“Surprised by God’s Grace and Abundance”

“Surprised by God’s Grace and Abundance” – Acts 10: 44-48
May 17, 2009 – Sixth Sunday of Easter
First United Church – Sermon by Micaela Wood

These past few weekends, I’ve been traveling to Chicago each Friday morning and returning on Saturday night to take a class called Restoring Urban Communities. We meet at Bethel New Life, a large non-profit on the west side of the city.

When I was there just over a week ago, I did something really stupid. My friend Amy and I went outside to eat dinner. I sat my wallet down on the bench next to me when we ate, and when I got up to leave I just left it there.

A few hours later, I discovered it was missing. I called David and he turned off the credit cards. I went back to Bethel the next morning, hoping that maybe someone had been kind enough to turn it in or – at the very least – steal the cash and cards but dump the wallet. No such luck – my wallet was gone.

When I came home from work on Monday afternoon this past week, David said I had an odd package in the mail. It was hand-addressed, kind of bulky, and didn’t have a return address. So I did something else really stupid, I opened it. When I ripped it open, I found my wallet. There was no note.

I was speechless.

I couldn’t believe that some total stranger had the decency to mail my wallet back to me from Chicago.

After I got over my initial shock, I realized that this meant I didn’t have to go to the BMV and wait in line to get a new driver’s license… I think this was the point where I started jumping up and down with joy.

Later that evening, I checked my e-mail and found a response from Sara Frommer to the question I had sent to the church listserv earlier that day – “when have you been surprised by God?”

Sara’s story was about a time a few years ago when she was laid up at Bell Trace. Her roommate was shocked at how many people came to visit her – how faithful they were and how they seemed to know just what she needed. Sara told me about visits from her literacy learner from the VITAL adult literacy program – and many from people at this church.

Dave Edgerton brought her yarn for knitting and responses to a manuscript she was working on. Marcia Stalnaker brought her library books to read. Sandy Pate came with her young children to read to Sara. And I got the feeling there were many more who cared for her but didn’t make it into the brief e-mail conversation we had.

I shared my story about the wallet with Sara and we commented on how we both often see the work of God in the people around us. Sara said this: “You hear people talking about being God’s hands and feet. I believe it.”

Me, too.

Surprised by God’s grace and abundance in a visit from a friend. The kindness of a stranger.

Surprised by God’s grace and abundance:
• The creation of something from nothing.
• The gift of children when we thought there was no way.
• The voice of a leader speaking truth to power and leading us out of enslavement.
• The still, small, silence after the whirlwind while we cower in a cave.
• The unexpected return home when we thought we’d be in exile forever.
• The cry of a baby born in a stable.
• The unbelievable presence of a trusted friend that we watched die a violent death just a few days earlier.

Surprised by God’s grace and abundance. It is our heritage as people of faith.

Our scripture tells us again and again that God is not someone who can be boxed in. Just when we think we have God figured out, God moves in an unexpected way.

Of course, surprises are both good and bad, as one member of our congregation reminded me this past week. Part of the trick of being surprised is figuring out if the surprise came from God, someone else, or if it’s just a random occurrence.

There are no easy answers. But I think one of the challenges for us humans is to keep our eyes, ears, and hearts open. If we can attune ourselves to the surprising acts of God’s grace and abundance, we can be travelers on a journey that will take us to places we didn’t even know existed.


That’s what jumped out at me when I read this morning’s text from Acts 10.

Peter and his Jewish friends went to the home of Cornelius – a Gentile, non-Jew. They didn’t really know what they were going for, but Peter had had this wacky vision that convinced him to go. He was open and attuned to the ways God might be moving in his life and he was willing to follow.

Once they got there, they remained open to the possibility that God was working in the lives of the Gentile people in Cornelius’s house. Their openness led to the baptism of all those present. A movement that had previously been almost exclusively Jewish was suddenly opened up to a whole new category of people.

Surprised by God’s grace and abundance? I’m pretty sure they were.

Now, to understand the full impact of what was going on here, let’s take a little scene-by-scene exploration of what has happened in the book of Acts up until this point. You’re going to have to forgive my lack of art skills – this would be a place where it would be handy to have a screen so we could project things.

You might also want to grab a pew Bible as we take this tour and open it up to Acts.

Any high school English teacher would be proud of the author of Acts, because the author outlines the structure clearly at the beginning of the book. Chapter 1, verse 8 is the key to understanding what’s about to happen in the book of Acts, ”You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This book is going to be about the work of the Holy Spirit and it will show us how it spreads from Jerusalem, to the nearby regions of Judea and Samaria, and all the way to the ends of the earth. If that’s the case, then it makes sense to follow the works of the Spirit and see where they lead us.

As we read along, it becomes pretty clear that baptism is one of the ways we can track the work of the Holy Spirit…so let’s follow the baptisms along.

Scene 1: Acts 2. It’s the Pentecost story. Jewish people from every nation were gathered in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit came upon them and they began to speak in tongues. We’re told that about 3,000 of them responded by being baptized – which was, for them, an outward sign of God’s grace within them and their desire to be a part of this new Christian movement. I bet the people who did the baptizing slept well that night! That’s a lot of dunking.

Scene 2: Acts 8. We’re in the city of Samaria – north of Jerusalem. There is a magician named Simon. You can tell he’s a magician because he’s got a tophat in my drawing. Simon realizes that his magic tricks aren’t the real deal and that he wants some of what the apostles have to offer, so he asked to be baptized. Notice how we’ve moved out of Jerusalem into Samaria, just like verse 1:8 said.

Scene 3: Acts 8 still. We heard this story last week. A man from Ethiopia is on his way to Gaza, southwest of Jerusalem. Philip approaches him while he is in his chariot and they have a conversation. The man asks to be baptized and Philip agrees. Here we notice that we’re not only outside of Jerusalem – in Judea – but the man from Ethiopia is from even further away. Also, his is almost certainly not a Jew but a Gentile who is interested in Judaism.

Scene 4: Acts 9. Saul, a devout Jew, is travelling to Damascus – far to the north of Jerusalem. On the way, he encounters the risen Christ. He is temporarily blinded, but gets his sight back again when Ananias lays hands on him. He responds by being baptized and immediately changes his tone about followers of “the Way.” He begins preaching about Jesus to others.

Scene 5: Finally we arrive at Acts 10. Cornelius, who is a part of the Roman army and is not Jewish, has a vision of an angel (he looks like an apple in this picture, but those are supposed to be wings) who tells him to go and find a man named Peter who is staying in Joppa. Around the same time, Peter is in Joppa and has a vision that convinces him that God “shows no partiality” and there are no unclean people. Some men that Cornelius had sent to Joppa arrive and ask Peter to come with them to Cornelius’s house in Caesarea.

Scene 6: Peter and his Jewish friends arrive at Cornelius’s house in Caesarea. It’s a little awkward because no one is really sure what they’re supposed to be doing there. They’re all just doing what God told them to do. They share their visions with one another and then Peter begins to tell the gospel story to Cornelius and all his Gentile friends and family.

As Peter is talking with the folks at Cornelius’s house, the Holy Spirit falls on them just like it did in Acts 2 in Jerusalem. They begin speaking in tongues – which they see as evidence of the Holy Spirit being present. Initially, the Jewish friends of Peter are shocked because they had thought God’s gift of the Holy Spirit was only for them. But Peter is used to being surprised by God and says, “It’s cool. They’ve received the Holy Spirit just like us. So let’s baptize them!” They are all baptized and everyone lives happily ever after.

Scene 7: Well…not quite. Right after the Gentiles are baptized, Peter returns to Jerusalem and has to explain to the other Jewish followers of the Way what exactly is going on. The ongoing controversy over what to do with Gentile followers of Chris is only getting started. The rest of Acts is the story of the gospel being spread beyond Judea and Samaria – to the ends of the earth. And as the movement spreads, more and more Gentiles hear the gospel and want a part of it.

This question of who can be included in this new movement of Christ-followers is one that isn’t easily solved.

One of the key factors in Peter’s willingness to baptize the Gentiles at Cornelius’s house is that he gets a serious sense of déjà vu when he sees the Holy Spirit poured out onto the Gentiles.

Because he was present at the Pentecost in Jerusalem, he knows exactly what he is seeing and there is no question in his mind that this means God wants to include Gentiles in the new movement. In fact, this story is sometimes referred to as the “Gentile Pentecost” – the moment where the Holy Spirit was given to a group of Gentiles.

This lovely symmetry between the two Pentecosts reminds me of another response I got to my e-mail inquiry earlier this week.

Dave Edgerton says that God has often surprised him through “felicitous little coincidences” (a phrase he borrowed from an article he read). Dave says that when his father died on a winter morning at Bell Trace, it was a gray day and there was snow visible outside the window.

The family was gathered around and at the moment Dave’s father passed away the sun came out and “the room was filled suddenly with dazzling winter sunlight.” Dave says he was crying, of course, but when the sun started to shine theatrically, Dave couldn’t help but laugh. Dave says he saw God as “the Performance Artist.”

No doubt Peter would have seen God the same way. A performance artist – sweeping into the realm of human history through the Holy Spirit – causing people to react in stunning ways and opening the door for God’s own grace and abundance to burst through and be recognized through the act of baptism.

God’s over-the-top performance left little question that accepting the Gentiles into the fold was the only way to go.

Who are the people standing outside our fold today? Who are the people that – if they were here among us and showing evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit – we would be in shock?

Who are the groups that would cause us to ask, “Even them, God? Even they should be baptized and welcomed into our community?”

This particular congregation of Christ-followers – First United Church – has historically led the way in welcoming people into our congregation.

But the thing about God is that there are always more surprises ahead.

Like Peter, we are called to keep our eyes, ears, and hearts open. We are called to be on the lookout for God’s performances – whether they come in flames from the sky or a quiet visit from a friend.

God is always seeking new ways to pour out more grace and abundance than we can even imagine.

Will we join Peter in opening our eyes, ears, and hearts so we can go places we never even imagined?