Let us pray: O God, open our hearts and our ears to the wonder and surprise of your story. Amen.

    In case you haven’t noticed, one of my current favourite versions of the bible is a paraphrase called “The Message”. It surprises me in some ways that I am so attracted to this particular edition, but Eugene Peterson, the author, has put together a very compelling, easy to read, down to earth rendering of scripture. My surprise comes from the fact that endeavours such as this one usually are done by people who hold a more conservative and literal view of the bible than I claim. I take another version, “The Living Bible” as a case in point. I received a copy of “The Living Bible” as a Christmas gift right near the end of my university career. It was an attempt by my parents to present me with a more readable and contemporary version of the bible, in the hope that I might be more tempted to read it on occasion. It didn’t work very well. I still have that copy of “The Way”, an illustrated edition of “The Living Bible”, in relatively pristine condition - thus proving the limited amount of use it has received over the years. My attraction to “The Living Bible” was not increased as I awakened to a different understanding of the importance of the Bible. I realise now that many more conservative Christians were likely to have “The Way” in their possession, published as it was by Campus Life Magazine and Youth for Christ International, and that was good enough reason for me to avoid it.

    Some people might wonder how a particular bible could have more appeal to certain segments of people in the Christian faith. After all, they might wonder, isn’t the bible just the bible? It’s a strange irony that people who hold a literal view of the bible are attracted to particular translations. Yes, they have a literal view of the words that are written there, but they prefer those words to be translated in particular ways. It seems, after all, that there is some freedom of choice when it comes to the (quote)  “inerrant” (endquote) word of God.

    The Revised Standard Bible was the translation I used throughout my time at theological college. It was considered the most scholarly and accurate translation of the original texts. That made it a good choice as a resource for scholarly papers and study for people with a limited understanding of the Latin, Greek, ancient Hebrew and Aramaic languages.

    The year I graduated was also the year that the New Revised Standard Bible was published. It was a version that followed in the tradition of being accurate and scholarly, with the exception that it was much less gender-specific in reference to human beings, even if that feature was not extended to the God language. It seemed only natural for me to request a special copy of the New Revised Standard bible when I was asked what version I would like to have as a gift at ordination from the United Church Women of Alberta and Northwest Conference.

    If I was to receive such a gift this year, it would be a difficult choice. If I were to choose the version I refer to most often, it would have to be “The Message”. As I mentioned previously, it is a paraphrase, so accuracy to the original text is not high on its list of attributes, but there is something about Peterson’s monumental work that is very attractive. Interestingly enough, I don’t even own a physical copy of this version. I discovered some years ago that it is fully available on line, and that is the version I use. It is thus very easy to pull up a particular passage and read it as it is rendered in “The Message”, something I do pretty much every week.

    All of that little bit of delving into the topic of Bible translations was by way of introduction to this portion of the reading from John’s gospel that Donna read a few minutes ago. Here is the final part of that passage from “The Message”. Peterson didn’t change the gender specific God language either. These are the words of Jesus, as written by John and paraphrased by Eugene Peterson:

    “Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendour you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you, but I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them - Who you are and what you do - and continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them.”

    I want to look at a particular phrase from that reading, and connect it with the reading we had from the book of Acts this morning. Here is the phrase:  “These disciples know that you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them. “

    If I were to sum up the whole message of scripture, the whole mission of Jesus, the very being of God in one concept it would be this: Unexpected surprise.

    To me that’s a message that runs throughout the Hebrew Bible. Just when the people seem to be forgotten or forsaken, someone comes along or something happens to remind them that God has been with them all along. A leader appears out of surprising circumstances. Against all odds a woman bears a child. The youngest, almost overlooked child becomes King. It continues in the Christian scriptures. Blessed are the meek. Be like a child to live most fully in the way of God. I could go on and on. Always the people - whether they are the Hebrew people on their wilderness Exodus, or the nascent groups of followers of Jesus dispersed about the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, the people are invited to see things in new ways, to look for the unexpected as a sign of God’s presence. Holy people can be found among the perceived unholy, while the so-called holy people are often exposed for their hypocrisy and ulterior motives.

    There is no better illustration of this message than in today’s reading from the book of Acts. It’s a story of twists and turns. A young woman, a fortune-teller - not the most reliable of witnesses - yet she becomes a witness to the work that Paul and Silas were about. But even though her words were positive affirmation for Paul and Silas, they were too much. However we understand what happened to stop her, stop her Paul did. This upset the people who were profiting from her abilities. Kangaroo court follows and Paul and Silas end up bound and placed in solitary confinement in the local prison. Seemingly undaunted by the situation they continue to pray and sing their praise to God. Wonder of wonders, an earthquake happens, seemingly setting them free. They are free alright - free to choose - and their choice is to hang around, save the jailer from taking the fall for their escape and use the whole situation as a means of sharing the message about God and Jesus not only with the jailer, but his whole family.

    It’s a classic example of the surprise that runs throughout the bible. It’s a classic example of the message to us to give up our preconceived notions, see things from new perspectives, expect the unexpected, and look for signs of God’s presence in ways we never could have imagined. It’s also about our freedom to choose. Paul and Silas could have chosen freedom in the most likely sense - running away after their unexpected release from captivity. But they were captive to God’s message and the example set by Jesus - namely to exercise their freedom in quite a different way - as a way to enact a random act of kindness and to share the message of God’s surprise with a most grateful and likely incredulous prison warden.

    One of the things that defines who we human beings are as creatures in creation is the freedom to choose, although in an interesting aside, there was a story this week from the world of science which suggest that fruit flies also seem to have the ability to exercise free will - I’ll have to leave that one to another time. Notwithstanding that discovery, human beings are set apart by our freedom to choose. The message we receive as followers of God’s way is that the choice is often the unexpected one. The most unlikely way is the way that Jesus described, and showed and the way that is closest to God’s will for us in the world.

    And I guess that goes all the way to the choices we make about which version of the bible we use. Ultimately it is about making choices that are faithful to the way God wants us to be. I’m gonna live so God can use me, anywhere Lord, anywhere time. Amen.