Surprise! Matthew 1:18-25
Do you like surprises?
Lillian Daniel, in a UCCdaily devotional this week responds:
“It depends. Are there
airline tickets to Paris sitting in my mailbox, or is a piano about to fall on
my head? Is Publisher's Clearinghouse ringing my doorbell, or a trio of
dark-suited, long-winded members of a proselytizing religion?”
I think I like surprises,
although, like Lillian says “it depends.”
Is it the kind that blew in with Thursday’s wind storm, which toppled
the neighbors 35 foot oak into her tiny front yard (unpleasant), or the kind of
surprise that was the tree somehow missed both the new roof her adult kids
spent a week installing this summer and the two cars parked in the drive
(providential)?
Lillian goes on: “Children
who are loved and protected still seem to have the sense that surprises are
fun. To their hopeful hearts, the unexpected surprise around the corner is more
likely to be a new pony than a trip to the dentist.
It is the process of
life, and perhaps braces, that causes that subtle shift within us, to the point
where surprises frighten us and we long instead for something we call
"security."”
I guess she’s right. Although
the middle years are teaching me that the surprise has a way of sticking her
unsettling head into the best laid plans of security anyway.
In these days and weeks of preparing
for the birth of Emmanuel, I often think of another birth, the birth of my son
Elijah. These days, it is very common for parents to be advised to create a
birth plan from “I'll decide whether to use pain medication as my labor
progresses” to “I'd like my baby evaluated and bathed in my presence.” We had a plan and it was quite clear on the
number of points. However. The birth of Elijah took place in this way.
One Saturday evening, we went
to visit friends in their apartment north of Seattle, where we were living at
the time. The PLAN was that Jeff and I
would entertain their toddler while they went out for the evening, even though
our friend, the toddler’s father, kept saying he thought it was a bad idea for
an 8-months-along pregnant lady to spend the evening chasing a lively child,
but I brushed off those worries - after
all pregnant women chase toddlers all the time, right? When we arrived at our friends building –
surprise – there was a line of fire trucks in front because – surprise – our
friends upstairs neighbors had started a small fire in the building so –
surprise – we wouldn't be staying there that night although – surprise – it was
a rather lovely evening for may so we ended up on the beach with boxes of
pizza, watching the full moon rise over the hills and reflect on the water. And that night – surprise – I went into labor
a full month early and called my mom who – surprise – changed the ticket she
had for later “after the baby comes” and arrived that same day, just after
Elijah who – surprise- was sent to the NICU.
The next few weeks were long
ones – if you’ve never been surprised by a stay in the neonatal intensive care
unit, I don't wish that for you. But
along with those surprises, came other ones – friends and even acquaintances
arrived with gifts of food and prayer and presence and prayer and hugs and
prayers. We had made a birth plan that
included just the three of us – me and my husband the new baby - but it was the prayers and presence of so many
others that got us through those surprising weeks just after Eli was born.
Although those weeks in the
NICU were some of the hardest we’ve known, they were also the most wonderful and
we were surprised again and again by the many sweet gifts of that time. Looking back, I mark the beginning of the
strongest period of my faith and relationship with God to that time. Surprise.
“Now the birth of Jesus the
Messiah took place in this way.” Sounds like the start to a very clear birth
plan. Joseph probably has one. He will spend a year engaged to and then
marry a faithful and lovely young woman of the community. Engagement in Josephs time was a legal
designation similar to marriage, although the couple did not yet live
together. In the due course of time they
would move into together and create a family.
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.”
And then – surprise- everything is backwards.
The baby is coming before the marriage.
And then – surprise- Jospeh plans to dismiss her quietly (which to our modern ears can sound harsh, but
if you consider the alternative -the law that she should be stoned to death– it
actually IS righteous). And then –
further surprise – the visit by the angel to Joseph while he sleeps and the
change of heart. Mary will bear the
child after all, and he will bear the child, and all of life’s other surprises,
with her.
This is a big surprise, the
biggest of Josephs’ life thus far, I’m guessing – but he met it with equanimity
and grace and – the scripture tells us – righteousness.
He practices these big
virtues not on a big stage but in (what theologian James Boyce calls) “the
common places of life- the birth of a child; people faced with decisions
involving religious traditions, law, and community or having to do with
marriage, family or a decision to divorce- (these are) the arenas in which God
surprisingly enters human life with creative and transforming power.”
In reading about the
spirituality of surprise this week, I kept bumping into another s-word –
Surrender.
In her book, The Sevenwhispers, Christina Baldwin says that surrendering to surprise is the biggest
key to being able to accept them and, if not enjoy them, at least learn from
them: Practice surrendering to the small surprises gives us resilience, she
says, “required when the biggest surprises come along.
Baldwin describes one reaction
to surprises this way: by remembering
that it is what it is.
First
Notice what is
Then
Accept what is
Then
Work with what is
Joseph must have been working
for a while on accepting surprise, because when the big one came, he was able
to “notice” (mary is with child)
Accept – (things are not what
I planned, what is the next step?)
And work with (planned to
dismiss her quietly)
When he is hit immediately
with another surprise –unless he was accustomed to receiving God in his dreams
– he rolls with the punches again
Notice,
Accept
Work with
I asked a few of you what you
thought of surrender as a spiritual idea and un-surprisingly, no one said
“surrender! I love it! I can’t wait to
surrender!” Some of you suggested other
words instead – discernment or serenity.
But to many of us, surrender sounds too much like giving up, like being
the victim, like ignoring our god-given free will.
If the word surrender sticks
in your craw so much that you cant receive it, feel free to ignore it. But Joseph’s kind of surrender – the kind
Christina Baldwin talks about - looks a lot like a word that (according toAnthony Robinson in another UCC devotional this week) “sounds a lot like its
opposite” – determination.
Advent – like life – if full
of surprises. “We don't know the
outcomes in advance. We only know the next step. We surrender our need to know
it all in advance, to be in control, and” then notice what is, accept what it,
work with what is.
Do you like surprises? Well, like them or not, ready or not, here
they come. How you meet them, all of them
– the promotion along with the job loss; the medical scare averted, along with
the worst diagnosis; the car who cuts you off in traffic, along with the person
who lets you ahead in the grocery line “just because;” the tickets to Paris
along with the piano on the head; the unexpected pregnancy along with the visit
from god in your dreams– the practice of advent is the practice of meeting
those surprises, all of them. May it be
so for each of us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment