SURPRISE! GOD IS 

A GOD OF SURPRISES!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 4th Sunday of Advent, B, is, “Surprise! God Is A God of Surprises!”

Life would be very boring - if there were no surprises.

Life would be very boring - if we wrote the script - and that’s the way our life went.

Life would be very boring - if we could see around the corner, if we could see tomorrow and next year - and the rest of our lives.

Life could also be very nerve wracking, dangerous, depressive, if we knew how our marriages, jobs, our family, our future were going to happen.

Surprise!

God is a God of surprises.

Life is the surprises.

That’s why we put wrapping on the gift!

Question: How well do we do with surprises?

Question: How well do we do - when things don’t go our way?

Same question but phrased slightly different: What do I do when I want what I want and I don’t get what I want or get?

IF WE WERE GOD

If we were God, how would we create the world, the universe, life, death, change, that is, if we could create things any way we wanted things to be?

After all - we are made in the image and likeness of God and we are called to magnify the Lord.

Could we come up with a better plan than the present plan?

Would we make anything different from the way things are happening now?

How would we plan today? Would we plan it differently than what’s going to happen today? Who’s going to win today’s games? What happens if someone else was also God and they planned the other team to beat our team?

I remember thinking something like that while we just about to begin a high school basketball game. We were standing in a circle praying. I looked up from the prayerful head bowed down look and noticed the other team was also praying - and I thought, “God how does this work?”

If we were God, would there be life on other planets - besides earth? Maybe there is, but as of now, we don’t know if there is.

Would people get cancer, heart problems? Would there be deaths at 15 or 5 or 35 or 95?

Does God zap people? Does God know what our choices are going to be? Do our choices get God to change His plans? How does all this work?

If we were the Creator, would we have come up dinosaurs and Dalmatians? How come the dinosaurs disappeared and the Dalmatians still run through our fields? How about hippos and horses, mosquitoes and monkeys? Why did God create what God created?

Does God laugh at anything he created?

Was God in on how Danny De Vito, Lady Gaga and George Clooney look?

Does God laugh only at us humans?

We’ve all have heard the words: “Want to make God laugh, tell God your plans?”

We’ve all heard John Lennon’s words, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

We’ve all heard the Portuguese proverb: “God writes straight with crooked lines.”

We’ve all heard Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered prayers” - how he goes  to a hometown football game with his wife and how he meets his old flame - and he reflects on how he prayed to God every night that this high school sweetheart would be the one he’d spend his life with - and as he turns to his wife he sings, “Thank God for unanswered prayers.”

People think and have thought about this stuff “all through the years.”

If we were God, would we have picked Israel for the country to come up with One God? Would we have picked Mary? If we were God, say God the Father, would we have sent our Son at the time in history Jesus was sent? Some guy named, William Norman Ewer (1885-1976) wrote “How odd of God to choose the Jews.”

Was it odd that God chose the Jews?

Whom would we choose, if we were to choose some group to start the plan called “Salvation History”? The Navahos, the Eskimos, the people on the island of Crete?

Whom would we choose to be the Mother of his Son - if that’s the way we were going to do this?

PEACE

Do those who trust in God have more inner peace than those who want life to work differently than it’s working now?

What does it take for someone to be at peace with God - with oneself - with others?

What are the implications of our having freedom and free will?

TODAY’S READINGS

In today’s first reading references are made to David being chosen to lead Israel by God and God had expectations of David. It’s payback time. It’s calling in favors time. God is expecting David to build a temple. David is living in a nice big house made of cedar and the ark of the covenant is living in a tent. God is saying, “What’s wrong with this picture? Hello!” [Cf. 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16]

As we know from the First Book of Samuel, Chapter 16, God tells Samuel to go to Jesse - who has lots of sons - to find the one whom God has chosen. Samuel sees 7 sons of Jesse - thinking surely the one the Lord wants is here. Nope. So he asks Jesse, “Do you have any other son?” I wonder if the 7 heard that question. Did one of them say, “Hey Jesse, are we chopped liver?” Jesse says to Samuel, “There is still one more, the youngest, he is out taking care of the sheep.” Samuel says, “Send for him. We won’t eat till he comes. The boy appears and God says, to Samuel, ‘Come, anoint him, for this is the one.”

Surprise! You never know whom God calls.

In today’s gospel God chooses Mary - a young maiden girl living in a small village far from the big cities. Surprise God chooses Mary. And like Eve - like us - she has the power of choice. She asks questions - then she makes the choice to choose to give us the fruit of the tree - the tree of life - the cross - Jesus. [Cf. Luke 1:26-38]

And we are given the choice every day to choose Christ: “Take and eat!”

In today’s second reading from Romans 16 Paul tells us about surprise. He calls it mystery. He calls it “secret”. Then Paul talks about listening - the call to listen - to listen for revealings, manifestations - from God. That’s the basic meaning of the word “obedience”. It’s to listen. It’s to hear the Word of the Lord in scripture. It’s to embrace Jesus - the word made flesh - who dwelt amongst us. [Cf. Romans 16: 25-27]

Mary - whenever an artist paints today’s gospel - pictures Mary listening - listening for annunciations.

Prayer is annunciation - but too often - our mouth is mouthing prayers - and we don’t hear.

Jesus calls that babbling - babbling prayer - be careful of that. [Cf. Matthew 6: 7]

As they say, we have two ears and one mouth - but that is applied more to everyday conversations. Jesus - watching people praying in his time - warned us and the Pharisees about babbling prayer.

CONCLUSION: CHRISTMAS

Christmas is a time for deep prayer.

Christmas is a time for deep pondering prayer.

Did you notice that verb - ponder - in today's gospel?

Christmas is a time for great listening prayer.

When the Christmas Stable is set up, watch the stable. Listen to the Christmas story. The shepherds are out there in the fields - caring for the sheep - and like David they are called to come to the meet the Lord - in a stable. Look at the animals, they are listening. Watch the Magi - they are searching and come in from the cold into the stable.

Listen to the songs, “Silent night, holy night!” “O come all you faithful….”

Christmas is a time to change your tent into a temple for the Lord.

In the meanwhile, laugh, because Christ comes to this world in a stable, which is filled with you know what - as a baby and welcomes us.

Surprise.

God is a God of Surprises.

Surprise! God came as a baby.

Who of us would have thunked up that one? Amen.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Painting: 1898 Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Turner [1959-1947]