-10

Thomas Merton and the Grace of Belonging

Thomas Merton was a Catholic priest and teacher who reminds us that all people are connected. In 1958 in Louisville, Merton, while observing the people around him, had a God moment when he realized how connected he was to the people around him. He would later write of this incident saying:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Now, it is easy today to to look around at the world and feel like there are many things to divide us. Too often, the voices on CNN, Fox, MSN, or whatever channel you get your news from is pushing the agenda of who belongs and who does not, whom to trust and whom to fear. If we lean too far into this, we will begin to see people as labels rather than neighbors.

Merton’s experience invites us to see the people around us with new eyes. They are more than strangers passing by. Like us, they carry fears and hopes, joys and struggles. When we remember that each person is loved by God and bears God’s image, the distance between “us” and “them” begins to disappear and we begin to see not strangers, but neighbors.

Today, we are going to look at Zacchaeus, and here, Jesus sees him as Jesus sees all people, as someone who shares his fears, his hopes, his joys and his struggles. Jesus sees us like he sees Zacchaeus – people who beneath our mistakes is someone worthy of being known, welcomed and restored.

I challenge you to walk away from this message willing to slow down, look around and recognize that the people around us are not much different that we imagine. We all need grace. We all long to be seen. And in Christ, we all have a place to belong.

How We Miss the Mark

When many of us hear the word sin, we may immediately think of breaking a rule and facing punishment. But in the Jewish tradition—the tradition that shaped Jesus—sin is often described as “missing the mark.” Most often you will see the allusion of an arrow aimed at a target: sometimes our choices fly off course. We all fly off course – we fail to love God, our neighbors, or even ourselves as we should.

This failure though does not mean the harm is unimportant. Missing the mark can wound people, damage trust, and separate us from one another. But it does mean that our worst choice is not the whole truth about who we are. We can do wrong without becoming worthless. The light of God within us may be covered, but it is not extinguished.

Repentance is about more than feeling guilty or ashamed. Shame says, “You are your worst mistake.” Grace says, “You have missed the mark, but God is not finished with you.” Repentance invites us to turn around, realign our lives with God, and repair the harm we have caused, and begin again. – Amen

We all know what it is to miss the mark. We have spoken words we wish we could take back, ignored someone who needed us, or allowed fear and anger to guide us. The good news though is that God’s mercy meets us in our mistakes.

That is the lens I want us to carry into the story of Zacchaeus. The crowd saw a sinner and an outsider. Jesus saw a person who had lost his way but was still worthy of being seen, welcomed, and called home. And perhaps Jesus looks at us in much the same way.

Zaacheus: Seen, Welcomed, and Changed

In the grand scheme of things, Zacchaeus was not a well-loved man in his community. He collected money from his own people and worked with the Romans who occupied their land. As a tax collector, a collaborator and a cheat, Zacchaeus represented everything that was wrong with society and his community had decided who he was, they laid the judgement on strong.

As a therapist, I can see what Zacchaeus is doing. It is for me one of those humor points in the Gospels. We often sing about Zacchaeus as a man of great faith, but I wonder if something more complicated was happening. I think he was a curious man. I think the guilt and shame of what he had done to his community began to weigh on him. And I think that he felt that there was something so raw, so true, and so irresistible about Jesus that Zacchaeus simply had to see him for himself. In a poor bid for attention, he climbs a tree and made a spectacle of himself. While not polished faith, it was a small and imperfect enough to show us that sometimes these little exaggerated reaches are enough for grace to meet us.

We have all met the kind of person Zacchaeus might have been – loud, brash, braggadocios, annoying. But what does Jesus do with him? Calls him by name. Not the English name assigned in the bible, but the cultural name that has a deeper meaning like all names in the Middle East. In Zacchaeus’s case, “pure” or “innocent,” which stands in sharp contrast to his reputation. The crowd names him by his failures, but Jesus calls him by the deeper truth of who he can still become.

I believe that same truth lives within every one of us. Beneath our self-centered choices and mistaken ways, there remains a wholeness and goodness held by the grace of God. When we allow the grace of God to to guide our actions, we are not saying that no harm was done. Instead, we are understanding that the harm does not have to be the end of our story. Once we establish this understanding and receive it in our hearts, our sense of separation from God and others begins to melt away. In this realization, we understand that we not only hold the image of Christ within ourselves, but also those around us hold that same image. Amen?

This is what makes the story of Zacchaeus so remarkable: it shows us that grace can move us beyond the way the world usually works. So much of life feels like “tit for tat.” If you hurt me, I hurt you. If I win, you must lose. Richard Rohr calls this “Empire Thinking”—a way of seeing life from the top down, where the goal is to protect our position, prove that we are right, and make sure our side comes out ahead. Up to the point Zacchaeus climbed that tree, that was his mindset as well.

If we are honest, we all fall into that kind of thinking. Our American landscape has been dominated by it in the last ten years. We see it in politics, in churches, in families, and even in ourselves. We divide people into winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, the good people and the bad people. And once we have placed someone on the wrong side, it becomes easy to believe they deserve whatever happens to them.

But Jesus refuses to play that game and we should take notice. He does not need Zacchaeus to lose so that the crowd can feel righteous. He does not shame him, humiliate him, or treat him as disposable. Jesus offers him relationship. He goes to his home, shares his table, and reminds everyone that Zacchaeus is still a son of Abraham—still part of the family of God.

Friends, here is the beauty of grace -T grace does not create winners and losers, ignore wrongdoing, or erase responsibility. It opens the door to healing. Zacchaeus does more than say he is sorry: he makes amends, gives generously, and repays what he has taken. That is restorative justice—not asking how someone can be punished, but how harm can be repaired and people made whole.

Jesus offers Zacchaeus, us and those around us grace before anything is figured out. That grace does not excuse us; it transforms us, freeing us to face the truth, repair the damage, and return to his community changed. This my friends is the Gospel truth worth sharing.

So I want us to ask ourselves: Who have we already reduced to a label? Who do our churches overlook because of their reputation, their past, their politics, their poverty, or their pain? And what might happen if we welcomed them as Jesus welcomed Zacchaeus?

From Seperation to Belonging

To close and summarize, Jesus shows us that belonging can open the door to transformation. He sees us before we have cleaned ourselves up. He calls us by name before we have made everything right. Then, having been seen and welcomed, we are invited to change—to move from separation to belonging, from guilt to repair, and from judgment to grace.

As we journey through the word over the next couple of weeks, I challenge you to consider how Jesus’ extension of grace is seen in those who offer us the future and sell us goods and experiences that will make our lives better? Remember from last week, we must continue to ask what fruits are being brought to harvest by our prophets? Amen.

Benediction

May God bless you with the courage and the wisdom to respond to division, confusion, injustice, and hardship as imitators of Christ and agents of divine love as we work for the well-being and flourishing of all God’s creation today and every day.

May you go – May you be happy, may you be healthy and may you be at ease in all your travels this week, Amen.

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