Being Surprized

Sermon-Year C-Advent 2 December 6, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas? Remember when Christmas was all about being surprised, not knowing what was coming?
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius-the Caesar of all the Roman Empire, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John-who was standing out in the wilderness. Five world leaders, the 2 highest religious leaders. And the word of God came to….John. A man who was nothing. A man who had no nice clothes, no home, a man who lived on insects and honey. A man who lived in the wilderness. And this is who the Word of God came to? Do you think Luke the gospel writer is trying to make a point?
Why would God choose someone so, unimportant, so unlikely, so improbable to use as a messenger? Think about it for a moment. Could God have chosen a more implausible person to get the world ready for a savior? Well, I suppose he could have-God could have chosen some young teen aged woman from an unassuming, no name family but even God would never do that, right. The Advent story is supposed to convince us how crazy God is, how he never uses what we would use, to change the world. The Advent story is supposed to surprise us.
How would you announce that a savior was coming? How would you try to stop the world-or even slow it down? How would you grab people’s attention? How would you let people know that the world was changing? My guess is that you wouldn’t send one person, WITHOUT wifi, out into the wilderness who would start yelling that people needed to change their lives. My guess is that you wouldn’t send one person, a young woman, who would simply promise to be faithful no matter how hard it became. I think we would have done a much better job than God at getting the word out. You wouldn’t trust this life saving, life changing message to people who were so, small and unimportant. We would be a lot more careful than God, a lot smarter, a lot wiser, we would plan things MUCH better.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
Over and over in Advent we hear stories of the unexpected, the unprepared, the unready. Everyone in the Advent story is always incredulous, disbelieving, skeptical-have you ever noticed? John the Baptist’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, John’s parents were too old. Zechariah was even struck mute until he wrote these famous words-“His name is John” (not Zechariah). And so we have the song sung by Zechariah. Elizabeth was too old, they gave the baby a non-family name (unheard of, impossible!). Everything around the story of John the Baptist was a shock. Nothing happened according to plan.
Every year at Christmas I preach on getting our hearts ready for the birth of a savior. But as I listened to today’s gospel I started wondering, is that wise? Maybe we’re supposed to be caught off guard, perhaps we shouldn’t even try to be prepared. No one seems to be in the gospel story, right? I think back to when Christmas was most fun, most exciting for me-and for most people--it’s when I was about 6-I didn’t know what was coming next-when everything was a bombshell.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
It becomes and harder to get surprised the older I get. I work a lot at being prepared, being ready. Don’t you? We do all these things to be organized. Usually when we get startled (at least at my age) it’s not a good thing. It means something caught us unawares, we were metaphorically, napping. I’m meeting with 4 couples right now who are preparing for marriage next year. If you want to see someone who works around the clock to be prepared (usually for several months), look at a bride. Or a bride’s mother. I don’t think we want to be surprized. That’s why Advent may be important for us. Advent is the time when strange characters stand out in the wilderness and yell at us, “PREPARE TO BE SURPRIZED!” It’s when angels come to people and say, “YOU CAN”T BE READY FOR THIS”. Advent is the time when we look up at stars and hear odd voices, and get visits from unusual people, all saying the same thing, “you won’t believe what’s coming next!” I started counting all the things yesterday that were surprizes. The Legos team won the Spirit award at the state competition. Blane was in shock. The coldest day of the year so far, and there were Tianna and Sara Eziuka standing out in front of WalMart ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. As I turned to leave them, and I was thinking about this sermon and the surprizes that I had yesterday, there were fireworks going off over Belleville lake (after the Christmas parade). When I started looking for revelations they were all around me.
I think Advent is the season when we’re supposed to be surprized. I think this is the season when we’re supposed to walk around noticing all the things that catch us unawares. Every Biblical story in Advent is about how God shocked normal folks with amazing things. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought-maybe this is how I should get ready-to look for surprizes.
Last week I asked you to Choose quiet, to watch, to wait, to slow down. This week I ask you to allow yourself to be surprized,-to be caught off guard, to notice how many times in a day that something happens that you don’t expect. The more I watched last week, the more I waited, the more I slowed down and became quieter-the more surprises I saw and felt. I think this is what we do in Advent, what people did in the first Advent-they allowed themselves to be surprised. It isn’t an easy thing for adults. We almost have to be ready for it. We have to prepare ourselves to be surprised-and that’s an oxymoron. But I think this is what Advent teaches me-when I slow down, watch, listen, quiet, wait, that’s when the surprises come.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"