Many of the people of Israel struggled with the concept that God’s love is for everybody, even people who aren’t like them.  Maybe it was because God had kept their nation separate for the privilege of bringing his Son into the world.  Maybe it was because of Solomon and his many wives. Maybe it was because they suffered so much at the hands of foreigners throughout their history.  Maybe it was because they were so upset with the Samaritans, their brothers, for mixing the worship of the true God with foreign gods. Maybe it was all of the above.

Do we not have our own struggles with welcoming people who aren’t like us?  Do we feel that God’s love can apply to anybody?  Including those who are not like us?  Including those who make our lives difficult? Are there places where you can talk about God's love only as long as you don't mean everybody?

Clarence Jordan, a Christian man who founded the Koinonia Farm in Georgia, believed that all people - black and white - could work together and stand together. But it was the early 1950s, and his local church did not agree with his thoughts on racial equality.

One time, an agricultural student from Florida State University visited Koinonia Farm for the weekend. The student was from India, and said, "I've never gone to a Christian worship service. I would like to go." Clarence took him to his Baptist Church, and it is reported that "the presence of his dark skin miraculously chilled the hot, humid southern Georgia atmosphere." It didn't matter that he was from India. He had dark skin, not a red neck -and so he did not fit in. After worship, the pastor drove out to Jordan's farm and said, "You can't come with somebody like that. It causes disunity in our church." Jordan tried to explain, but the pastor wasn't listening.

A group of church leaders went out to the farm to plead with Clarence to keep undesirable people out of their church. Clarence promised to apologize before the congregation if somebody could prove he had done something wrong. Then he handed a Bible to a man in the group and said, "Can you tell me what sin I have committed by bringing a stranger to church?"

The man slammed down the book and said, "Don't give me any of this Bible stuff!" Clarence retorted, "I'm not giving you any Bible stuff. I'm asking you to give it to me." The man and the others did not know what to say; so they slipped out. When they got back to the church, they wrote a letter and said, “Mr. Jordan, you are no longer welcome in our church, because you keep bringing in the wrong kind of people.”

I’m positive this would never happen at Cross of Life.  However, do we, deep down, feel that God’s love has its limits?  That God’s love just couldn’t possibly extend to some people?  Oh, we don’t say that out loud.  We don’t think it with our heads.  But sometimes what is in our heads is different than what is actually in our hearts.  For example, we know that we have been blessed and we ought to help people suffering in Haiti, and help support the ministry of this church. But we say, "Don't take it out of my paycheque!" We know that we ought to take the time to get to know each other after church, but we say, "I don’t have the time for it – I have enough people to care about already!" We know that God cares about and loves everybody and gives to us the ministry to love and care for everybody - the homeless, the poor, those with AIDS, but we say, "Don't make me touch one of them!"  We know that God forgives all sins, even homosexuality.  But we say, “Don’t make me reach out to those people!”

Do we really believe there are no limits on God’s love?  Jesus took a clear position on this matter. The hero of one of his most famous stories was a Samaritan. Women play an important part. He heals the daughter of a Roman soldier. He had dinner with a traitor, a tax collector. Every time you come to the borders of love, Jesus penetrates them, and claims God does, too. But that was tough to swallow for those who were certain that the divine blessing could not possibly extend beyond their own kind!

Jesus addressed the question in his first public appearance in his hometown synagogue. He had read the passage from Isaiah which laid out the compassionate nature of divine love. Then He revealed that He was the Messiah Isaiah had prophesied about!  We heard about that “Aha moment” last week. He had come to preach good news to the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed. Up to then he had a good hearing.  The people listening spoke well of Him and were amazed at his “pleasant words.”  It sounded like He had something wonderful to offer.

But how could He offer these things?  Isn’t this Joseph’s son?  This is the first problem the crowd had with this message.  Wait a minute, who is He saying He is?  Jesus could see they didn’t accept Him as the Saviour God promised.  His hometown people would especially struggle with that.  So Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”  In other words, if you wanted to see a doctor about a bad sore, and he gave you some medicine to heal your sore, would you put your trust in his medicine if you noticed that he had a sore twice as large as yours?  You would tell him to use his own medicine on his sore first and cure that!  Then, and only then, would you believe that his medicine could heal you, too. 

The people of Nazareth were having trouble believing in Jesus, so they thought he should help Himself first by doing a mighty work which would prove He was as great as He said, like the kind of stuff He was doing in Capernaum.  If He proved himself in that way, then they might believe He was the Saviour who had come to bring good news and freedom for the captives.

But the real trouble, the thing that really made them angry, came when He set out to define just who those poor captive people happened to be. It was not the scripture lesson, but the sermon that got him in trouble.  Specifically the illustrations.

He used Old Testament stories to make his point, but they were not the popular stories that the people loved to hear. We all want our preachers to tell us how much God loves us and our kind, right? But we are not quite as enamored of hearing about how much God loves our enemies. They didn't want to hear it in first century Nazareth; we don't want to hear it today.

Jesus’ first illustration in this hometown sermon described how Elijah took care of the needs of a woman from the hated land of Sidon at a time when Hebrew women were starving. The Lord told Elijah to go to Zarephath where he would meet a widow gathering sticks. The sticks were to build a fire so she could cook her last meal -- she had a little oil and a little meal left, and then it was starvation for her and her child.  Elijah ends up not only seeing that she had food for the rest of her life, but also brings her child back from the edge of death.  Jesus rams the point home. This was a foreign woman in an age when foreign women were the curse of Israel!

Jesus could have found a thousand more acceptable Old Testament stories to use as illustrations for this sermon.  But he wanted to make the point perfectly clear at the outset of his ministry: God's love did not have national or ethnic borders.

The second illustration was no different. It was an account of how Elisha healed a man named Naaman, who happened to be an officer in the Syrian guard. Not only was the prophet helping foreigners, this particular foreigner was a member of an enemy army!

God's love for Sidonites and Syrians was not what these folks had come to hear, particularly since they could easily appropriate "Romans" or "Samaritans" for Syrians and Sidonites.  Can you imagine someone in the aftermath of 9/11 talking about how God had a preferential option for the Al-Keidah, or some white preacher in the old south talking about how God had a particular affection for black activists?

Notice, these illustrations, these indictments are what really made the people angry.  Their struggle began with trying to accept that their hometown boy was the Saviour Isaiah had been talking about.  But when He insinuated that He, as the Saviour, was coming to bring all that good news and freedom to sinful, ungodly foreigners, because they wouldn’t accept Him, that is what caused them to explode with wrath.  The implication that God could love those others as much as them was too much!

"All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this," says the text, "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 down the cliff." These people wanted nothing to do with a man, who had grown up in their town, claiming to be God’s Son, and showing that God’s love would more readily be accepted by those they hated.  It is dangerous to describe how God's affection extends toward those the audience despises. People want their prejudices massaged, and there is plenty of religion around ready to do exactly that.

But the gospel is clear. God's love is always more pervasive, complete and powerful than our hatred or even the ways we define grace. By the very nature of our humanity, we tend to put limits on love.  God does not.  He puts No Limits on Love.  And that is a miracle of grace!

The movie Ruby Bridges tells the story of Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, who was the first person to integrate the schools in New Orleans. Every day the federal marshals escorted her into the schoolhouse because both sides of the sidewalk would be lined with people who were screaming threats. Robert Coles, a noted Harvard psychiatrist, volunteered his time to work with young Ruby. Every day he would talk with her, trying to help her weather the crisis. On the news one night, he noticed her walking up the sidewalk and the people were screaming and throwing things, but suddenly she stopped and said something and started backing down the sidewalk. Then the marshals picked her up and took her into the building.

That night, Cole asked her what she said to the marshals. She said, "I was not talking to the marshals." He said, "Yes, you were. I saw you on the news. I saw your lips moving." She said, "I was not talking to the marshals." He said, "Well, what were you doing?" She said, "I was praying for those people who were hollering at me. I had forgotten to pray and I was trying to go back and pray for them as I walked to the school building." Cole shook his head and said, "You were praying for the people who were screaming at you?" She said, "Yes, my mama taught me that when people speak mean of you, you pray for them just like Jesus prayed for the people who spoke mean of him."  For God, there are No Limits on Love.

But there is an even greater miracle than God's love for those we do not love.  It is God's love for us!  For you and me!  We, who are sworn enemies of God, because of our sinfulness, are also loved!  We are the Sidonites and Syrians, the Samaritans and Romans of the kingdom -- and “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

How far is God's love willing to go?  To the cross, my friends.  To the cross!  And who is included?  You and I, brother.  You and I, sister.  And that is the greatest miracle of all!  Amen.