October 26, 2008
Pastor Chad Langdon

Mark 16: 1-8
PART 1 (8:00 & 10:45) 

            I’m going to do something this morning that I’ve never done before.  I’m just going to give you part 1 of a sermon.  As you listen this morning, please know that this is only the first part of the message.  The second part will be shared tonight at LIFT.  Normally, they get the same sermon as you all get in the morning, but today is different.  You get part 1, they get part 2.  And here’s why.  Tonight we are having a potluck dinner at 5pm.  It’s the first big, congregation-wide event we’ve had in very long time and we want as many people there as possible.  We used to have congregation-wide meals like this nearly once a month, but since the construction started, we gotten away from an important part of who Hope is.  We are a community and we like to eat.  So, I encourage all of you to come tonight.  The meal starts at 5.  You bring a dish to share.  And then you’re encouraged to stick around for LIFT, which starts at 6.  The meal will just kind of run over into worship.  And it is at LIFT where you will actually get part 2 of the sermon.  See, they’re the ones who are actually getting gipped in the whole deal because they only get part 2, but shhh, don’t tell them.  They might never know.  And if you absolutely can’t come tonight, well, after worship today, you can get on our website and read part 2.  Its already up there under the “Sermons” link.  But come tonight, have a great meal, meet some new folks, and then hear part 2 of the sermon at LIFT. 

            For the last several weeks, we been looking at Reclaiming the “C” Word…that Church word, and what it means to be the church in the world today.  Well, today’s theme is Dare to Expect Surprises.  And the main formula that Kelly Fryer lays out in this chapter is this: People + Holy Spirit = Recipe for Trouble.  What she means by that is this.  The kind of church that we have been talking about so far – the one that does everything in here for the sake of the people out there – is a church that is destined for trouble.  A church that dares to get focused by praying together and studying the word, a church that dares to set people free for ministry by allowing them to do what they feel God is leading them to do, and as Pastor John talked about last week, a church that dares to equip people for action…this kind of church is going to find itself in more than a few messes.  After all, the church is people.  And people are trouble.  And many of the messes that we find ourselves in will be of our own making as we seek to figure out what God is trying to do with us.  We’ll make mistakes.  We’ll get it wrong.  And we’ll need to be patient with each other.

             But do you know what?  If that is truly the kind of church that we are, than most of the messes that we find ourselves in will be God’s fault.  Seriously.  As Kelly says, the church was created by the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit is trouble too.  The Holy Spirit is always sending us places we don’t want to go, leading us into situations we’d rather not be, and doing things to upset our world. 

            I love the gospel story that we read just a moment ago from Mark.  Mark tells the resurrection story very different from how Matthew, Luke and John tell it.  These three women go to the tomb of Jesus.  Two days before they had just witnessed the worst that the world had to offer – a man, their man, their teacher and rabbi – hanging on a cross dying.  And here they were, early on Sunday morning, coming to pay their respects and the grave is opened, the body is gone, and some strange guy sitting there instead.  Freaked them out.  “Don’t be alarmed!” He says.  Yeah right.  And it says in verse 8, “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.  They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.”  The end.  That’s how Mark originally ended the story of Jesus.  Now 20 years later, someone went and added on some more, but the original story ended there.  With the women freaked out, scared, and silent.  Trouble.  The Holy Spirit was messing with them and surprised them so much they couldn’t even talk about it.

            The book of Acts of the Apostles that tells the story of the early church is filled with the disciples getting into trouble also – Peter & John getting thrown in jail, Stephen getting stoned, Philip baptizing that eunuch, Paul causing a riot in Ephesus, Paul & Barnabas getting mad at each other and going their separate ways, Paul getting run out of town, beaten, and imprisoned more times than I can count.  The book of Acts is a book of trouble and if any of the disciples seriously asked the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” when they started on their faith journey, I doubt any of them would’ve come up with the horrible trouble that they often found themselves in.  But as they set out following Jesus spreading the gospel, while they weren’t sure what all would happen, after the surprise of Jesus rising from the dead, they expected other good things to happen as well.  They expected God to be with them in the mess and help them get through it.  They knew that they weren’t in it by themselves.  Yes, they expected some trouble, but they also dared to expect God to do something good to surprise them.

            Today is Reformation Day and we remember a time in the 1500s where people + the Holy Spirit caused some major trouble again.  When Luther began to read his Bible back in the early 1500s, he probably never asked himself, “What’s the worst thing that can happen if I read my Bible?”  And even if he had asked that question as he read his Bible, he probably never would’ve come up with what actually happened.  He probably never thought that reading his Bible everyday would lead to upheaval in the Catholic church, would result in his being excommunicated, would lead to a church being named after him (which he would’ve hated), or that that he would change the entire world forever.  All that from just reading his Bible.  Yet, what made it so powerful was that he expected God to do something good.  He read the Bible expecting to hear a message from God, and God did not disappoint.  God surprised him time after time. It certainly got him into trouble, but it also helped him endure those difficult times.    

            Want a modern day example of how the Holy Spirit gets us into trouble?  Let’s take Kids Against Hunger for an example.  You’d be hard pressed to talk to anyone around here who would say that this is not from the Holy Spirit.  I mean, it’s an incredible thing that God is allowing us to do.  Yet, here’s the problem.  We’ve got so many people excited about it and had so much money raised for it, and money raised for all kinds of other special projects and ministries – wonderful ministries – that its taking money away from our everyday budget.  People want to give money to these things and they’ll open up their checkbooks to feed starving kids – which is great – but we’re way behind on our regular giving.  Our congregation’s financial situation isn’t because we’re not taking in enough money – we’ve actually taken in more money this year than we did last year – but more of it is going to special projects than ever before, which limits our leadership’s ability to make important decisions about mission priorities.  It’s an interesting problem to have – but one that is clearly the making of the Holy Spirit.  If the Holy Spirit wouldn’t keep giving us great service opportunities, you’d have no choice but to give to the boring ol’ church budget or keep the money for yourselves.  What’s the worst that could happen if things keep going the way they are?  What do we expect from God during this financial crisis? That Holy Spirit – she’s certainly trouble.

            Well, whether we expect some surprises from the God or not, he’s going to give ‘em to us.  A few weeks ago, I was approached by a guy I’d briefly met at Java G’s.  He’s a member of St. Elizabeth’s Catholic church and a member of the Knights of Columbus.  Turns out that their church is going to begin some construction and they need to a place to host their monthly dances.  He knew that we had a new building and was wondering if we could work something out.  Let me tell you about these dances.  500 middle school kids.  Loud music.  Kids from all over St. Charles County.  Total craziness I’m sure.  But they know how to do this.  3 policeman.  A Christian DJ who won’t play songs with bad words or even bad images.  Great volunteers – 80 year-old men who guard the doors and bathrooms and walk the dance floor with ear plugs in.  Parking lot attendants.  The works.  Its incredible.   And one of the best parts – at $5 a kid – well, its quite a moneymaker.  Trouble?  With that many junior highers?  You bet.  Another example of God messing with us and helping us endure difficult financial times?  Absolutely.

            My friends, God is going to mess with us.  That much we can count on.  Is it going to cause trouble in our lives?  Oh yeah.  But…and this is a big but, God will not abandon us in our trouble.  In fact, he has promised to be with us every step of the way.  Those women at the tomb obviously were not silent – God gave them the courage to speak.  God helped the disciples in Acts get the word out anyway.  God caused Luther to do a few good things along the way.  God will continue to be with us in our current financial trouble – as we’ve already begun seeing proof of.  All is not lost.  God is with us.  Come back tonight and find out some of the incredible surprises of God.    
 

PART 2 (6:00pm) 

            What’s the worst thing that can happen?  We probably should’ve asked that question before we decided to go on our midnight raid on the girls’ room.  Here’s the scene.  I was a getting ready to be a senior in high school and I was with my youth group in Colorado.  We were on a weeklong camping/adventure trip.  It was towards the beginning of the trip and we were staying at a little motel in Frisco, Colorado.  The group was big enough that we had about 6 or 7 rooms.  And the way the number of chaperones worked out, we ended up with a room of all high school boys and no adults.  And just down the way was a room of all high school girls and no adults.  What’s the worst thing that could happen, right?  We conspired with one of the girls to secretly let us in the middle of the night to surprise the rest of them.  What our spy didn’t know is what we actually planned to do – she thought all we were going to do was hang out and talk.  Well, in the boys room, we all stayed awake drinking mountain dew and getting psyched up for our raid.  We took our shirts off and we had this blue paint that we painted all over our faces and chests like Braveheart – it was our war paint.  We all got our shaving cream bottles out, our silly string, and our water guns.  We snuck down the motel concourse, which was one of those outdoor motels, but we figured we were safe since it was so late.  Well, we snuck down to the girls room, and just as planned, our spy had left the door unlocked for us.  We burst through the door screaming and blasting the girls with shaving cream and water guns.  It was priceless!  They had no idea and we thoroughly trashed their rooms – throwing their clothes and stuff everywhere, nailing them with the silly string as they beat us off with pillows.  So much fun!  That is, until the little old lady showed up.  Turns out she was the motel owner and lived across the street.  Turns out she got up in the middle of the night to go to bathroom and noticed 4 guys covered in blue paint sneaking across the motel and so she went to investigate.  She screamed at us, “Go back to your rooms!  I’m going to wake up your youth leader (which happened to be my dad).  Your whole group is getting kicked out here!”  It was like 2 o’clock in the morning!  We were getting our whole youth group kicked out of our motel.  And my dad was on his way over to let us have it.  Turns out that that is the worst thing that could happen.  And the four of us boys pondered that as we sat in our room in silence, covered in blue paint, waited for that dreaded knock at our door, and prayed that God would somehow intervene.

            The last several weeks, we’ve been talking about Reclaiming the “C” Word – reclaiming what it means to be church.  And the title for this week’s chapter is called “Dare to Expect Surprises.”  Well, I can tell you that night, the four of us boys did not expect any surprises.  We were doomed and we knew it.  That knock finally came and as we opened the door, we expected my raging father.  He came in and slammed the door.  Made sure it was closed really good and we prepared for the worst.  Then he looked at us square in the eyes, pointed his finger, and said, “What you guys did tonight…that was awesome!”  And he started giving us high 5s.  He said, “I did get chewed out by the lady but I was able to talk her into letting us stay if you guys will just clean up the mess you made.”  Oh my gosh, I have never experienced such relief or such grace in my life before that moment.  What a nice surprise – completely unexpected.  We were free and clear – all we had to do was clean.  Now, we ended up scrubbing the carpet for about 3 hours, but it sure beats getting the whole youth group kicked out of the motel.

            In my life, I look to that moment as one of most grace-filled moments of my life because I think that is how God treats us.  He gives us grace when we neither expect nor warrant it.  He gives it freely and unasked for.  Now, he doesn’t congratulate us for our sins like my dad did, but the grace he offers comes about in the exact same way.  When we expect the worst, God surprises us with the best.

            History is filled with God surprising humanity with grace upon grace.  When Israel, God’s chosen people, kept messing up, kept worshipping other gods, and disobeying his commands, God surprises them with grace in Jeremiah 31.  Instead of wiping them off the face of the earth like they deserved, God says, “We’ll try something new.  I’ll make a new promise and I’ll even write this one on their hearts so they’ll be sure to remember it.  I will be their God and they will be my people.”  A surprising move from a grace-filled God.

            Several hundred years later, on a Friday afternoon, humanity showed God the worst that it had to offer.  They took God’s own Son and put him on trial, found him guilty, and nailed him to a cross until he died.  It was surely a horrible seen as we tried to do the worst thing we could do to God.  Yet, on Sunday morning, when three women came to the tomb to pay their respects, God had a surprise in mind for them.  I love how Mark tells this story.  His version is different than Matthew, Luke and John’s.  The way that Mark ends his story is this.  Well, I’ll just read the whole thing – Mark 16:1-8…

That’s how his story ends.  Now 20 years later, someone came in and added some more to the story, but the point Mark makes is that these women were so freaked out and terrified by God’s surprise that they were literally speechless.  That is a big surprise!

            Within the next year, God kept it up with surprise after surprise.  Peter and John were arrested and surprise!  The walls of the jail came tumbling down.  Saul is walking to Damascus to kill some Christians and surprise!  A bright light from heaven and he’s converted.  Philip is just walking down the road and surprise! This strange Ethiopian guy is reading the Bible and needs someone to help him out.  Philip ends up baptizing that guy and more than likely, that guy ends up starting a church in Ethiopia, which developed into the Coptic church – arguably the oldest Christian church in the world.  Paul and Luke are walking down by a river and surprise!  There are a bunch of women there, praying, and wanting to know about Jesus.  The Book of Acts is filled with great stories of how God kept surprising the disciples with his acts of grace.  And the disciples came to expect these grace-filled surprises from God

            Now, after about 1500 years, the church had lost this expectation.  They no longer felt like God could surprise them.  But it was mostly because they had put their Bibles on the shelves and stopped reading them.  Then a monk name Martin picked up and dusted off a Bible and began to read it.  And as he read it, he discovered surprise after surprise.  And most surprising to him was that God offered him a place in heaven and he didn’t have to do anything to earn it.  This was a guy who would often spend 8 hours a day in confession because he was so worried about making it into heaven, yet when he began to study the Bible, he realized that God gives us eternal life as a gift through faith.  There is no amount of confession or work that will get us there.  This gift was a surprise to ol’ Martin Luther and it led him to start the Reformation, which changed the world.     

            And now, here we are 500 years after Luther and we still have that same God of surprises.  Our God still offers us that same gift of grace, of forgiveness, and of eternal life.  There is nothing we can do to earn it.  Jesus still rose from the dead, that tomb was still empty, and every time we look at a coffin or casket, we can be reminded that one day, the person laying there will rise again and live with Jesus and us forever.  What a wonderful surprise that will be – especially for those who don’t expect it!  

QUESTIONS:

1)      What is the greatest surprise you ever received?

2)      What was the last time your opened your Bible and tried to read it, expecting to hear something from God?

3)      When was a time you were surprised by grace?