June 19, 2022: Heart & Soul: Surprise
Heart & Soul: Surprise
Psalm 8
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
______
Today we continue the series I’m calling “Heart & Soul”—a series exploring our human emotions and what they can teach us about our faith.
Last week we began the series by looking at the feeling and/or emotion we call “fear.” Today we look at the human emotion of “surprise.” Someone told me they were surprised that I would tackle “surprise” as the second emotion of the series—that perhaps other emotions were more prescient to our human experience. I explained that I was using the eight emotions identified by Robert Plutchik as the eight primary emotions; he suggested all other emotions are derivatives of these eight basic emotions. Now, various psychologists have offered different numbers of primary emotions: I’ve read two, six, seven, Plutchik’s eight, 27, 271 (now that would be a long sermon series!). As for me, I wanted an eight-week sermon series, so I chose Plutchik’s eight primary emotions model: fear, trust, joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, sadness, and yes, surprise.
The surprise exhibited by the person who thought “surprise” was an odd choice is a perfect starting point to define what surprise is. Surprise, simply put, is the emotion we experience when reality does not meet our expectation. I expect this floor to hold me as I stand here and speak: I will feel surprised if I fall through. You expect my sermon to be less than three hours long: you will be surprised when my sermon lasts four hours. Surprise happens when we expect one thing and another thing happens.
These are examples of unpleasant surprises. Like when you’re told a movie is awesome by everyone you know. They build it up so much that your expectations are heightened. You see the movie, and it’s ok, but you don’t understand the hype. Or maybe the opposite happens and a movie is a pleasant surprise: friends tells you a movie is just OK, your expectations are low, so you are pleasantly surprised when the movie is far better than you expected.
Surprise is what we feel when reality is different than expectation.
There are times in our lives when nothing can prepare us for what is to come. Grief is like this. Cognitively we know that grief is hard. We can kind of prepare ourselves for holidays and birthdays—we expect to have a hard time on those days. But grief comes when grief comes—sometimes it’s those unexpected waves of grief on random days that really throw us for a loop. Unpleasant surprise.
But I experienced a pleasant surprise a couple of weeks ago at the Grand Canyon. Now, I’ve seen pictures all my life. I’ve heard people talk about how amazing the Grand Canyon is. But nothing prepares you for the experience of standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon—no description or photograph or video can prepare you for the surprise of experiencing the vastness—the sheer immensity of the canyon. The millions of years it took to form the canyon with snow melt and water and gravity and rock and sediment. The layers of rock uncovered, exposing 2 billion years of geological history. The feeling of smallness and simultaneous connectedness to the unfolding history of the planet. It overpowers the senses.
This kind of surprise—a more intense form of surprise that we call “awe”—is exactly what the psalmist was experiencing in Psalm 8:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
When the psalmist considered the immensity of the cosmos—the emotion s/he experienced was awe.
What is awe?
“Awe is a self-transcendent, emotional response to an object, an event, or a person of extraordinary quality. It is an intense sensation of fear, admiration, delight, and surprise. The objects that evoke awe could be extremely beautiful, unimaginably vast in size, or exceptionally significant in any other way.”[1]
Awe overwhelms our senses, leaving us transfixed and totally present in the moment. Awe says, “remember this moment.” So we do.
When have you experienced awe?
· People often experience awe in nature. The psalmist experienced awe looking up at the nighttime sky—the moon and the countless stars. I get this. I remember when I was in college, my friends and I night-hiked to the top of a place called “Window Cliffs” with a couple of blankets and watched a meteor shower. I was mesmerized! Astounded! I was in awe of the nighttime sky, just like the author of Psalm 8. Have you ever been in awe of the cosmos?
· Maybe you’ve experienced awe through the arts: dance or music or visual arts. I experienced this on Friday at the Salvador Dali museum. Standing in sheer amazement at a painting of the back of a woman looking at the ocean, which from 20 feet becomes an obvious depiction of Abraham Lincoln. The virtual reality immersion in which I felt like I could fall (even though I was sitting in a comfortable chair).
· Perhaps you’ve been in awe as you held a newborn baby—fearfully and wonderfully made—innocence and potential and love and mystery in one, tiny, 8-pound form.
Albert Einstein once said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
Here’s why experiencing awe is important in the life of faith: not only do we become the walking dead (to use Einstein’s metaphor) if we don’t have a healthy mix of awe in our emotional life, but we are encouraged through scripture to invoke awe in our relationship with God.
· The apostle Paul, in writing to his favorite church, the church at Philippi, urges them to keep a sense of awe in their faith: “So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence.” (Philippians 2:12 NET)
· In similar fashion, Jude condemned ungodly people who had made their way into the church saying, “These people are stains on your love feasts. They feast with you without any sense of awe.” (Jude 1:12 ISV)
Jude is onto something here: how can we worship the God of the cosmos, the Creator of all things, and not stand in awe of that Creator? How can we consider the marvel of the human anatomy, the bioluminescence of certain sea creatures, the delicate ecosystem of planet earth perfect for life, the power of a hurricane or the beauty of a plumeria blossom, the vastness of the sea just a couple of blocks away, and be (at least occasionally) overwhelmed, delighted, and surprised?
If we become jaded, so cynical that we no longer marvel at the everyday miracles around us, is our faith alive at all?
I do not stand in judgment—I get how easy it is to get so absorbed in life and problems and worries—sometimes I forget to gasp at the beauty of looking out over Clearwater Beach when I drive across the causeway.
So how do we foster awe in our lives? How can we give cynicism a little less power and wonder a little more?
Here are some suggestions, some ways to foster the kind of faith the psalmist exhibits as s/he exclaims, “O Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Choose one or more of these practices as your homework this week.
1. Journal. Write about an experience of awe you have had in the past. Was it prompted by nature? By the arts? By a person? Write it. Name it to claim it!
2. Watch an awe-inspiring nature video. There are so many!
3. Take an awe walk. Wherever you are, there is so much to inspire awe, from that beautiful tree down the street to the intricate spirals of a broken seashell. Set an intention to be amazed by something you see as you take a walk.
Jesus came to offer us life abundant, and surprise that leads to awe is such an important part of the good life. I hope you’ll foster some awe this week, and I hope that awe evokes a deeper love and respect for our God.
I close with a story shared by my friend Rev. Tammy Blom:
A master art teacher took six of his most promising students to a hillside with an unimpeded view of the setting sun. He instructed them that their final exam would be 50% of their grade. Their task was to paint the sunset using the techniques learned that semester while also exhibiting their distinct point of view. Hurriedly, the six students set up their canvases, mixed paints, and assembled brushes. As the sun began to set, five of the students furiously began to paint. They glanced up only long enough to find the shapes and colors of the sunset. They were so attentive to their canvases that they didn’t notice one of the students had not painted a single stroke. As darkness crept in, the teacher examined the canvases by flashlight and commented on technique and style. When he got to the last canvas, it was blank. The teacher asked, “What did you do as the sun set?” And the student replied, “I was so overcome by the colors and the shifting light that I became mesmerized. I just watched the sun set. I didn’t paint.” With that the teacher replied, “Your final exam grade is an A.” And turning to the other students he said, “As for the rest of you, your grades are C’s. You painted a canvas but missed the beauty of the sunset. Without seeing what is before you, you will only ever be an average artist.”
My dear friends, may you never settle for average. Instead, may you become master artists of the life set before you.
[1] Dr. Sandip Roy, https://happyproject.in/awe-power/