(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 01/28/07)

INTRODUCTION:

It seemed like things were so close to clicking, like everything was going to fall into place so nicely.  Words of grace were flowing from the mouth of Jesus and everyone in the synagogue had nothing but good to say about him.  It looked like the Holy Spirit was this close to having a new harvest of believers, people who professed their conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Son of the living God.  This would be “the church where Jesus came from,” “the Savior’s home congregation!”

And then they’re going to shove him over a cliff?!

Yeah, they are, because Joseph’s son can’t be the Savior of the world.  For that to be the case, he’s going to have to prove it with a miracle or two.  Certainly he’d be willing to do that for us, being that we’re his fellow Nazarenes.   But no, he won’t.  Instead he talks about God’s grace shown to a foreign widow, God’s grace shown to a foreign leper – those Gentile dogs!  How dare he!  And out to the cliff they drag him.

We have some unfinished business to take care of from what we started last week.  It’s the local reaction to Jesus’ sermon about being the one Isaiah was talking about.  As we made a point of saying last week, Jesus is in the pulpit.  We’re all still hanging on his every word, right?  With part two of his sermon, he wants to make very certain that we are -

Coming To Grips With God’s Grace

If we don’t stay on track with what God’s grace is, we are in a heap of trouble.  Trouble is, (it could rightly be said) that we don’t like grace to be grace.  Why don’t you let your mind go a few rounds with that statement.  We don’t like grace to be grace.  Maybe we don’t think we would try to lynch Jesus, but like spraying Shout on a stain, we’re going to have to let these words soak in and do their work for a while, so that instead of trying to rid the earth of Jesus, we’re holding on to him for dear life.  Here we go, with some contemporary equivalents to what Jesus said.

To be told that Elijah went to serve a widow in Zarephath and that Elisha went to heal a leper in Syria would be like telling you that you are no better than and no more deserving of God’s grace than those folks overseas who have all our politicians in such a dither.  You (and I) are no better than the Sunni Muslims or the Shiite Muslims who are taking American lives and blowing themselves up and calling it a holy war and doing it all in the name of Allah.

It would be perfectly safe to say that we are no more deserving of God’s grace than the African shaman (witch doctor) who still has a thriving practice today, decked out in face paint and bone necklaces and rooster feathers, who’s leading people to hell with all his talk of curses and spirits and spells.  

You and I have no more claim to a place in the family of God than criminals who have done the unspeakably atrocious, whom society has demanded be locked up for life so that they no longer pose a threat to the common, decent people in the general public.  As God sees things, though, none of us is any more common or any more decent than any of them. 

Coming to grips with God’s grace means knowing, accepting and trusting what God says when he tells me that I am not superior to any person on earth.  All of humanity is on an equal playing field and no one has risen above anyone else.  Do I say that only because there are no nearby high cliffs you can take me out to?  Or do I say that, recognizing along with you, that there’s a part of us that doesn’t like grace to be grace, because grace means no one is any better than anyone else!

Beyond not appreciating being compared with foreigners, the Nazarenes figured they had to be one step up on everyone else as far as this Jesus was concerned.  They were the people from his home town.  Certainly he would cater to them more than to anyone else!  But finding out otherwise, they dragged Jesus off to the cliff.

Certainly Jesus has a special place in his heart for us, does he not?  We’re the conservative Lutherans, not the immoral liberal ones downtown who rally to the support of gay clergy.  We’re the Christians who take God’s Word seriously, unlike so many others who add to it, subtract from it, multiply false teachings and divide the church.  We’re the church people – some born and bred, others coming in at a later point – but all in all we’re the good guys.  But then part two of the Nazareth sermon says, “Sorry, that’s not so.  All have fallen short of the glory of God.”

Coming to grips with God’s grace means knowing, accepting and trusting what he says when he tells me that I am not any closer to God than anyone else.  God owes me no special treatment.

God owes me nothing, but he’s given me everything.  Before we leave this place, let’s come to grips with the grace of God in all its glory.  I have nothing on the militant Muslim, the witch doctor or the conscienceless psychopath, and still Jesus came to keep the law for me.  I have nothing on the blatant false teacher, the hypocritical church member or the nominal Christian, and still Jesus came to die for me.  I have nothing on you, you have nothing on me, and we have nothing on anyone else.  We are all alike unholy, condemned and hopeless, and yet Jesus rose from the dead so that the message would echo through the universe: You are holy, forgiven and filled with hope.

This Saturday in Nazareth was neither the time nor the place for Jesus to die, so he walked right through the crowd that dragged him out to the cliff, and they couldn’t lay a hand on him.  But the time and the place came, a Friday in Jerusalem, when all of humanity should have been banished to hell, but Jesus was instead, the time when he let sinful people lay their hands on him and have their way with him and degrade him, when he willingly let God abandon him and curse him and destroy him.  He will never die again because he need never die again because the sins of the militant Muslim, the witch doctor, the conscienceless psychopath, the blatant false teacher, the hypocritical church member, the nominal Christian and the sins of every person who’s hearing this message right now have been driven from the face of the earth.

God’s grace can only be and will always be unearned and undeserved, but it is undeniably for you and Jesus delivers it.

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