God of Surprises
Luke 24: 1-12
The God I met in Sunday school was a God of order. I was one of those kids who would correct my friends who tried to color outside the lines. I wouldn’t allow my dolls to select unmatching socks and I grew to love the look of calendars (with their neat boxes all lined up.) So imagine my delight when I read our shared Judeo-Christian story of creation. It was clearly crafted by a group of left brained authors. We read that this order loving God poetically breathes the world to life in a week and it was clean and clear and concise. This order loving God wanted his creation to love order too, so a world unfolded that was neat and tidy and well within the lines. Light and darkness were separated, air and land and water were divided; the sun and moon were created together. Animals and plants for the land in one box and animals and plants for the sea and the air in another. This was a God I could so easily love.
But then something happened. Well actually life happened and the order that was my life fell apart. No longer could my experiences be easily categorized and quickly quantified. I needed that God who could dare to color outside the lines because I felt as if I had no lines at all. My parents divorced and the neat categories crumbled and my heart broke and the real stuff of living landed right within my soul; I met God again as if for the very first time. This God did not manifest through order and schedules and categories. This God was not only within the messiness, but this God found me when I felt like a mess.
When I couldn’t fit my experience into an orderly, logical chain of linear life, God was there. It surprised me and rocked me to my core. How could that God I knew before be this same energy? But it was and it found its way to me when I could hardly find a way to myself. And since my days sitting in the basement of my congregational church, I have come to believe that our story of creation, the narrative of our Genesis, is our human attempt at giving order to God for the very reason that our lives often seem to have little order at all. Because we find ourselves smack in the middle of real living, of chaotic schedules, and the ache of grief, in the middle of family drama and tiny spaces for moments of grace we often yearn for a God that makes sense, for the God we find in our story creation. But it seems to me that our God has very little order at all. Or at least our God takes joy in coloring outside the lines because more often than not the lines we draw have more to do with us than anything to do with God. It seems as if our God is not categorical or chronological. Our God is not orderly or pragmatic. From what I can tell, our God is a God of surprises.
To be sure our God is present in all and through all but the way God is present is the part that is most surprising. You see, our God, for whatever reason usually surprises us by using other human beings. That is the funny thing about our incarnational faith. God manifests God’s self through us, which is quite surprising in itself. Despite our imperfections and failings, despite the ways in which we have faltered and fumbled, God uses us to care for those around us, to surprise others with love and grace. And that is why today we celebrate our Stephen Ministers and Leaders and those who will be called to this work in the coming months. God uses us to care for those around us. In case you have missed it, we are a Stephen Ministry congregation. That means we are committed to a lay ministry of spiritual care. It means that we train and equip and support members of our congregation and then send them out to visit and bless those in need. It means that we are saying yes to our God and being open to whatever surprises God might be ready to offer.
When I was searching for a call in the spring of 2007 I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this congregation had a Stephen Ministry program. I had been told that New Englanders weren’t fond of the “warm and fuzzy stuff,” often required when administering spiritual care, and that many of you in this part of the country are not a fan of surprises. Having been a pastor for two years at that point, I knew that visiting people is no way to avoid surprises. Pastoral visits are the holy places and the very places where I have most been surprised by God. I have been surprised by the ways that somehow others have felt God’s presence simply because I sat beside them and I have been surprised by the depth of grace that has often filled the room. I have been surprised by how few words God needs to work and how silence is often the most sacred. Visits in the name of God are no way to avoid surprises.
So it seems to me you are a special group, because having a Stephen Ministry program, having a lay ministry dedicated to the care of those in need means that we have fallen love with this God of surprises. The Stephen Ministers were asked what surprised them most about their ministry of listening to, praying with and simply being present with those in need. Listen to what they said:
“What surprised me most about being a Stephen Minister was how much I learned personally. I have learned to listen without thinking I have anyone else's answer. I've learned to say..." I believe in you...I know you'll find your answer especially if you'll let God help." I've also learned that humor is alive and well even in the worst of times, even when it seems very dark. It amazes me how resilient people can be and willing to accept help.”
Another said, “I'm not surprised often since I'm a planner. I am surprised however how many times I pray during the day, while driving, while writing, while meeting, while working…”
And another said, “I guess I was surprised I could do it at all!”
Maybe that is why God loves surprise over order, maybe it is because if we have the time, we human beings like to dress up our baggage and clean our houses and tidy our cobwebs, so no one will know that we are human. And even though we resist being caught off guard that is often exactly what we need- to be caught, to be found just as we are with our dust bunnies dancing and our laundry piled up. For many of us what we need is not the chance to try and order what cannot be ordered, but we need the chance be invited to live fully with what is and to find God right in the middle of it all. That is who Stephen Ministers are and this is what they do. They are like those in the Gospel of Luke- those who arrive first on the scene at that dark morning when the sun was just peeking over the horizon. It was a morning like no other. The group that had gathered there found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but they were surprised to find things to be out of order. They were looking for Jesus, but things were messy and unexpected and a bit chaotic. They were looking for something that was already finished and gone but instead they found life, they were surprised to learn than God had something entirely different in mind-something totally out of turn, out of order, something that introduced them to the God of surprises.
Stephen Ministers show up at the tomb and often something totally unimaginable happens. Listen to these words from those who have been on the receiving end of the love offered through our Stephen Ministers.
“I was able to open my heart to another person and bring it all to God with the help <and training> of the Stephen Minister that was called to come into my life when I was at my lowest…”
Another said, “I was thrust into the darkest imaginable period of my life when God called a time-out on what had been a wonderful and many year marriage partnership. That darkness felt as though a heavy door had slammed shut on a windowless room, and at that point I knew not which way to turn or how to escape…that door was gradually swung open by the visits of one of our Stephen Ministers, who by encouragement, prayer and friendly advice, gradually dispelled at least some of the darkness and showed me that God’s world was still there and open to me once more.”
Today as we celebrate our Stephen Ministry Program, we celebrate our God of surprises. We remember together that God comes to us through one another. We remember that God does not need tidy lives or neat categories or full schedules. God just needs us and maybe it is you in particular that God is calling. And maybe the most surprising part of all is not that God shows up and surprises us, but that sometimes we are the ones God calls; sometimes we are the ones God uses to surprise others. May our hearts be open to God’s beckoning this day. Amen.