I had a friend once.
A tall willow of a man and he wrote a little poem called upside downside.
‘Don’t worry mum the worlds in a spin its an upside downside thing we’re in.’
Just a little poem, just a few words.
But I’ve always thought how relevant they are to followers of the gospel.

To followers of Christ.
Because Jesus was constantly tipping the world they knew,
the world we know,
constantly tipping it upside down
and sending us
into a spin.

You think about all the great stories inside the gospel,
all the stories which really stand out as seminal texts which hold within them
the essence of this tradition and they are all about conversion,
about turning, about spinning, about subversion, about radical transformation.
‘Don’t worry mum the worlds in a spin its an upside downside thing we’re in’
Take Zacchaeus, the tax collector, in today’s story.
Take Zacchaeus, the traitor, the little man who’s working for the Romans,
collecting his own peoples money and getting rich in the process.

Take Zacchaeus who feels a movement in his heart
which causes him to not only climb a tree, so that he can see,
see this Christ of whom folk have spoken,
but to then welcome this Christ into his home
and to offer half his possessions to the poor
and resistution to those he has cheated
as a sign of his transformation
Zacchaeus’s world has been tipped upside down, complexly unexpectedly.
He finds himself in a spin.

Has this ever happened to you?
Have you ever felt a strange stirring in your heart?
A soft whisper in your spirit?
A fiery spinning in your guts which has caused you to do something
that you would never have consciously imagined
that you would ever do?
Like climb a tree or quit a job or protest in the street or propose a marriage or say yes to God?
What was it like?
Can you still feel the energy of that moment surging in your heart?
We are about to enter into a moment of decision making about the future of our country. We are about to go to the vote.

The Uniting Church synod has prepared some material to stimulate reflection amongst us as individuals and as faith communities as we travel towards this pivotal time. They ask us to recognise that:
‘Like all citizens in a democratic state, Christians have a responsibility to actively
engage in the political processes of their country,
but that as Christians, however,
we have a particular responsibility both to bring hope to those processes and to seek hope as an outcome.’
The Synod then asks us to consider our vote in the 2007 Federal Election in a particular way: in terms of the vision and values of the gospel of hope.

It invites us to become aware of the values which underpin the policies of the political parties and their candidates.
And invites us to consider what approaches to policy would be necessary for
growing  a nation grounded in hope:
the hope for justice;
for peace;
for freedom from fear;
for communities where people feel secure, respected and included;
and where those who are struggling are cared for in a positive way
and treated with dignity and respect.

It is not the intention of this resource to lead us to any particular conclusion
about whom we should or should not vote for.
The material is non-partisan.
But it is reminding us that as folk called to reflect on the bigger issues,
the heart stuff, the soul spaces
we can make an impact
before during and after the election
by sharing a vision for the future of our country that is grounded
in a gospel of love and justice.

The story of Zaccheus reminds us that change is always possible and that transformation of community begins with the individual.
The story of Zaccheus encourages us to listen to the god hunger
 which lives in all our hearts
and to seek out this God however,
whenever,
wherever we can.

Even if in doing so we may appear a little foolish,
even if we fear that others will mock,
even if we imagine that we are not someone
that this shining God may want to know.
Remember Zaccheus, climb a tree, enter into the spin
and know that hope is possible for us all,
be we one wee soul
or a big beautiful wide brown land.