A Big Kingdom

Intro and Text

When was the last time you read the Bible or heard a sermon and got mad? Not annoyed at the preacher, but angry because of what God said?

Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC has frequently said that if you your god always agrees with you, it is not God you are worshipping but yourself. If we truly worship an infinite, all knowing, all powerful God who exists beyond the space and time we inhabit, we should not be surprised if this living God frequently disagrees with us. And, of course, when that happens, we are the ones who are wrong. So, has God disagreed with you lately?

In the first century, most Jews, especially those who lived along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, studied scripture more than we can probably even fathom. All of them had memorized the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Dueteronomy).Most of them had memorized all of the Psalms and many of the prophets. Many had memorized all the historical books of the Old Testament and a few had gone so far as to memorizes the opinions of great teachers about each of these books and various interpretations of the Torah. They know the Bible better than we can even imagine in our day.

And they were all pretty sure they knew who was a part of God’s people and who was not. And then Jesus came along and… well… we should probably read the story before we get any further. As we did last week, I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s word as would have happened in the Synagogue in Nazareth.

Let us pray first for God’s blessing on the reading of his word.

Our Lord and our God, now as we hear your Word, fill us with your Spirit. Soften our hearts that we may delight in your presence. Sharpen our minds that we may discern your truth. Shape our wills that we may desire your ways. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Luke 4:21–30 NIV

He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

What was Jesus’ sermon about?

Something happens in Jesus sermon that sets off the crowd in the Synagogue. We see their anger already in verse 22 where some are trying to discount Jesus. He is just Joseph’s son after all. They remember when he was a little toddler, his awkward gangly teen years and so many other stories of this man. They want to ignore what he is saying. He has offended in some way and so they want to write him off. But what did Jesus actually say in this sermon that was so offensive to the people that they wound up trying to throw him off a cliff?

Luke gives us a little bit of clue in how Jesus responds.

Our first clue is not one you will notice in your NIV or ESV Bible. If you can read some Greek or have a program to help you translate it, you could figure it out though.

This is how I translated the text when I looked at it a few weeks ago:

“All bore witness to him and were astonished at the words of grace that came from his mouth.”

Or, you could look at NT Wright’s translation of the New Testament which you should trust much more than mine. He translates verse 22 this way:

“Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth — words of sheer grace.”

It’s all about how you translate the word charis, which means grace. It is in what is called the genitive case which means it is modifying the word “words.” It could either mean Jesus spoke words of grace that is gracious words or words about grace. Given the rest of the story, Jesus speaking about God’s expansive grace seems more likely to get people worked up and angry than Jesus speaking really eloquently would get them worked up.

If this is the case, then the rest of the story begins to make sense.

The second clue is that the people are upset Jesus isn’t doing miracles like he has done other places. Somehow they are not getting his best or they feel shortchanged. Other people are receiving things from Jesus they want.

Third, Jesus tells two stories about God’s grace being shown to foreigner. He tells the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath first. This is a fascinating a story. We read about in 1 Kings 17. Elijah prophesies that God is going to bring a famine on Israel for their disobedience. No rain falls for 3 1/2 years. The creek Elijah is living by dries up so God tells him to go to Sidon, which is outside of Israel, their enemies. So he goes. When he gets to Zarephath, he waits by the well and a widow comes by. She is gathering sticks. he asks her for some water and food. She says she is gathering her sticks to make a fire, bake the last of her flour into bread, eat it and die. Elijah persists. She makes the bread for him, he stays with her, and she never runs out of flour or oil for the entire famine.

The famine goes on for more than 3 years. Lots of people died from malnutrition. Lots of people in Sidon. And lots of people in Israel. But Elijah wasn’t sent to a widow in Israel to save her, but to this gentile, heathen woman to save her and her family.

It’s hard to think of an easy contemporary comparison because our nation has been the biggest global power for all of our lives. Israel was almost always a minor power, threatened by major empires and other minor kingdoms alike. And Jesus is pointing out how God cared more about their enemies during a famine than them.

I guess we could imagine how we would feel if we lost the cold war through some violent conflict like could have happened in the Cuban Missile crisis. How would we feel if someone started bragging about how God delivered a Russian widow when we know many many Americans had been killed. We might feel a little angry...

But Jesus isn’t done. he takes it one step further in the next story. The story of Namaan. Namaan was a general for the nation of Assyria who had leprosy, a terrible disease than always led to death.

Which seems fitting because Assyrians were terrible people. Their empire was one of the cruelest and most violent of the ancient world. Their kings often bragged about fields littered with corpses and cities burned to the ground. One king, Shalmaneser III, is well known for depicting torture, dismembering, and decapitations in disgusting detail on big stone panels. As Erika Bleitreu says, the Assyrian history is “as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know.”

And Namaan is one of their generals. One of the people who got promoted for the fields littered with corpses and the people dismembered. And Jesus highlights that God chose to heal Namaan of leprosy and not any of the lepers in Israel at the time.

It would be like bragging about how God healed the general who killed all your family. It is deeply shockingly offensive.

Two stories. Both pointing to God’s grace being shown to undeserving gentiles and not to the Jewish people.

Grace for the Outsiders

I think it is pretty safe to assume Jesus’ sermon was all about how his mission was not just to bring good news to the poor Jewish people, but to people of all nations. He would set not only their people free, but all people free. He would make right not only the things done wrong to the Jews, but even the the wrongs they had done to others.

It was some sort of casting of the vast vision of God to redeem and rescue and restore not a single people but the entire world.

But to these Jewish believers, passionate in their love of scripture, devout in their pursuit of God, this message did not fit their preconceived notions of God. They knew it was wrong to even associate with Gentiles, how could God be planning to include them in his people. They knew those sinners were rejected by God, how could God redeem those kinds of people. They thought they knew the extent of God’s grace. But it was bigger.

They didn’t God’s grace to include their enemies. So, my first question for you today is who do you struggle to include in the grace of God?

Jonah refused to go to Nineveh because he knew God would have mercy on the people if they even repented a little. He wanted to see them punished. He wanted to see them suffer.

Reflecting on the story of Jonah, at first I thought, at least we aren’t like that anymore. And then,I caught a new clip where the host seemed to be celebrating when people who were vaccinated and boosted contracted Covid. I felt sick watching. And then, just an hour or so later, I saw a social media post of someone else celebrating that an anti-vaxxer had come down with Covid. I felt sick again. To delight in someone else’s suffering, of any amount whether it is mild or severe, is deeply unChristian. You can’t love people when you grow callous to or even enjoy their suffering.

So, who do you struggle to see included in God’s grace? Who do you not want to experience the healing, freedom, and justice of God in their lives? In whose suffering do you find just a little joy?

In other words, where do you need to get on board with the vastness of God’s grace?

When do get angry?

And then just two more questions for you, both about your anger.

What gets you angry?

The people in Nazareth get so upset with Jesus’ message they are willing to throw Joseph’s son, little Jesus, their childhood friend, their cousin, off a cliff and kill him.

I see a lot of angry people in our community. Lots of people upset about this or that. Lots of people with short fuses.

This is one thing I know about anger. Often, anger reveals an idol in our hearts. We get angry when they thing we love gets threatened. Jesus gets angry when people turn the temple into a business enterprise and keep people seeking God from worshipping. His heart is focused on God and his glory. Anger is not bad, it all depends on what gets us angry.

What gets you angry? It just may be an idol in your life you need to repent of.

The other day, I heard someone say: Christians go to the Bible because it tells them about their kingdom. That's the same reason others have daily devotions with CNN or Fox News.

When we get all worked about politics, it is a sign we have begun to love that kingdom more than God’s. When we get more worked up by the ups and downs of the stock market, it is a sign we love that kingdom more than God’s.

What makes you angry?

When did you struggle with God?

And then finally, when was the last time the word of God made you angry? Maybe angry is quite the right word, maybe when did it make you frustrated with God? Feel like he was demanding too much? Or feel like God just doesn’t get the reality of this world?

This is what I have learned after reading through the Bible 15 times or so cover to cover and spending years studying it.

The gospel message of God’s kingdom messes with our lives.

For me it happened 20-25 years ago. I started really reading the Bible, big chunks of it everyday, and the God I met there cared about stuff I did not care about. I wanted a comfortable life. I wanted a house on the lake. I wanted a great marriage and 2.1 kids with a dog. I wanted lots of things. God wanted the hungry to be fed, the naked to be clothed, the thirsty to have water, the imprisoned to be visited. God wanted those on the bottom to be lifted up and, if I am honest, I wanted to be on top.

I remember coming across Micah 6 one day reading in my studio apartment in Bloomington Indiana and being floored. The people had done all the right religious things, to put it in our context: they went to church, they were in a small group, had personal devotions, tithed to church, and prayed before every meal. And God was angry with them. The people complain God wasn’t giving them enough credit, that he asked too much of them. And God says, “All I want is for you to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with me.” That messed up my life. It took me several years of wrestling with God to really start trying to live that way. I wanted a to-do list to check off and God wanted all of my life.

Now, I struggle with God when I know I need to forgive someone who has hurt me or when someone says something and I know I should keep my sarcastic comment to myself or when I am impatient waiting in line (I have a major character flaw when it comes to waiting in line).

IF we are honestly seeking to follow Jesus, we will always struggle with God. He will call us to do things we do not want to do. Things that may not make any sense. Like who tells their kid when a bully hits them, to turn the other cheek? Who really thinks we should actively love, as in meet the needs, of our enemies? Really, we should make sure terrorist get fed and treated with human decency? These commands are hard and if we take God seriously, we will sometimes struggle with God.

And, if we have the humility to see, I have learned over and over again, the place I will struggle the most is that God’s willingness to offer grace and mercy is always bigger than mine. It was hard in the 1st century and it is hard in the 21st century, but God’s vision for his grace is always bigger than we finite humans can understand.

May you believe this gospel and go forth to live in its peace. Amen.