Advent 4 2012 - Serendipity and expecting the Unexpected

One winter day in 1754, the politician and man of letters, Horace Walpole was reading a Persian fairy tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip." The story touched him, and writing to his friend Horace Mann, he told of the thrilling approach to life he had discovered from the tale. This ancient story told of three princes from the island that we now know as Sri Lanka, which was originally called Serendip, who set out on a pursuit of great treasures. They had hoped to make their fortune. Tt is quite an involved story, but essentially the important outcome is this: the princes never actually found what they searched for, but en route they were continually surprised by unanticipated delights. While looking for one thing, they found another. Using the original name of the island, Serendip, Walpole coined the word serendipity. From that day on, his most significant and valuable experiences were those that happened to him when he least expected them.

So how do we define serendipity? A popular way of explaining it is to refer to it simply as a 'happy accident'. But it can be more than this. Serendipity occurs when something beautiful breaks into the normal routine of our lives, bringing new vitality and joy. This maybe something valuable or beneficial. It is totally unexpected; something we were not knowingly looking for and because of it, life may never be the same again. It seems that the nuances of serendipity are such that in 2004 a British translation company voted this as one of the ten most difficult English words to translate! Serendipity often plays a part in the recognition of a new product need or in solving design problems and it certainly a major factor in scientific discoveries and inventions. Alexander Fleming accidentally left a petri dish of bacteria open and a mould had got inside which had appeared to have killed the bacteria. It turned out that it was the fungus and he turned the fungus into an anti-biotic which we know as Penicillin which has had an enormous groundbreaking impact on medicine.

God is a god of serendipities – a God of surprises. Things happen often at times when we least expect them. Life may just be routinely ticking over or we may suddenly find ourselves confronting frustrations or difficulties. Then suddenly, often quite unexpectedly, a new thing happens, and it changes our lives forever. In today's Gospel reading, we see how extraordinary life-changing things can happen to ordinary people.
The Annunciation is a story of God's serendipity. Mary, who was most likely a teenager, living in a small town and engaged to a humble carpenter, is taken completely by surprise and told that she is going to give birth to a child, who would be Gods favoured one, a Messiah who would save the world. Nothing could prepare anyone for an apparently impossible scenario like that and Mary's fear and scepticism is more than understandable. She would have risked making a fool of herself and being condemned by her community.

Josephs experience in the Annunciation story could not easily be described as serendipity. (We hear more of his response in Matthew's Gospel). Poor Joseph knew he could not possibly have been the father. He must have been heartbroken and thinking the worst. He was deeply confused and questioned his future relationship with Mary. But ultimately of course, he became stronger for it – turning into a strong and loyal husband and carrying out his parental responsibilities with even greater commitment. So as with Joseph's story, sometimes unexpected things happen that seem to engender only anxiety or fear and the reasons are far from clear. There are no answers forthcoming but only later does the true value of that initial revelation fall into place.

Giles Fraser, in his Church Times column this week, reminded readers that Advent is "...a time to be without answers, to live in hope that something will soon break into our lives that will make sense of the present". Serendipity it seems, works on all kinds of levels. For all of us, Christmas is very much about hope and expectation especially the business of managing our own and other peoples hopes and expectations. But the deeper point of Christmas is that it expands the possibilities of our imagination. It is about pointing up our sense of wonder. It is about expecting the unexpected. Everything we do at Christmas from opening gifts and pulling crackers to watching the fantasy films that hit our TV screens (however trite they may sometimes be) are concerned with appealing to our sense of wonder.

We are at times in danger of losing this of course. Compiling gift lists to circulate to family and friends may be expedient, but expediency takes away the element of surprise. It flattens experience. Although gift-giving means that we show our love by giving generously of ourselves, we can easily – adults especially – lose our capacity to be surprised. Yet we may all hope for something to break into the normal daily routine of our lives. We all need the vitality and joy of new experience. So serendipity is not just for Christmas but Christmas is a reminder of the possibilities that may be waiting to surprise us at any place and at any time.

But in the bigger picture, this is the season in which religious imagination in particular, is challenged and opened up. Imagination can be a dangerous word for many in faith circles; because to some, it implies empty fantasy (as in 'don't be ridiculous, it's all in your imagination!'), or it can suggest mere fabrication, falsehood or distortion. But what is faith, indeed what has faith ever been - without imagination? Faith is a drama, a journey into the mystery and wonder of God. Indeed the mystery of faith at its deepest level is also the mystery of human existence. We strive to bring the mystery of faith alive. We use of all kinds of symbols, metaphors and images to penetrate faith and bring us in touch with the mystery of the divine. Artists, poets and musicians and all who work in creative endeavour, are undertaking this task all the time.

There are times like Christmas where spiritually we should find ourselves living in the space between knowing God and unknowing God. This the fertile field of the religious imagination. I can best explain what I mean by this 'knowing' and 'unknowing' by referring to a recent radio panel debate in which a Christian member observed that it in a sense we worship two Gods. On the one hand there is the image of God that seems conditioned by our own personal conception of God – the image we have imagined and constructed which serves our own needs. On the other there is the transcendent God who is so completely and utterly other – the mystery that cannot be known. This is the authentic, mysterious God who passes all understanding. Our authentic religious imagination struggles somewhere between these two positions and we can find ourselves being alert or alive to new possibilities new interpretations and understandings. At Christmas our imagination is ignited. Our sense of wonder is overhauled and challenged to prepare us in that task.

New experiences, perhaps new friendships, new jobs, or tasks that come our way, holidays, entertainments, reading scripture or a spiritual text and of course – a new life coming into the world, can suddenly compel us to see life and spiritual truth in a new and transforming way. All of these and more may bring about a new depth of experience. In the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph find themselves at the threshold of something that is going to change their lives and indeed an event that would change the whole world. Their story reminds us of the power and potential of the unexpected. So what does this mean for us? Our own experience of the unexpected – the serendipitous moments of life - may be far removed from the Nativity, but may be no less significant or transforming for us as individuals. The TV presenter and wit Denis Norden once said: "the only trouble with the unexpected is that it always seems to happen when you are least expecting it". So, this Christmas let us inwardly prepare to expect the unexpected.