God’s Boundless Love
The bible verse for this sermon can be found at https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=510638958
This is the text that made me incredibly nervous about preaching in my home congregation for the first time after seminary. I could hear it in the back of my mind and I thought…if I do this the way I’m supposed to, they’re going to run me out with pitchforks. I think I even wore tennis shoes under my robe that day just in case. These are the people who love me, who raised me, who know the stories about the hell I put our Sunday school teachers through and all the times I got “lost” on youth trips. I mean, my pastor even told one of these infamous stories at my ordination!
These are the people who know my grandparents and my parents and the people that my parents will have to sit next to next week when I’m gone. They know my best self and my worst self…but I wasn’t sure how they’d react if I didn’t act like who they expected me to be.
I had come to learn just how radical Jesus’ message was, and I had come to embrace my own responsibility in telling that truth, and I knew that message was not always welcome…even if we say it is. I know that because I don’t always welcome and embrace this message, especially when it calls me out on my stuff. It’s not that Jesus was about making inflammatory speeches just for the fun of it, but when you fail to meet the expectations of the crowd, especially the crowd that sees you as “one of them”…you’re gonna ruffle some feathers.
Of course, it didn’t start out that way. Jesus enters the synagogue, and the scriptures tell us that he did this regularly, and he’s obviously trusted enough to be handed one of the scrolls to read. The ancient words of the prophet Isaiah ring out: “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." And as he sat down he says, “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Well, they had nothing but good things to say about him at that point. That sounds like good news to me! He’s talking about freedom, forgiveness, a clean slate! The year of jubilee! And we, his oldest pals get to hear it first. That sounds like GREAT news! It’s probably even greater news to us who have known him so long, who come from the same place. Of course a choice piece of that “year of the Lord’s favor” has our name on it.
It might make you cringe a little to have this reaction articulated out loud, but it’s often how our assumptions unconsciously work. We want Jesus the good ole boy or God who likes and dislikes the same things we do, God as an extension of our own image. A God with whom we have the inside track.
And that’s where it hits the fan. Jesus has to quickly break it to them that this good news does not privilege them over others. Like the prodigal son’s older brother, their faithful tenure isn’t weighted with greater significance than those that wander down different roads. This gospel, this good news of redemption, isn’t JUST for them nor do they get a little bit better news than others. Rather, this Good News is for the wide range of creation. The Good News comes for and through diverse people. It isn’t best, better, or only for them, but also and especially for those who are made vulnerable by their place outside of center.
That’s when Jesus points to examples of God’s broad handiwork in the past. Elisha prioritizes the healing of Naaman – a foreign leader and definitely not a temple-goer. Out of the many hungry widows throughout God’s people Israel, Elijah crosses the border and goes outside the established territory to share a meal with a woman very different than himself. Jesus points to the many ways that God goes beyond where many assumed God would stop.
Liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, refers to this as “God’s preferential option for the poor” – the recognition that throughout the scriptures, God leans toward the poor and powerless or society. Jesus makes the bold claim that God’s freedom is for you, but it isn’t JUST for you or even JUST a little better for you. It is for all as it especially lifts up those at the bottom. In this way the oppressed are set free, and the oppressors are also freed from the dark system that crushes both their souls.
The leaders of the faith set an example of spending a majority of their time and energy outside the walls of the sanctuary and even beyond their defined people. It’s not that the people inside those circles don’t matter, but it’s their call too – to recognize and proclaim the message of God’s favor beyond the stained glass windows, beyond the usual crowd, beyond the people who look like them or think like them.
Ministry, then, isn’t only what you do here, in these pews. It certainly extends to what is happening in the Family Life Center but even beyond that. It is stories shared, truths told, and compassion offered in coffee shops, in driveways, at the bus stop bench, in the breakroom at work, and in the board meetings where you challenge the status quo – everywhere you work for the healing and wholeness of all people, especially the most vulnerable among us.
When Jesus proclaims “today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” he is announcing that this reality is unfolding not only in some sweet hereafter, but among us now. That Christ is here not to simply tell us of what God has promised the world can be, but to show us. As powerful as it can seem, neither prejudice nor any of our own agendas will stop Jesus on his way.
(Today, as we honor Reconciling in Christ Sunday…I am reminded of all the young people who shouldn’t have had to, but have acted as prophets in their communities of faith. Who, even in the face of others’ expectations of them, stood up to be seen and known with the unique story of Good News that they have to share. I marvel at youth who embrace their neurodiversity, their race, their LGBTQIA identity, their need for free and reduced lunch programs, their immigration status, their passion for the care of creation…and proclaim to those around them that these things aren’t abstracts for debate but people standing right here.
Too often, such moments have been followed by running those young people out of the community. But sometimes, it also changes communities on the long journey toward expansive Gospel love and justice. Sometimes it is precisely that relationship that was twisted into false assumptions that becomes the crossroads for new outlooks going forward.)
This wide view of God’s grace that includes and equalizes diverse people…it disrupts the voices in our hearts and minds that seeks a place above others. But it also reminds us that the really good stuff can’t be experienced from up on a perch anyway.
(Remember in Titanic when the affluent and proper Rose gets dragged away from her first class deck into the scandalously lively dance party happening among people she was taught were dirty and dangerous…and then slowly lets go and has the time of her life? I think the Kingdom of God is like that.)
The Gospel can and does knock us off our perches and shake up our neighborhoods, and trigger our pitchfork responses, draws out all the toxic stuff we’re holding on to so that we can be free of it. So that our hearts are open to Joseph’s boy speaking God’s own blessing to us. So that the scales would fall from our eyes to embrace the humanity and divinity right in front of us. This is the gospel that convicts us. This is the gospel that frees us – oppressor and persecuted alike. This is the Gospel we proclaim and embody.
This is God’s message of boundless love for you and me, for all. It has never been met without resistance, but its truth has never wavered. May we be open to the Holy Spirit beckoning us to be a part of it.