Scandalous love. That’s an intriguing
sermon title, isn’t it? Actually, it’s from the title of a chapter in the book,
Christmas Is Not Your Birthday, by Mike Slaughter. In his book, Mike
makes the case that the Christmas story is really a story about God’s
scandalous love for the world.
It’s scandalous because, we didn’t do
anything to deserve this love. God loves us even though we have not always
loved God. There’s nothing that we can do to make God love us any more and
there’s nothing we can do to make God love us any less. God’s love for us is
always full and complete.
This is why God was willing to take the
incredible risk of sending his only Son to be born in our world. That’s how
much God loves us. God was willing to take that risk because love is at the
heart of who God is.
God sent Jesus into our world of
brokenness and pain knowing that it wouldn’t be easy for him. Jesus would be
born in a manger that was really a feed trough for livestock. From the very
beginning, King Herod sought to kill Jesus and his family had to seek refuge in
another country.
Raising a child is one the most
challenging things in life because of all of the responsibility that is
involved. When our first child was born, I remember the incredible joy of
holding her little body in my arms for the first time. But I also remember
feeling the pain just an hour later of watching the nurse draw blood from her
little foot.
We know that at some point, they will fall
and scrape their knees. We know that at some point, they will probably fall off
the bike. We know that at some point, they will walk into a classroom on their
own. We know that at some point they will step on the gas pedal instead of the
brake pedal when learning how to drive. This is all part of what it means to be
a parent. You do what you can do, but at some point, you need to let them learn
on their own. Love involves risk. The
Christmas story is a story of God’s risky love on our behalf. That’s how much
God loves us.
This story of God’s risky love isn’t new.
It’s throughout the bible, especially from the Book of Hosea. You don’t hear
the Book of Hosea read too often during worship. That’s because it can get a
little too graphic.
I’ll do my best to explain what I mean
without going over the top. Hosea was a prophet who lived during a very dark
time of Israel’s history. Even though God had loved them and given them
everything they needed, they turned away from God and things really started to
fall apart for them.
To give you some idea of how bad things
became for Israel, four of their kings were killed in a span of just fourteen
years. They were facing warfare and anarchy. And all of this was because they
had turned away from God’s love and became very selfish and greedy.
Desperate times calls for desperate
measures. God tells the prophet Hosea to marry someone who he knows will be
unfaithful to him. If that sounds like a crazy thing for God to ask Hosea to
do, then you’re right. It was crazy! It was also a very scandalous thing for
Hosea to do. But that’s what God told Hosea to do.
Hosea, wanting to be faithful to what God
wanted, did as God instructed. He married this person who he knew would be
unfaithful to him. To make a long story short, Hosea’s wife was unfaithful to
Hosea. Even though his wife cheated on him over and over again, in the end,
Hosea publicly received her back. Hosea’s willingness to receive her back as
his wife was unheard of during that time period.
The point of this story is simple, but
profound. Hosea symbolizes God and God’s unconditional love for the people of
Israel. Hosea’s wife who had turned her back on Hosea is symbolic of how Israel
had turned away from God over and over again.
This story is why God’s love for us can be
called a scandalous love. Even though we turn away from God again and again,
God doesn’t turn his back on us. Like Hosea, God receives us back and offers us
a forgiving love.
This understanding of God’s scandalous
love is probably what the Apostle Paul was thinking about when he wrote, “All have sinned and fall short of the God’s
glory, but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom
that was paid by Christ Jesus.”
Amazing Grace is probably the most popular
hymn because God’s grace is amazing. It’s a grace that is offered to us even
though we have turned our backs on God. It’s a grace that is stronger than
anything we might do to offend God. That’s why we call it amazing. It is
amazing!
When I was growing up, I loved to see how
far I could throw a football down a big hill that overlooked my house. Because
of that hill, I could throw the football really far. My dad kept warning me to
not throw the football so close to the house because I might break a window.
One day, I was on top of the hill throwing
the football as far as I could. It was windy that day and sure enough, when I
let go of the football, the wind just blew that football into our dining room
window. The sound of breaking glass is not a pleasant sound.
When I made it to the bottom of the hill,
my mom told me to have a seat in the kitchen. She asked me, “What did your father tell you about
throwing the football so close to the house? You’re going to sit in this chair
until your father comes home.”
This was not looking good. Mom
was right. I should have known better.
As I sat in the chair, I remember praying
for God to perform a miracle like fixing the window before dad would arrive
home. Once in a while, I would peak into the dining room and sure enough, I
could still see broken glass everywhere. “So
much for miracles,” I thought to myself.
Finally, dad came home. I expected the
worse. He first went to the dining room to look at the damage. He came back to
where I was seated, looked me in my eyes and said to me, “Next time, don’t throw the football so close to the house and help me
clean up this mess.”
Even though I deserved a whole
lot worse that day, my dad offered me grace. No wonder they call it amazing
grace. Actually, my prayer for a miracle was answered, just not in the way I
expected.
Hosea’s scandalous love is similar to the
kind of love at Christmas when God sent Jesus. It’s an over the top kind of
love, a love that we don’t deserve, but are invited to receive again and again.
We often associate the word, “scandal”
with tabloid news stories of crazy things people do. There’s a reason those
scandals make it on the front page. They peak our interest. We want to know why
somebody would do something so out of the ordinary.
God’s love is scandalous, but in a good
way. Mary knew that she was being called to bear God’s scandalous love when she
was told that she was with child of the Holy Spirit. She couldn’t believe that
God called someone like her to be the one who would carry God’s love full term.
Just listen to her words which we know as
the Magnificat from Luke’s Gospel. “My
soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has
looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
God’s scandalous love did become
scandalous for Mary and Joseph as they had to endure the suspicious looks and
the hurtful gossip regarding her pregnancy. God’s scandalous love for the world
has a way of turning heads and creating a stir in the crowd.
The Christmas story doesn’t just invite us
to be spectators of God’s scandalous love. Like Mary and Joseph, it invites us
to become part of the scandal in which we becoming willing participants in offering
God’s love to the world.
In his book, Surprised by Scripture,
Tom Wright shares a story about a youth group that became willing participants
in offering God’s scandalous love in their community. As their Bishop in
northeast England, he had invited teenagers from the various churches in that
area for a week long gathering. They had bible studies in the morning, social
projects in the afternoon, and worship rallies in the evening.
His favorite memory from that week was
when he went with one of the dozens of afternoon groups to paint the back walls
of a lane of dark and dismal houses in the wrong part of one of the nearby old
towns. They also hung flower baskets all the way down the road.
People came out of their houses our of
curiosity, something they didn’t normally do because they were afraid of those
dark back alleys and what usually went on there. They asked nervously whether
they were from the town’s council or whether they were going to have to pay for
these improvements.
The teens would just smile at them and say
that they were from the church and their work was a present to them and to the
people of their community. The town’s
people were taken aback by all the beautiful work they were doing on their
behalf.
The story didn’t end there. A year later,
the Bishop went back to this town and he noticed something very interesting.
The residents had begun to do more things in that back alley, planting little
gardens and hold barbecues and getting to know one another.
All of this was the result of just one
small gesture of love and generosity from young people who had come together
from various churches to live out their faith in a very practical way. God’s
scandalous love takes a life of its own when lived out in even the smallest of
ways.
The reason that God risked everything by
sending us Jesus was because of scandalous love, a love that turns heads, a
love that makes people step out of their homes to see what new thing is
happening in their community, a love that offers grace even though we have been
unfaithful, and a love that comes to us as a little baby born in a manger.
And like Mary, God invites us to offer
this love to the world, a world that God loves and seeks to redeem. Mary knew
that the baby inside her was not just meant for her, but was also meant for the
whole world.
Christmas is a time for us to share in
God’s love for the world. How can we not share in God’s broken heart wherever
there is pain and suffering?
God feels the pain of those who are
unemployed or who live in communities where there is little or no hope. God
feels the pain in knowing that a child dies from hunger related causes every
five seconds somewhere around the world. God feels the pain in knowing that a
child dies from Malaria every sixty seconds.
God’s scandalous love calls each one of us
to reclaim Christmas, to not have Christmas be about us, but about what God
wants for the world. We are to reclaim Christmas by joining Mary in accepting
God’s call to be a blessing to our community and world.
Over these first few weeks of Advent, we
have been extending the invitation to reclaim Christmas through our special
Christmas missions offering this year. Our special Christmas gift is going to
support four vital mission projects. These include supporting our Lithuania United
Methodist partner church, the Africa Development Fund, Imagine No Malaria, and
Good Works Outreach in Athens, Ohio.
Can you imagine what a difference our
church can make through this special missions offering? We’re just one church,
but when we reclaim Christmas and offer ourselves to the world, great things
can happen. Lives can be saved. People can receive hope. Communities can be
transformed.
This year, reclaim Christmas. Receive
God’s amazing grace. And here’s the really important part. Let’s offer God’s
scandalous love to the world.
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