It is the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Today’s Bach cantata is “Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht” (I, wretched man, a servant to sin):

Today’s Gospel reading is Luke 19:1-10:

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

I, pitiful man, I, slave of sin,
I go before the face of God
with fear and trembling for judgment.
He is righteous, I am unjust.
I pitiful man, I slave of sin!

. . . .

Although I have been separated from You,
yet I return again;
even so Your Son set the example for us
through His anguish and mortal pain.
I do not deny my guilt,
but Your grace and mercy
is much greater than the sin
that I constantly discover in me.

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]