God's Scandalous Grace

February 3^rd, 2013       “God’s Scandalous Grace”  Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 4:16-30

          “Nazareth?  Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  I am sure some of you remember this phrase from John’s gospel.  Nazareth, boy what a place.  It seems as if Nazareth was the stuff of jokes, the Jersey of Jesus’ world, the fodder of ancient late night talk show hosts.  Nazareth, can anything good come from there?  Ha!

          Surely folks in Nazareth would have been self-conscious about their place in the ancient world.  They would have loved to have been known for something else, something other than a cheap shot for humor.  Then one day Joseph’s son walks into the temple to teach and it appears that the fate of Nazareth is about to change.

          Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  We spoke last week about all the promise and power that is wrapped up in this statement.  Jesus sits down to teach and tells the people that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

          Understandably people became excited.  “Hey, isn’t that Joseph’s boy, I know him, he worked on a carpentry project out at my place.”  “Yeah man, that’s Joseph’s kid, he’s from Nazareth, he’s one of us.”  At first there is a real sense of hometown pride.  This guy is one of our own; he is going to put us on the map in a positive way.  Watch out world, something good is finally coming out of Nazareth.

          People remember the stories they have heard of Jesus, how he has done miracles in other towns.  Their eyes widen with the possibilities that can come about with Jesus now in Nazareth.  First of all everyone in Nazareth will be healed, no sickness here anymore; and of course people will come from near and far to Nazareth to see Jesus and to experience his powers.  Think of the tourism dollars.  Far from being a big joke, Nazareth is about to become the coolest place to live.  Property values will skyrocket!

          But then, as he often does, Jesus starts saying things that make people uncomfortable.  “You will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”  And he starts telling stories about Elijah and Elisha.  Mind you, these are not the foreign, distant, hard to remember Old Testament prophets for these folks like they frequently are for us.  No, these are living stories that people in the temple would know painfully well. 

          First the story of Elijah who during a three and a half year famine in Israel, when the land was full of needy Jewish widows, went to the aid of a woman at Zarephath in Sidon.  This woman was a Gentile.  How could a Jewish prophet perform a miracle for a Gentile when so many Jews were in need?

The story of Elisha follows.  He chose to heal only one leper, and this one a Syrian of Naaman, despite how many Jewish lepers were in need.  Again, why would God send the prophet to those who were not the chosen people?

          The crowd begins to get the gist of Jesus’ teaching.  He has come to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; just not in Nazareth.  Jesus is bringing these gifts to Capernaum among other places, and that is a land of the Gentiles.

          It was a hard word for the people of Nazareth to hear.  What Jesus was saying, in essence, was that in order to be “for Nazareth” he was going to have to appear to be against Nazareth.  Jesus was going to have to be against the people of Nazareth’s 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 carry him eventually to a dark hill outside of Jerusalem.

          It is a hard lesson for all of us to hear about Jesus.  Jesus is for us, yes, but not just for us, Jesus is for all others, too.  In fact, in order to be the savior of all, Jesus will need to turn for the moment against some of us, to leave our little hometown images of him and our desire to shape him in our local molds behind.  In order to be “good news for the poor,” Jesus will need to speak against those of us who are rich.  In order to be a savior to the sick and blind, Jesus will need to leave the safe streets of the healthy.  In order to be a friend of sinners, Jesus will need to speak harshly to the righteous.

          Jesus reminded the synagogue congregation that God’s way has always been this way.  God is creator of heaven and earth, not a local deity enshrined in some grotto down the street.  God’s saving power is bigger than any one town can hold; God’s mercy is wider than any one village can imagine.  In fact, in order to show love for Israel, God worked wonders in Sidon and Syria.  In order to show love for Nazareth, Jesus worked miracles in Capernaum.  And I imagine that Jesus would tell us that in order to show love for the church, God is working wonders outside the church, outside Christianity, outside the city limits of every Nazareth we can imagine.

          And that is the hard lesson for us.  We know that we cannot determine who God’s grace extends to, but at the same time we are not always open to God sharing the bounty with those outside our boundaries.  Often we want God’s salvation to be just here, not there; to be with us, not them.  What happened to the folks in Nazareth was that they were so scandalized by God’s unlimited grace that they were unable to receive it.  And because of this they rejected Jesus Christ.  Jesus does not go elsewhere because he was rejected in his hometown.  Jesus is rejected in his hometown because he goes elsewhere. 

          The folks in Nazareth are so upset that they take Jesus to the edge of town and try to kill him.  They are going to stone him by throwing him off the cliff and down onto the stones.  And at this point, in the midst of their rage and fury, it seems as if they do get the miracle they were looking for.  The text literally says that Jesus “passed through their middle”.  Miraculously Jesus is able to slip from their murderous grasp and pass undetected straight through the middle of the crowd.  The folks in Nazareth got a miracle after all, but it was one which took the Christ away from them.

          It’s not God’s harshness or aloofness that makes us angry; it’s God’s mercy.  It’s too big, it’s too wide.  It’s easier to spend our lives licking our local wounds and making nasty remarks about Capernaum, than it is to try to live a generosity, kindness, and mercy as big as Christ’s.

          It’s this lesson that made us so uncomfortable last week.  I know that sermon was hard, and I was watching to see how folks here responded.  What happened was that no one said anything about my sermon.  Not one word, good or bad.  Instead, we all talked about my harp playing.  Perhaps if Jesus would have tempered his sermon with a little harp music the folks of Nazareth would have been a little more kind.  Sure, they would have been upset, but no one would throw a harpist off a cliff!

Trust me, last week’s sermon made me uncomfortable too.  When we think about Jesus’ mission to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and letting the oppressed go free it makes us uncomfortable.  It makes us even more uncomfortable when we think of the ways in which the church is responsible for carrying out this mission as well.  Yet, despite our discomfort this is the message of the gospel. 

Christ has come to work miracles.  Christ has come to bring the Jubilee of the Lord.  And Christ will do all these things, not just in Nazareth or in Warrensburg, but around the country and around the world.  The work of God cannot be contained by our man made boundaries.  The work of God is so vast, so challenging, that if we are not uncomfortable, we are not paying close enough attention to the message.  That is what is so hard.  If we are not uncomfortable, then we are not listening.  My prayer for us today is that God would open our eyes and our hearts this morning to fully see the extent of God’s love.  Thanks be to God for such scandalous grace.  Amen.