Expecting The Unexpected

Isaiah 65: 17-25 & Luke 21: 5-19

Roger Lynn

July 10, 2016

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Where in the world is God? Where do we even begin to look? The world can be a frightening and confusing place, and sometimes we just want some assurances that God has not abandoned us. We come to church. We pray. We try to live our lives faithfully. But there are times when it is hard to keep from despairing. So much of what we see going on around us is in turmoil and it only seems to be getting worse. Where in the world is God?

The prophet Isaiah offers an answer when he writes to people who are newly returned from a time of exile, but not yet restored to the life they expected and desired. He speaks of God’s promise to bring all of creation into balance and harmony. It is a marvelous piece of poetry, filled with hopeful images of life as we all want it to be — peace and prosperity and equality for everyone. When the days are dark and threatening it can be comforting to read such words and dream of a time when God will bring such a reality into existence. The only problem, of course, is that most of the time we don’t really see much evidence that it is going to happen any time soon. If God is present and working in the midst of us even now, then why is life like this? When, O God, will it begin to be different? 

Such a question surely was on the minds of Jesus’ disciples when they asked about the stones and the temple? Living in the shadow of the Roman occupation, they had grown up with images like that of Isaiah and other more dramatically apocalyptic writings as well. For generations their people had been watching and waiting for God to shine forth in one final, all-consuming act of judgment and vindication, where everything would be made right. The images for thinking about such things included great cataclysmic events like wars, earthquakes, fire and flood. Give us a sign, so we’ll know when the fireworks are about to begin! To which Jesus responds in typical Jesus fashion by turning all their expectations upside down. You’re asking the wrong questions, he tells them, and you’re looking in the wrong direction. When you spend so much time and energy trying to figure out how the latest disaster fits in with your expectation of some divine timetable, you forget to stay focused on the true source of both your comfort and your strength. You can face whatever comes your way, whether it is frightening global upheaval or threats to your personal safety, not by trying to be self-sufficient, in control and having all the answers, but by remembering that God is bigger than any of the details which seem to threaten us.

God is, indeed, all around us all the time, a powerful resource just waiting for us to tap into. But all too often we find ourselves looking only in the places we expect to find God, and our expectations are shaped and molded by our own human instincts and our cultural perspectives. We look for God to come in some big, dramatic way because that is how we would do it if we were God. We expect to find God in certain holy places or in certain holy people because that is where our culture has taught us to look. Isaiah describes God restoring the fortunes of exiled Israel because that is how they wanted it to be.

Over and over again Jesus reminds us that connecting with the God who is right here in the midst of us means watching in the places we wouldn’t normally think to look, listening to the voices we wouldn’t normally hear, expecting the unexpected. When his disciples start asking him about signs (the ways they expected to find God) he tells them to try a different perspective. All the big, dramatic things like wars and earthquakes aren’t signs. They aren’t caused by God to make a point. They just happen because that is the way the world works. But when they happen you don’t have to be afraid, because God is right there in the midst of the terror, ready to offer strength and comfort. When the authorities arrest you for being a person of faith, God isn’t causing it to happen. People make unfortunate and painful choices when they are afraid. But you can certainly use the occasion to share the good news that God is present even in the darkness of such times as those. Even in the Psalm which we shared a bit earlier in the service (Psalm 98) we find surprises. In the final few verses, where everything is getting into the act of praising God, two of the things mentioned are the sea and the floods. In ancient Hebrew poetic symbolism, both represent the forces of chaos. Surely such chaos must be defeated or subdued! But apparently not. The psalmist had the remarkable and unexpected insight that there is nothing which is outside the reach of God’s all-encompassing love — not even chaos. 

We are living in dark and frightening times. Everywhere we look we find evidence of pain and suffering, division and brokenness. We want God to show up. We want some sign that God has not abandoned us. And the truth of the matter is that such signs are all around us, waiting to be discovered in unexpected places. A clergy friend of mine tells the story of a funeral he did for a prominent member of the military. My friend’s perspectives on life differ fairly dramatically from those which are typically associated with ardent military supporters. So there was some apprehension when the uniformed State Department representative walked through the door of my friend’s office after the service. But, surprisingly, what they found was common ground around the pain and fear which is being experienced in our world today. Understanding where only tension was expected. A glimpse of God’s presence. 

The fact that God can continue to surprise us in unexpected ways is amazingly wonderful good news. If we only found God in the first places we thought to look, and only in the manner we are most accustomed to experiencing God’s presence, then far too much of life would be devoid of any sense of the sacred, and far too many experiences would be filled with despair. But it need not be so. If we can remain open to the possibility of the unexpected, and very often even when we can’t, we will continue to be startled by the awareness that God has not abandoned us to our fate, and is, even at this moment, actively and powerfully present in ways which will always surpass our wildest imaginings. Where is God? Indeed, where is God not? As the cover of our bulletin this morning reminds us, bidden or not bidden, God is present. May we remember to notice.