In my last sermon, I spoke about how we look for love in so many wrong places. But the God-in-Christ wants more life, more abundance, less restriction on our lives. We are often bound by our attitudes, culture, assumptions, and more. But Jesus says, “Come out! Walk! Live! Love!” And that is our mission as Christians.

Throughout this worship series, we have realized that we’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places. Since this is the last sermon in the series, let’s look back at how we got here.

The first sermon back on March 1^st which feels like a million years ago, called us to Look for the Resister.[1] We remembered how Jesus resisted the temptations to prove himself, to get that bread, and to become powerful and famous.

We were also told to look for the helper.[2] The helper doesn’t look like someone who follows the rules. The rules only get us so far. We must be inspired, born-anew, set on fire! My helpers to become a minister include an atheist, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, an ordained gay man, and many more. We saw how Jesus helped Nicodemus. Nicodemus who starts in the dark, becomes a helper and is standing in the light helping bury Jesus at the end of the story.

We then were told to Look for the Thirst Quencher.[3] How there’s a God-shaped hole in our hearts. The woman at the well was filling her hole with relationships. I was filling mine with work, achievement, and books. Yet these didn’t satisfy. Only the Living Water of God’s Love satisfies.

We looked for the Shepherd last week![4] I’m just the border collie. I’ll point you to God, but no person, no institution, no denomination can be a stand-in for the Good Shepherd of Jesus.

Each of these lessons were unexpected teachings. They encouraged us to reframe and examine our expectations to find God already at work, already present in our lives. And today we are told to expect the unexpected. I’m a child of the late-80s and early 90s. I’m reminded of a cartoon that was on in my youth, Tiny Toon Adventures, a show about younger proteges of the Looney Tunes gang. Instead of Bugs Bunny, we had Buster Bunny. Instead of Daffy Duck, there was Plucky Duck. And Plucky sang in the ear worm of the theme song that “The scripts were rejected, expect the unexpected!”

That always stuck with me. How can we expect the unexpected?! It really bothered me, that line. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve found that to be true. I never expected to be a pastor. I expected to be some hotshot advertiser in some big city. Instead I worked construction. Instead I went to seminary. I never expected to do Palm Sunday like this… and yet here we are.

We never expected for our spring to go like this. We never expected to be staying at home. All of this has been unexpected. Yes, there is worry, and hoarding and evil. But there is also a lot of love and a lot of good. We have artists giving free art lessons on Facebook. We have celebrities reading children’s books. We have an entire police department flashing their lights in thanksgiving outside their local hospital. We have parades of teachers going through their town, waving to their students who miss them, and whom they miss. We have people lining the streets with balloons and honking their horns for a young woman who just completed her last round of chemotherapy.[5]

The creativity that we are seeing. The unexpectedness of this all… It is really showing us who we are and what we need. All this time… in this modern era… we have been cocooned. Separated and isolated from each other well before this disease arrived on our shores. We are finding that we were all lonely.

We simply chose not to be in community. We chose not to have the hard discussions. We chose not to go to church because we were too tired. Or we already knew the story… Or whatever the reason… and now that we can’t reach out and be with one another… We are realizing just what all we have given up. Which is the purpose of Lent! This year, we actually had to practice Lent instead of the half-hearted “I’ll give up chocolate again but then feel really guilty for not following it strictly. Especially when there’s Girl Scout Cookies to be eaten.”

Now we have no choice but to follow Lent strictly. This giving up means life or death for some folks. And we have responded as a church.

We are finding that we were all lonely… together. We are finding each other again. Writing letters. Calling and checking in. Looking forward to online Bible studies to learn our stories and talk to one another. It is in the unexpected that we find just who we are. And who our neighbors are.

On this day, we’d expect to be waving palms and talking about Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem. We have so many traditions around this day. But remember that Jesus’ parade was unexpected in its day. Picture the week of Passover, and a city packed with people. The occupying Roman force is sending extra soldiers into the city to keep the peace. The soldiers paraded in on the north side of the city. Their parade was a show of force. A show of power. This is something the people had come to expect after so many years of Roman occupation.

But then… then on the east side of the city… this homeless, Galilean Rabbi with his motley crew of disciples and women and lepers and beggars and tax collectors comes into town… Not with a show of power or force… but humility. Love rides a donkey. And the people respond! Hosanna! Means Save us!

Could it be that the long-awaited Messiah is here?! Surely not. Now?! In my lifetime?!

Yes. Yes indeed. Love comes to us in such unexpected places and in such unexpected ways. I found the love of my life at a YMCA horse camp in Tippecanoe, Ohio. I found love in a small church in Vienna, VA and in the United Church of Christ. I’ve found love in Medina, OH with you all. I did not expect these things. Each major thing in my life has been unexpected. As Allen Saunders said and then John Lennon quoted, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

In this time of the unexpected COVID-19…. We are finding what we truly need. Love. Community. Ritual to help ground and center us. We are finding the need to be religious AND spiritual. For one without the other is not enough. Just being religious would be like Nicodemus, and we know the rules aren’t enough. And just being spiritual… well that’s so individualistic that it tends toward the selfish. Sure, anybody can see beauty and the divine in the forest, or a stunning vista, or a miraculous sunset. It takes real genius to find God in your neighbor. Especially…. THAT neighbor.

It takes true faith to believe that God put on skin and moved into our neighborhood and offered the soul-quenching Living Water, starting with the LEAST of society; the outcast, the marginalized, the poor… and even to us. We. You and me. But it’s not going to be done for us. Our cries of “Save Us!” will be unanswered. We are already saved. The hardest part of this faith is accepting that you’re accepted. And once you find that you’re already saved, then nothing can bind you. Nothing can separate you. No disease, no distance, not even death can separate you because you find that love saturates everything in your life.

And that is true power that can’t be denied, erased, or killed. So expect the unexpected. Are you looking for love? Keep your eyes out for it in unexpected places. Even… as we’ll see next week… Even in a tomb.

All of this has been unexpected. And we’re finding love in this unexpected time. Love of neighbors reaching out. Of neighbors feeding one another. Just like this video from Pete Metzloff of one of our mission partners… A parade of a different sort. Take a look…

Works Cited

[1] https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/look-for-the-resister/

[2] https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/look-for-the-helper/

[3] https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/look-for-the-thirst-quencher/

[4] https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/look-for-the-shepherd/

[5] For this story and most of the others, click here: https://www.thedad.com/krasinski-some-good-news/ (I’m not crying, you’re crying!)