"The Interruption of Surprise," the senior sermon of Kevin LJ Schubert, Class of 2007 from the Diocese of Texas, given on October 11, 2006, in Christ Chapel

Micah 2:1-13 and Luke 7:18-35

I’d like to share with you a story about one of the first times I fell in love. It all began the summer after third grade; I had gone to my first weeklong camp session at Camp Allen. As soon as I arrived I saw Shannon and immediately took action. In full knowledge that the last night was the greatly heralded summer dance I swooped in quick to ask her. She agreed and we began that long, meaningful, weeklong relationship. I was in hog heaven, while the other boys at the camp were fretting over who they would take, I was relaxed and cool about my situation. I had not only found a date for the dance, I found the prettiest girl at camp to go with.

Oh but my expectations were not as it seemed, on the day of the dance my world came crashing down. That day at the pool one of Shannon’s friends found me and said that Shannon could not go to the dance with me because she had found some other guy, James, who was just all around better than me. I was absolutely crushed. As I sat there dripping wet, not only from the pool water, but from my tears as well, thoughts came rushing into my head: who is this James, more than that where is he so I can let him know exactly how I feel. Just as I was looking around for something to smack him with, I noticed sitting next to me a boy about my age. He said, “Hi, are you Kevin?” I said, still sobbing, “Yes, who are you?” “I’m James, I’m sorry I didn’t know you were going to the dance with Shannon. You can go with her if you want.” Now how could I smack that?

As we sat there talking, and after I wiped away my tears, we realized just how much we had in common. My expectation on that first day of camp was that I would have this wonderful experience at the dance with Shannon. The surprise not only came from the descent words of the young boy James, but that the relationship that erupted between the two of us was a Godsend. Twenty years later I am surprised to find that relationship with James still exists. The sad thing is that neither of us had a date to the dance; Shannon ultimately went with some other guy.

In today’s reading from Luke we find a peculiar piece within the narrative where expectations result in pure surprise. We find John the Baptist while in prison hearing word of Jesus’ miraculous deeds. John sent two of his disciples to Jesus questioning if he was the one who is to come or if they should wait for another. We can only imagine what was running through John’s mind while being holed up in jail awaiting his death. Is this the one for which I am to usher in; is this the one to bring salvation to my people? This was not exactly the person that the people were expecting; this was not exactly the eschatological prophet of Jewish expectation. I can only imagine the doubt that may have been swirling within John’s head.

Earlier in the third chapter of Luke, John speaks of what he expects saying: “As the people were filled with expectation, all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah. John answered all of them by saying I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to unite the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” John focuses his attention on the judgment that he expects from the Messiah, he wants action, the truth to come down and crush all of the injustices that he sees. But where there is judgment, there is also grace. Jesus, though with judgment, focuses his message on the grace found with God. He answers John’s messengers with a list of his deeds filled with the grace of God for those that turn to the truth. The surprise of Christ is the blessing he bestows on those that many believe do not deserve such treatment.

Turning to the crowd Jesus addresses the expectation that the people have. By discerning for themselves without being in relationship with God and God’s purpose, they miss the point. Of the people in the generation in which he speaks they had seen John as maybe the Messiah and celebrated with music from the flute, but John did not dance, he instead fasted and prayed, and so they said, “He has a demon.” When Jesus comes into the mix healing and teaching they wailed in expectation of a solemn response, but instead Jesus healed on the Sabbath and ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, and they called him “a glutton and a drunkard.”

Throughout the gospel we see that Jesus and his message are unexpected. Within the surprise of Christ we find the grace of God bestowed on the world. Here we live in a world that is broken and hurt, we live in a world full of violence, oppression, and injustices; but how do our actions and desires reflect upon our knowledge of these fractured things?

In the Old Testament reading Micah is prophesizing to the wealthy people of the Northern Kingdom about their false expectations in the world. During this period we find that the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. The economy was beginning to shift dramatically because of issues surrounding land ownership. The wealthy in the land wanted to hear messages of the abundance they were procuring and how disgrace would not overtake them. We hear Micah say in verse eleven, “If someone were to go about uttering empty falsehoods, saying ‘I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,’ such a one would be the preacher for this people!” But Micah foresees the demise of the wealthy. Soon the Assyrian Empire will invade and the rich will find themselves disgraced and stripped of their abundance. Their desires within their expectations will surprisingly end in disappointment.

What can we at this particular time in America learn from the people Micah was prophesizing to? What expectations do we have? Recently Lou Dobbs published an article on CNN’s website about the state of our precious America. History seems to be repeating itself, it appears that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And not only what we as middle class Americans consider poor, but we too are sitting idly by while beginning to slump into more debt and harsher circumstances. The 400 wealthiest Americans listed on the Forbes list are now all multi-billionaires for the first time in our history. The net worth of all listed is 1.25 trillion. Yet the rest of the 250 million Americans are slumping economically. The financial pressures of public policies, such as cost of insurance, higher education, pharmaceutical drugs, and dependency on foreign oil has strangled our population creating an increasing black hole between those that hold the abundance in the country and those that aspire to.

We can sit here and lead our lives in full knowledge of these things and say, “Oh it’s ok, spread the word of God and this will fix the problem.” But no, it takes more. We can’t only be satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ; it’s much more than this. Like the people Micah prophesizes to we can say, “We live in a land of abundance, preach of fine wine and drink, of the joys of the world.” But does this get to what we are commissioned to do? We will be surely surprised to find that we must do more. It is easy to say we live in relationship with God and be satisfied and content, it is much harder to say my relationship with God takes my full effort and will to do the work I have been asked to do. Through this line of thought we see the true interruption, the true surprise. We can then be filled with what is of more abundance, the love and fulfillment of God. Just because it is the church we should not skirt the issues facing our generation and preach of the abundance we have, but instead we need to make clear the injustices we face. The wisdom that is engrained in the words and deeds of Christ is vindicated. Let us then be apart of that wisdom; let us do the hard work that is necessary for the justification of God to be a reality in God’s kingdom.

Being in relationship with God is where we find the grace necessary to carry out the work of the church. That grace is always a surprise, and that surprise is not always joyful but many times a disappointment from what we expect. There is an apparent difficulty in discerning those surprises. We must discern those surprises with the help of the church, the community that lives within the surprises of grace. Hearing and discerning the revelation of God takes being in relationship with one another as a family. Being in relationship with God is being in relationship with God’s people to carry out the mission of that family. Thomas Aquinas said that friendship with God is what our souls desire more than anything else. There are numerous ways in which we can be in that friendship with God, but where we find a mirror to that friendship is by being in relationship with one another. Within the church we must strive to meld those bonds of friendship together. Yes we will disagree, we will argue and at times we will need to vent our anger at one another, but to do the work in which we are called to do we must first have a common mission together.

The common mission of the church is a necessity in our lives. In leading the people of the church we have a very difficult task, but through the hard work of staying in relationship with one another and God we can bring that mission to light. Sometimes it is necessary to relinquish our selfish expectations of what we strive so hard to accomplish. Through prayer and careful discernment with ourselves, the church, and God we can deliberately keep on a path for God’s grace to be revealed.

So often our decisions, though with good intentions, are tainted with our own agendas, which ultimately lead to our own gains rather than to what God may intend. I am reminded of a story about my brother when we were children. You see at a young age my brother taught me how to dive in our local pool. Now you may be thinking that his reasons were purely as a positive guide for my recreational formation, but oh how Brad was a cunning kid with very dark humor. His ultimate goal was to teach his little brother how to dive, but his own agenda became apparent. For his amusement that day in the pool he would dive down to the bottom and shoot back up yelling to me, “Man you got to try this, it smells like bananas down there.” Now my interest was raised, and I worked all day long to accomplish the goal of diving down deep in order to smell those bananas at the bottom of the pool. Needless to say when I did accomplish my goal of diving, I smelled no bananas.

Now, our own benefits may not be to get a laugh at the expense of our congregation, but may come in the form of a particular political agenda, occupational prestige, and quite possibly the abuse of power. Jesus says at the sermon on the plain in Luke, “First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” We must be careful in how we guide. This utilitarian challenge gets in the way of perceiving the nature of God. The journey of the church becomes increasingly more Christ driven by recognizing our own biases and keeping God as our focal point. We must be open to the interruption of surprise in our expectations of what we construct God’s mission to be, and live within the relationships of each other to learn more of the relationship we have with God, and consequently carrying out God’s missional purpose to the world. Amen.