The God of Surprises

1991 (Year B), 30 November /
St Andrew’s Day

St Andrew’s Stamford Hill

A very rich lady called her butler. ‘Jenkins,’ she said, ‘Come to my bedroom.’ ‘Certainly Madam,’ he replied. They went together, and when they got there she turned to him, ‘Sit on the bed here,’ ‘Certainly Madam.’ ‘Now Jenkins, take of my shoes,’ ‘Certainly Madam’, he replied. ‘Now Jenkins, take off my stockings’, ‘Certainly Madam,’ I can see you’re beginning to get a bit edgy. Roderic’s beginning to wish he’d never invited me. There is more. ‘Now Jenkins, take off my dress’, ‘Certainly madam.’ ‘And one more thing Jenkins,’ ‘Yes Madam.’ ‘Don’t let me catch you wearing my clothes again.’

The story is marvellous, it’s so surprising, I’m willing to bet that none of you could possibly have guessed the end if you haven’t heard it before. And the point? Well that’s easy. The God, who we glorify tonight, as we celebrate the feast of Andrew, is supremely, the God of surprises.

Listen again. Jesus was walking by the sea when he saw two brothers, casting a net into the lake; for they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, ‘Come with me and I will make you fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him. He didn’t say, ‘How much are those a pound?’, or ‘Have you caught anything?’ The disciples didn’t respond by saying, ‘Oh yes?’, or, ‘Just hang on a minute whilst we pop off and tell the family.’ They left. And so began a journey. A journey of surprises, the outcome of which the brothers couldn’t predict. A journey far more dangerous than just sitting in church and wondering if the preacher will say something that he shouldn’t. A journey which if some traditions are to be believed reads like a magical mystery tour, Greece, Ethiopia and Achia. Goodness me, it didn’t even end in death, for his relics some would say, were finally laid to rest in Scotland.

Our whole religious tradition, is a history of encounters with God which have more often that not, been full of surprises. It has been a series of invitations to journeys which people would initially rather have turned down and whose outcome they could not predict. Even before Abram there was Noah building a boat. Then Abram was told to leave his country, kinsmen and Father’s house to go to a country he didn’t know. There is Jonah, furious with the way things turned out with him. They were neither what he wanted or expected. And we’re coming soon to celebrate the most famous journey of them all. But before that even started a man was struck dumb with the shock of being told that he was soon to be a father.

The God of Abraham and Isaac, the God of Andrew, of you and me is the God of surprises.

Given time for reflection you could list the ones that’ve happened to you. Sometimes he’s been present and you’ve not known, sometimes he’s acted and you’ve not seen. More often he been present and acted in a way that you wouldn’t have expected. The main trouble is

that that often we simply aren’t open to him when he presents himself. For instance, three members of our congregation at St Peters recently finished something called the Open Door Retreat. They wanted to go on ‘a proper retreat’ they said, so off they went on a guided retreat, to a community at Hindehead. Now I don’t know what happened there, but clearly it was something quite profound. It was a great surprise to them all. All of them have come back changed. ‘Why have we wasted all this time?’ they said, when they came back, ‘Why didn’t we discover these things ten years ago?’ I think that one of the reasons for the change in them, one of the reasons they were surprised is that at one point in their lives they were open. They opened a window and in flooded God. Just like Andrew. At one point in his life he was open. ‘Come follow me,’ said Jesus, and he did. Maybe the day afterwards, if the same call had come, he wouldn’t have felt the same. But the call came - he was open and off he went, for yet more amazing things.

All of us in the church need constant gentle reminders to be ‘Open’ to the surprises that God holds out for us. If we read the gospels we’ll find them simply littered with examples of people being open. We’ll all have our favourite examples. Here’s mine, but not in its traditional form. It’s a poem written by a Frenchman whose name I can’t pronounce. You can ask Roderic how to say his name is afterwards.

I guess that all of us hold out the hope that we know where our journey’s end will be. It’s God. How we get there we can only guess all we can be sure of is that it’s a way of surprises and Andrew encourages us onwards. AMEN