‘EXPECT TO BE SURPRISED!’

Acts 10:44-48

John 15:9-17

            Life is often full of surprises.  We know that whether we have been on earth for only a few years or many.  But, many times, we are still caught off guard when the unexpected occurs.  And we’re left shaking our heads saying, “That certainly wasn’t what I expected!”

            I remember well that the first breakfast I cooked as a new bride because it began with a big surprise.  Bob and I were in our first apartment, just back from our honeymoon.  And since I was an experienced cook, I set out to create a memorable meal.  But as I turned on the oven, preparing to bake a coffee cake, a loud bang occurred and a ball of fire shot out of the oven….accompanied by a very loud scream on my part. Fortunately, our landlord repaired the stove very quickly but I approached that appliance with caution for a few days.  And this less-than-idyllic beginning should have been a clue to me that more surprises were sure to come…. and they did!

            Another unforgettable surprise in our lives came on the day we were driving through Montana in a rental truck, towing our car behind, as we made a temporary move to St. Louis.  All of a sudden another loud bang occurred and the truck lost all of its power.   We quickly got out of the cab and found, much to our dismay, that the entire drive shaft of the truck had broken loose and shot under the car carrier, landing several yards behind the back wheels.  That surprise had a silver lining, however, because the Montana highway official who came to help rescue us reasoned that our rig might have toppled into a deep ditch had the drive shaft broken only partially loose.  You can be sure that we gave thanks that day for God’s protection in a time of risk!

            But, of course, surprises involve much than material objects like stoves or trucks.  Some of the most memorable surprises we all experience involve people whom we meet unexpectedly.  For instance, have you ever been traveling abroad only to come face-to-face with someone you already know?  That happened once to Bob as he was chaperoning a student group in Paris.  As he came up a Metro escalator, there stood one of his best friends from here in Seattle calling out, “Hi, Bob!”  (And I had a similar experience in Jerusalem when one of the first people I met, outside of my travel group, was an Anglican priest I had known in seminary in Canada.)

            If we had enough time this morning to share many stories of surprises that have come our way, I’m sure we could talk well past lunchtime. And such a time of sharing could be very enlightening.   But another important source of enlightenment is Scripture as it reveals the life experiences of early believers.  Let us turn, then, to our first lesson for today, to examine Peter’s experience and to see what that experience has to teach us.

            Every time I study chapters 10 and 11 of Acts, I try hard to understand the dilemma Peter was facing when God introduced some very startling surprises into Peter’s life.  But in order to appreciate how difficult it was for Peter to approach the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and especially to enter into table fellowship with Gentiles, I think we have to try and picture what group of people we might be most reticent to encounter.  Would that be Middle Eastern Muslims or a native tribe from some part of Africa; or those we might identify as a “fringe group” in our own American society or some other part of the human community?

            The lack of Jewish and Gentile fellowship in Peter’s time may not sound so serious to us since many of us have socialized or interacted with Jewish people in our own lifetimes.  But, for Peter, entering a Gentile home would have been very unorthodox and actually eating with a Gentile would have been even more scandalous.  Everything that Peter held dear, in terms of his Jewish values, was challenged by God’s call to him to accept Cornelius and other Gentiles on an equal basis.  No wonder this was such a major turning point in Peter’s life!

            Peter Walaskay, who has written an excellent commentary on the Book of Acts, emphasizes the audaciousness of what Peter was doing.  “Not only has God revealed to a Galilean fisherman that God has changed the rules of the game which determine social interactions between Jews and Gentiles,” Walaskay says, “but this fisherman-preacher now boldly announces that ‘God shows no partiality, but in every nation (every ethnic group) anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.”  (Acts, p. 108)

            This message especially astounded Peter’s circumcised friends, who had also come to believe in Christ and they struggled to believe that “the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”

            So often we human beings set up artificial boundaries about whom we will or won’t accept only to be surprised when God shows us how wrong we are.  I was reminded, for example, of how often I prejudge others who differ from me as I recently read the newest issue of the Seattle University Magazine.   An article on hunger reported what one speaker said as she addressed a National Student Hunger Campaign at Seattle U last November.  Beverly Graham, who is the founder of Operation: Sack Lunch, a program that provides meals to the homeless and working poor in the Seattle area, was the speaker and she had this to say:  “I could see the nicotine stain on his moustache and his beard when he pulled out someone’s half-eaten sandwich.  And I thought, I just watched someone’s grandfather eat garbage.  What makes that OK?”  (Spring 2006 issue, p. 16)

            And all of us, I believe, must ask, “What makes it okay for us to discriminate against others who neither look nor act like us?”  My answer would be, “Nothing makes that okay.”

            For Peter and his friends, the question was, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  And the obvious answer is “No!”

            As followers of Jesus Christ, our task is to get on the same page that God is on.  But, having said that, you and I both know that doing so can prove to be difficult, confusing and time-consuming.  But God will tell us the page number, if we really listen.  And we have a wonderful example, in Peter’s story, that shows us how much richer life is spiritually when we are open to the new understandings that God has in store.

            I would wager that many of us still wonder, at times, how God got our attention in a convincing enough way two years ago to move us to unite into one congregation.  Be honest!  Haven’t you been a little surprised in the past two years by the people you’ve met and the experiences we’ve shared?

            From my perspective, we’ve been given a wonderful, new chance to more fully live out Jesus’ commandment recorded in John’s Gospel.  “Love one another as I have loved you.” We continue to work on that love and our network of friendship has grown wider because we have allowed ourselves to be guided by God.

            But being a friend of Jesus does not signify membership in a privileged club.  Instead, accepting that friendship means accepting a call to service and a life of loving faithfulness.  And it often means that the other friends of Jesus that God sets before us are those who help us to stretch and grow in unexpected ways.

            Like Peter, we can only begin where we are, with all of our human shortcomings, our prejudices and our fears.  But Peter changed and so can we!  The Holy Spirit continues to move in, around and through our lives….sometimes like a gale force wind and sometimes like a gentle breeze.  And just when we think we have all the answers we need to live a satisfying life, that Spirit may surprise and startle us into new adventures of faith.  Every day has the potential to be a Pentecost, so let’s take to heart the advice that author Annie Dillard gave in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk:

                        “It is madness to wear ladies’ hats to church;  we should all be

            wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal

            flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping God may wake

            someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where

            we can never return.”  (From Quotations by Women, p. 138)

            Does that possibility sound more than slightly scary?  Of course!  But is moving into the “place of no return” that God offers a good place to go?  Most emphatically – “Yes!” 

            Let us not be afraid to move into the surprising places that God has in store, knowing that Peter and his friends, and multitudes of other Christians, have gone before us to show us the way.  And, most importantly, we go with assurance and hope because God is with us every step of the way.