Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC)

God, Are You too Good to Be True?

Rev. Vickie Miller

April 26, 2009

Acts 3:12-19 & Luke 24:36b-48

Several years ago, Carol and I were in Nashville, TN and stumbled upon the Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville Tennessee, not that we are country music fans. We decided to stay for lunch and had a prime window seat where we could people-watch as they walked down the sidewalk. All of a sudden, I saw a couple walking down the street and I excitedly said, “Carol, there’s Jerry and Elsie!” Jerry and Elsie were our next door neighbors in Bradenton, Florida, and we had no idea that they would be visiting Nashville at the same time as us.

Another time I was half way around the world in Italy. We had taken a long metro train to the last stop outside of Rome. As we toured the ruins of Ostia Antiqa, I practically ran right into a former co-worker of mine from Florida.

These unexpected encounters really leave us speechless.

As much as Carol and I were surprised, the Gospel seems to indicate that the disciples were even more so. They are locked away in a room and Jesus, who had been crucified just days before, appears - standing right in the midst of them. The amusing side of me imagines Jesus with this big grin like Gomer Pyle saying, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” According to Luke that’s not exactly what Jesus said, but was much more dignified in his greeting. “Shalom,” Jesus says. “Peace be with you.”

Of course, the disciples were excited, yet also confounded. I like how Luke describes it, “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” The Message version says, “They still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true.”

God, are you too good to be true?

Over and over again we see that this appears to be the case.

In our two scripture passages today, both in the Acts story and in the Gospel, I see three major themes about the nature of God that remind us that God often does seem to be too good to be true.

1. God is a God of surprises.

In Acts, a lame man was amazingly and surprisingly healed. This is the same man that the children’s song says was walking and leaping and praising God. The people who saw this happen were astonished, and Peter addressed the crowd and said, “Why does this take you by complete surprise and why are you staring at us?”

When Jesus entered the room with the disciples, it appears that Jesus was the last person they expected. Jesus surprised them so much they thought he was a ghost.

We see this theme of surprises and disbelief continuing from last week when for Thomas Jesus’ resurrection was just too good to be true until Thomas felt the side and the hands. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

We, like the disciples, are often left in our joy still disbelieving and wondering.

What are the ways God has surprised you? Did you ever think you would be where you are today or doing the things that you are? I never thought I would be behind a pulpit, but God is a God of surprises.

2. God gifts us with faith.

When we are at our lowest, when we do not know how or what to believe, God gives us our faith. Jesus comes and stands right in our midst, or like the people of Acts, we witness a miracle that is undeniable.

God’s gift of faith can come simply as an inheritance passed down to us as Peter, in his sermon refers to the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca.

Kathleen Norris writes about our religious inheritance as a gift. She says that her inheritance includes Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterians whose roots lie deep in Judaism and more recently the Benedictine monks who have helped to form her. About her own religious heritage, she says, “It can be a blessing and a curse. It can feel like a curse – to include in my welcome the difficult ancestors: the insane, the suicides, the alcoholics, the religiously self righteous who literally scared the bejesus out of me when I was little or who murdered my spirit with words of condemnation. Abel is welcome in my family tree, but I’d just as soon leave Cain out. However, in giving me a mixed blessing God expects me to make something out of it to redeem the bad and turn it into something good.”

Like Norris says, our job is to take our gift of faith, including our religious heritage make something out of it into our own faith – to recognize the blessings and to exorcise the curses until we stand with God on our own faith.

A few years ago I was going through a faith crisis and at a real low spiritually. There were times that I wondered about the Christian faith. Like the disciples, I at times doubted the resurrection of Jesus myself. One of the only things that kept me going was standing on my faith heritage that includes a long line of believers in Jesus, including Primitive Baptist preachers – talk about hellfire, damnation and curses. I knew, though at times this heritage is a curse, it is also a gift.

People come to God in different ways, but I was born into a belief in Jesus and I recognized that as a gift that I should not put aside. In my struggle I just kept hanging on to the faith of my mothers and fathers, and that of the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca.

In recognizing that faith is a gift from God, we must also acknowledge that that gift sometimes includes periods of doubt and struggle.

Rev. Dr. Mona West quotes one of her favorite authors who says that “Doubt is ants in the pants of faith.” I needed ants in my pants to really develop my own faith. The faith of my ancestors was wonderful, but it also needed to become my own.

And so, now, I thank God for the period of doubt in my life because it is part of my life experience with God. My faith turned from a head issue, from WHAT I BELIEVED passed on from my ancestors to HOW I RELATE to my God. My faith today is stronger than ever because of that period of searching.

If you are experiencing doubt today, if you have ants in your pants, just hold on because often great moments of doubt precede an eye-opening flux of faith. The disciples doubted and look what they got. Jesus stood in their very midst.

The people of Acts doubted and look what they received. Jesus literally opened their minds and touched their hearts.

3. God is a God of second chances.

Mae West says that all discarded lovers should be given a second change but with somebody else.

However, God’s door is always open to us for a second chance.

Even when we don’t believe, God keeps showing up and inviting us.

Boy, did those in Acts ever get a second chance? Peter tells them just like it is.

He says, you really blew it. You rejected this Holy One of God. You preferred a murderer be released to you instead of Jesus. However, says Peter, God has shown you a miracle today. This healing came through the same Jesus you wanted crucified. And then Peter softens it a bit and says, I know you acted in ignorance when you rejected Jesus. And like a smooth salesman, Peter tells them that they too can have a second chance, to repent and be blessed.

Peter, himself, knew something about second chances. All of the disciples got a second chance. They had denied Jesus, hidden, and acted in disbelief, but now Jesus stands in their midst to convince them, allowing them to feel his hands and feet, to witness him eating food and hear his blessings of Shalom.

A story is told in the book, Moments of Truth in Iraq. In 1991 during a live-fire exercise at the United States Army Range at Fort Campbell, Kentucky a young soldier named Specialist Terrance Jones tripped and accidentally fired his weapon.

The bullet from Jones’ weapon struck a fellow soldier, slamming through his chest and took a piece of his back on the way out. The wounded soldier fell to the ground, was bleeding out of his mouth, and nearly died. But he didn’t. In fact, he was released from the hospital a few days later.

The best that Specialist Jones could hope for was a painless end to his military career. After all, he had not just shot a fellow soldier; he had shot a superior officer.

Conventional wisdom says that consequences must be applied, especially after accidentally shooting and nearly killing a commanding officer. Specialist Jones would have to make a sacrifice of some magnitude. A soldier can’t shoot a commander in the chest and simply walk away.

For Specialist Jones, the punishment came as quite a surprise. Instead of dismissal from the Army, he was given a recommendation to attend Ranger School, a nine-week intensive leadership course, and recommended by the very officer he had shot.

The officer who gave this young person a second chance went on to be the Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2007. General David Petraeus.

There’s an anonymous quote that says, “When someone gives you a second chance, you should pass it along.”

I bet General Petraeus had been given a second chance at some time in his life.

If you need a second chance, know that you can have it. In this church, I claim that we will give each other second chances because that is what God does for us.

That is simply the type of God we serve:

A God of many surprises

A God who gifts us with faith.

And a God of second chances.

May we continue to revere and serve that living God today.

Contact: gmail.com@trinitymcc
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