Why are You Surprised and Disturbed?

Surprise! Another gospel, another shocking surprise!  Jesus pops back into the disciples’ lives when they least expect it.  Luke, John, and Matthew have Jesus popping in and out of their Easter Sunday stories like a jack in a box or a game of whack a mole.  Not just once, but several times.  On the road to Emmaus, behind locked doors, on the Galilee beach with a fish fry, and making sure that the disciples know that he’s no ghost or zombie.  Again and again, he is physically present to people described as reliable and trustworthy witnesses who are completely bewildered at the turn of events.

Not for long, according to our scripture reading this morning.  Peter has transformed in a few short days from someone full of grief and guilt into one who speaks with confidence and authority.  This is not the man who denied Jesus three times.  This is not the man who scolded Jesus and being told “Get behind me you Satan!”

Peter speaks not about himself and his grand ideas but God’s healing power.  The verses before this talk about a man born with weak legs.  He was a beggar at the door of the temple in Jerusalem, dependent upon the generosity of passers by.  Everyone knew him.  To see him standing on his own two feet, hanging on to Peter and John, would have been a surprise and shock.  Impossible!

Peter gave his first sermon spontaneously, and it was powerful because of the beggar standing beside him, a little wobbly perhaps, but a living example of a surprising God in action.

It's amazing to hear that both Jesus and Peter don’t make these extraordinary events about themselves.  Even though Jesus talks about being the Messiah, it is all in service of reconnecting people to God.  When we think that only perfect humans can connect with God, how can anyone feel comfortable approaching the sacred mystery that guides us?  Peter firmly told people he was not the one with healing powers.  Only God had that power, and only through following the teachings of Jesus could Peter help the beggar.  Peter knew that what he had learned from Jesus was rooted in his devotion to God, his understanding of scripture, his participation in worship and prayer in the temple.  Surprise! God wasn’t only found in the scrolls they read, in the old stories of their ancestors, but also in the lives of the people right there in front of them!

Surprise, Jesus was still there.  Even though authorities had done everything physically possible to silence Jesus by killing him, it had not killed the healing stories and actions that Jesus had done.  If death could not stop his message of love and grace and hope, what could?

Who needs that kind of surprise in 2024?  Who is the lame beggar in our midst?  There are many reports of Millennials and Gen Y adults struggling with despair and apathy.  The winter edition of Orion Magazine whose cover is the picture for this sermon, was about the struggles young people are having with dating around the world.  China is struggling with a sharply plummeting birth rate.  Canada’s birth rate has been dropping since 2009.  Young adults struggle to find stable long term relationships.  Some give up on romance altogether.  It’s easy to forget that this is the generation that saw the twin towers explode when they were in elementary school.  They’ve grown up in a world that has been talking about climate change since before they were born.  My children were learning about recycling and caring for the environment as early as Grade Three, and knew that car exhaust and pollution were causing global warming. Australian kids had wide-brimmed hats added to their school uniforms in the 90’s because 80% of cancers there are skin cancers.  Many young people experience climate anxiety that impacts their emotional health.  They wonder where they can turn to for hope.  Between Covid, 9/11 and global warming, who can blame them?

They have grown up in a world of contradictions.  A world that claims that there is no God.  There is no reason to plan for the future because at any time a gunman can walk into their schools, or a terrorist can fly a plane into a building or someone can get a cough in China that shuts down a university in Toronto or a cruise ship in Hawaii.  There is no safety in this world. 

Surprise! God is still up to something.  This is as hard to believe today as the resurrection was for the people listening to Peter.  But there are lots of little signs of grace and hope showing up when we know what to look for.  There are websites like Fixthenews.com that report on the drop in violent crime in the US, the shrinking of the Japanese Mafia, the increase in the number of countries that are making same sex marriage legal despite the pope’s latest news release.  Or Optomistdaily.com with stories like Medellín, Colombia, once the most dangerous city in the world planting so much greenery that they are lowering the average temperature of their city at the same time that they lower their carbon footprint and their crime rate.  Or the United Church’s Faithful Footprints program that aims to lower our carbon emissions by 80% by 2030, who have worked with over 400 United Church properties. Faith communities are the second-largest property owners in Canada after the federal government, and the United Church of Canada, alongside the Mennonite Church of Canada, is one of only two faith communities with a national-level grant program, and our example is inspiring the Anglican Church of Canada to develop something similar.  We also now have so many people wanting to become candidates for ministry that we have had to put a cap on how many students are going into our programs! Because no matter what, God is with us, we are not alone.  God is still surprising us, inspiring us, healing us so that we can stand, wobbly, leaning on each other for support so that we can dream with God of a healthier more loving world for the future.  May it be so, Amen!