Luke 4:21-30--February 3, 2013 THE BOUNDARY-CROSSING GRACE OF GOD When I first had the notion to become a minister, I talked with my pastor about where I might attend seminary and receive my education and training. There were a number of options. Andover-Newton seminary in Massachusetts had a great reputation in New England as a first-class preparatory school for clergy. Then, of course, there were the Ivy-League type seminaries, such as Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, and Union Theological Seminary. In the end, I didn t apply to any of those seminaries. Instead, I decided to attend Bangor Theological Seminary. Compared with those other upper echelon seminaries, Bangor had fewer resources; most of its professors weren t as well known and were less notably published in the academic realm of theology; and Bangor s students weren t as highly sought after by the larger, more financially stable congregations looking for a new minister. During my time there, I remember attending one of the seminary s weekly chapel services, where some of us ministers-to-be preached and led worship services for our student colleagues and many of the faculty. One of those preachers directly addressed the students who were attending that small, not very flashy seminary; and he raised a question in his sermon that those of us who hoped to serve a church after graduation asked ourselves on a regular basis. Can anything good come out of Bangor Seminary?
2 We students of BTS certainly hoped so. Just like the residents of Nazareth certainly hoped something good could come out of THEIR seemingly insignificant, looked-down-upon town. No one knows for sure how the little town of Nazareth became ashamed of its name. In John s Gospel, Nathaniel, before he became a disciple of Jesus, was told by Philip that the Messiah had been found; he was this firecracker rabbi named Jesus, who hailed from Nazareth. Nathaniel was taken aback. That s not where the Messiah should come from. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? he asked. Evidently, Nazareth was the joke of the ancient middle-eastern world, sort of like New Jersey or Toledo, Ohio are to us. Nazareth probably wasn t looked down upon because of anything that had happened there. Actually, it was probably because NOTHING ever happened there. Nazareth produced no kings, no generals, no scholars, no prophets... no nothing. The actor Robert Mitchum once aid of the tough inner city school he had attended, It was actually a finishing school. You go there, and you re finished. Likewise, it was thought that if you came from Nazareth, you were finished. But there was HOPE for that town with the inferiority complex. Jesus, the son of a local workman, had all the markings of SOMETHING GOOD finally coming out of Nazareth. Jesus was a new, up-and-coming prophet, and his preaching had bowled over congregation after congregation in the synagogues of Galilee. A report about him had spread throughout the surrounding country. Luke s Gospel recorded that Jesus was praised by everyone. It was surely very pleasing for the folks in Nazareth to learn that Jesus had caused a stir in the nearby rival village of Capernaum. You can almost hear the conversations in the market in Nazareth: Those arrogant citizens of
3 Capernaum may have turned their noses up at us in the past, but none of ITS preachers ever caught people s attention like our boy Jesus! So when Jesus came home to Nazareth, the local synagogue was packed. Even the front pews were filled to capacity! Jesus was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and the congregation beamed. He read the words, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.... and the people in the pews glowed with pride. Then Jesus sat down and began to preach Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, and the flock was abuzz. As Luke put it, All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth. The people were thinking of putting up a new city limits sign: Welcome to Nazareth. Hometown of Jesus. However, Jesus sensed that something wasn t quite right about the warm and hospitable reception he was getting in the town he grew up in. Just beneath the Nazarene residents pride was a misunderstanding of his calling; a desire to see in him only as an expression of Nazareth s vision. The people of Nazareth wanted Jesus to be theirs alone; to be all Nazareth and no Capernaum; to be FOR US but NOT FOR THEM. So Jesus challenged them. What Jesus had to say was a hard word for the people Nazareth to hear. He said, in essence, that in order for him to be for Nazareth, he was going to have to be against Nazareth--against its desire to confine and contain the work of God. In order to be for Nazareth, Jesus would have to leave Nazareth. In order to be for Nazareth, Jesus would have to hit the road out of town--a road that would ultimately lead him to Jerusalem and a criminal s cross. That s a hard lesson for any of us to hear about Jesus. Jesus is for US, yes; but not just FOR US, but FOR OTHERS, TOO. In fact, in order to be Savior of all, Jesus will need to turn against some of us for the moment; he will
4 have to shatter the personal hometown images we have of him, and dampen our desire to shape him into the image we think he ought to be. In order to be good news for the poor, Jesus needed to speak against those who thought it was great news to be rich. In order to be savior to the sick and blind, he had to leave the safe and secure streets of the healthy. In order to be a friend of sinners, it would be necessary for Jesus to speak the hard truth to the righteous. Only by going to Jerusalem could Jesus save Nazareth. Only by way of the cross could he save the poor AND the rich, the sick AND the well, the righteous AND the sinner. Jesus reminded the synagogue congregation that God s way has ALWAYS been that way. That s why, in a time of severe famine, God sent Elijah to save, not the Jews, but a pagan woman and her child in Zarephath in Sidon who were starving. And that s why, at a time when there were many lepers in the land of Israel, God led Elisha to cleanse, NOT the Jews, but a distinguished Syrian general and non-jew named Naaman. You see, God is creator of heaven and earth and ALL human beings. Our God is not a geographically restricted local deity trapped inside some religious relic lying on an altar in Nazareth. Jesus was trying to make it clear that God s saving power is much bigger than any one village or temple can ever contain. And God s mercy and love are wider than any one town or human heart can imagine. That s why God worked wonders for gentiles in Sidon and Syria. And I believe Jesus is telling us today that, in order to show love for the church, God is working wonders outside the church, outside the city limits of every and any Nazareth WE can ever imagine. The people of Nazareth were outraged by what Jesus said. They didn t want to hear that God s grace has no boundaries; that in Jesus God is saving the lost, but that means the lost everywhere, wherever they might be found. As
5 Jesus described in one of his parables about who would be welcomed and received into the God s Kingdom, God has a big banquet table; and Jesus is calling people from the highways and byways, from the east and the west, the north and the south, to dine together at the table of the Lord. The good news for us is that, although we may have a strong disagreement with God about those whom God chooses to invite to the banquet table, the fact that God invited THEM means that WE RE INVITED, TOO! We re welcomed into the Kingdom, just as those we feel are undeserving are invited. If God s grace and mercy includes THEM, it surely includes US, as well! The people of Nazareth just couldn t accept the boundlessness of God s grace, mercy and love. So the congregation forced Jesus to leave town. They even had violent thoughts of throwing him off a cliff. That s how outraged they were over Jesus insistence that, to God, the artificial boundaries human beings have set up between people, towns, nations and religions don t exist in God s eyes. Whether we like it or not, and whether we accept it or not, God s is a boundary-crossing grace. So the people of Nazareth drove Jesus out of town, and something good was forced to leave Nazareth that day. And sadly, it wasn t God s harshness or aloofness that made them--and makes us--angry; it s God s boundless, unrestricted grace. God s GRACE seems to be too big, too deep, and too wide for us to comprehend or accept. Unfortunately, it s often easier for us to nurse our anger and make nasty remarks about them, about the people across the border in our Capernaums, then to live the boundlessly gracious, caring and merciful life that Christ lived. But Jesus responds to that by saying, If you read your Bible with open eyes and seeking hearts, you will see that God has always worked that way.
6 God s saving acts are never merely local events. There are no boundaries to the grace of God. And that s GOOD NEWS for us, not bad news. In a few moments we will be celebrating the Lord s Supper. If you re having doubts as to whether you re good enough or acceptable enough in God s eyes to receive the sacrament; or if you re wondering whether the person sitting next to you or in the pew a few rows down from you is worthy enough or deserving enough to take Holy Communion, remember what Jesus had to say to the people of Nazareth. Remember that God s love is unimaginably boundless and immeasurable. Keep in mind that the boundary-crossing grace of God reaches out to ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. It reaches out to those outside of Nazareth, to the outsiders we don t have a lot of respect or affection for; and it reaches out to YOU AND I. Why would we consider that anything less than GOOD NEWS? Thanks be to the Lord. Amen.