SERMON

Giving It Up For Lent: Giving Up Expectations

                        Genesis 12:1-4 and John 3:1-17

  Pastor Robyn Hogue                     February 21, 2016                     Skyline Presbyterian Church

 

Second sermon in our Lenten series: “Giving It Up.” Many thanks to ministrymatters.com for the inspiration and framework of this series.

Today is the second Sunday of Lent. I am basing this series on the traditional Lenten practice of fasting, giving something up in order to grow closer to God, but I am taking it a little bit further. This series is all about giving up the things that God asks us to give up – things we may not have considered and not just during the 40 days of Lent, but … well, forever.

This morning, I am going to talk about Giving Up … Expectations.

When we truly give up control and then give up the expectations that come with that control, we often find ourselves surprised by God – in a good way. Scripture is full of stories about people who let go of their expectations and then find themselves surprised by how God works in and through their lives.

Take our Old Testament reading. Abram (he hadn’t been renamed Abraham yet) had expectations. He was 75 years old. I imagine he had worked hard, got rid of his credit card debt and put money into his IRA. Maybe he had a couple of rentals that provided him with a bit of income. Maybe even a beach house on the Mediterranean. All in all, he had prepared well for his old age. And now all he wants to do is sit back and rest from his labors. Maybe catch up on his reading and spend time down at the Oasis Senior Center with his buddies. But along comes God … and, well, God had other expectations for Abram. God told him, “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you.”

That land turned out to be Canaan. So here is Abram ready to retire, now off on a new journey. SURPRISE! But God didn’t just send him to a strange land with a strange language, he also blessed him. God does that. He blessed him that his name would be great and that all the families on earth would be blessed through him. Pretty cool blessing.

So now Abram has a choice … stick with his expectations and most likely live out his days in sun, sand, and luxury … OR … give up his expectations and trust God’s.

What would you have done? 

Obviously, Abram did the latter. But it didn’t end there for Abram. He moves to Canaan. Fast forward 24 years. Abraham (his name has now been changed) is 99 and Sarah, his wife, is 90 and God promises them that they would have a child together! SURPRISE!  That was certainly not in line with the expectations they had for their Golden years. Can you imagine raising a teenager when you are 115 years old?

Let me ask you, Maggie, Dorothy, Maxine how would you feel if God told you today that soon you would be pregnant and then have a baby boy?

But, once again, Sarah and Abraham let go of their expectations and trusted God’s.

Having a child together seemed laughable to Abraham and Sarah, except that it was the plan and the promise and the program of God. Their son becomes the father of the Hebrew people. And, as a result, it is through his lineage that Jesus is born!

This is not the only place in scripture that God’s plan comes from beyond human expectations.

Generations before Abraham there was Noah. Noah was told by God to build an ark. Absurd as it sounded, Noah trusted God and built an ark on dry ground, ignoring the snickers and laughs of his neighbors.

Later, long after Abraham’s time, Moses approached Pharaoh in Egypt and demanded the release of the Israelite slaves. Can you imagine the chuckles that came from those who overheard that conversation? The people of Pharaoh’s court must have been saying to one another, “Can you believe this guy? He says he is a messenger of God and expects us to just give up all this free labor! That’s ridiculous!” But somehow, with God’s help, Moses, the awkward and unlikely leader of Israel, successfully led his people out of Egypt and to the Promised Land.

One thing is clear throughout all of these, and many more Old Testament stories: Being a follower of God requires a mind that is open to the unexpected.

God fulfills God’s promises in God’s own way, in God’s own time, and with God’s own sense of humor and surprise. What is thought to be impossible or absurd may prove to be precisely God’s plan. And the only way we can get by the impossible, the absurd, and the unbelievable, is to let go of our expectations and adopt God’s – even if we don’t, at the time, know what they are!

These amazing “surprises” are not just the purview of Old Testament characters. In our New Testament reading this morning out of the Gospel of John, Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council, came to visit Jesus after dark, presumably when he wouldn’t be seen. Pharisees weren’t fond of Jesus.

Nicodemus’ expectations, as a law abiding Pharisee, were that his standing before God depended on his obedience to God and God’s law. Does this sound familiar to any of you? He believed you do what is “expected,” keep the law, and all is right in the world. You don’t and it isn’t.

And so he didn’t understand this itinerant preacher sent by God preaching good news to all people. You see, the salvation which Jesus preached didn’t fit into the nice, neat box Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees had made for God … of what God could and couldn’t do.

Jesus confused Nicodemus even more by telling him that in order to truly see the Kingdom of God he had to be born again. And once more, Nicodemus didn’t understand. He didn’t get that Jesus was talking about spiritual rebirth, not reentering his mother’s womb. In effect, Jesus encouraged Nicodemus to “let go and let God.” That meant that Nicodemus had to let go of his expectations. And as he did he began to understand that Jesus offered so much more.

For one, Nicodemus learned his standing before God was not about what he did, but about God’s grace. Also, Nicodemus learned that he would be transformed, but not by his own righteousness, but by the transforming power of the Spirit – one he could not control or fit into one of his carefully crafted boxes.

Nicodemus had to learn what we have to learn: to live in a dynamic relationship with a loving God requires us to be willing to give up our need to know everything in advance and to have all of the answers. It requires us to expect the unexpected, and to trust God even when God’s plan is shocking, unbelievable, and surprising.

What are your expectations? A nice house, a well-mannered child, an easy retirement? Maybe a fully developed faith, good health, a better behaved spouse, good grades, a 65” plasma TV with surround sound? These aren’t necessarily bad expectations. But are they what God wants for us?

I have heard many stories about the ways that God has surprised people. God has been present in times of great struggle. God provides healing when the odds are stacked against us. God calls us to places that we don’t want to go, but blesses us there in those unexpected places. God provides mountaintops in the middle of deserts.

We are so tied to our expectations that we sell ourselves short.

The world’s expectations are things like: might makes right, an eye for an eye, you need to be in control, you deserve fame, power, wealth, advantage, proof, guarantees.

Jesus’ expectations for us include: forgiveness, surrender, non-violence, mystery, faith, dependence, unconditional love, peace, kindness, acceptance, tolerance, defending the defenseless, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, visiting the sick and those in prison.

Which list is more attractive to you?

Too many people live as if it’s all downhill from here, “Sore knees, blown out Achilles, failed dreams, empty wallets, wrecked relationships … The best we can do is forestall, cover up and endure, and then hope the end is not too painful. After that, we’re just dust in the wind.”

Sounds enticing, doesn’t it?

But that doesn’t have to be the way it is. Jesus isn’t asking us to lower our expectations, just to surrender our expectations to Him. Often our expectations of God are just an attempt to put the infinite God into a finite box. But God’s ways are not our ways.

Noah didn’t expect to be a boat builder and a sailor.

Mary didn’t expect to get pregnant before she was married.

The career plans of Saul did not include having his name changed to Paul, and actually converting to the very same heretical faith he had been persecuting. He did not, in his wildest dreams, expect to be spreading the radical message of a crucified man. And he certainly did not expect his future to include being beaten, stoned, called a lunatic, and then at the end … crucified.

None of the Apostles had the expectation, especially after they had seen their Messiah crucified, to lead a new church, to stand bravely in the midst of chaos and ridicule, and then gladly suffer a violent death for what they believed.

When we follow Christ, we will not know what lies ahead. As Paul wrote in II Corinthians 5:7 “We walk by faith, not by sight.”  It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always clear. It isn’t always even able to be rationally explained. However, when we trust God, it is always right.

May we let go and let God take care of our expectations. May the Lord bless us as we put our faith in Him.

Amen