Sunday Sermon: Making Room for Interruptions (Hurricane Irene Edition)…Mark 5:21-43

Dear New Lifers,

Although we are not meeting together to sing, worship and hear a word from scripture in community this Sunday, I wanted to offer some thoughts that can serve as a cyber-sermon as we wait for Irene to pass by.

This hurricane has interrupted the regular flow of life in the city, as millions of people are regulated to their homes. As I’ve been thinking and observing the news and weather reports, the word that keeps coming to me is “interruption.” Whether it is a category 1 hurricane or a tropical storm, life as we know it has been interrupted. Granted, this interruption might only last for a couple of days, but it serves as an illustration to the other “little interruptions” that we experience.

For some of you reading this, you’ve experienced economic interruptions, or interruptions in your dating life. For some, your interruptions have come via illness or depression. In short, interruptions have a way of impacting life as we know it.

When interruptions come, it’s easy to gripe and complain and blame, but I think there’s another way we can respond. Henri Nouwen writes these words that I think are full of wisdom and insight:

“While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I (Nouwen) had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, “You know . . . my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

The phase “interruptions were my work” reminds me so much of Jesus and the way in lived in the world. Jesus was constantly bombarded with people’s needs, illnesses, requests and interruptions. In Mark 5 (a sermon I preached on recently), Jesus is interrupted on his way to a healing. Check out this passage in Mark 5:

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
36 Overhearing[c] what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Jesus is interrupted by a woman who has a serious personal illness that leaves her alienated from the community. And yet, instead of brushing this person off, Jesus lives from a place of centered attention. As I see it, Jesus converts interruptions into invitations.

Jesus seems to view interruptions as invitations to display the love and power of God to the world. Jesus had a way of living that was open to what the Father would bring to him. As a result, he allows what I would see as an interruption to become an opportunity to do good.

Brother Lawrence, the great monastic author, wrote a book called, “Practicing the Presence of God.” Recently, I heard of a book by an author named Mike Mason entitled, “Practicing the Presence of People.” In this story, Jesus does both. He’s attentive to the Father, and attentive to the people around him.

As I sit in my living room writing these words, I’m aware that there are many times that I’ve missed God’s invitations to slow me down, or teach me something, because I’ve looked at them as interruptions to my plans, my agenda and my will. Yet, I’m reminded by this passage, that whenever life doesn’t unfold the way I’d like it, God might be up to something.

If we are going to make room for interruptions, I believe it’s going to emerge out of a contemplative life. That is, a life which submits to a rhythm of prayer and activity. Although this hurricane has interrupted life on the east coast, and in particular, in our city, I believe this is just another invitation from God to have followers of Jesus display the love and power of God to a world that desperately needs it.

So, as you go through your Sunday, and this week, my prayer is that you (and I) would intentionally carve out time to be with God, so that when go about our business, you might view interruptions in a new light.

The Lord bless you! Can’t wait to sing and be with you next Sunday!

Rich

P.S. I recommend that you spend part of your Sunday reading this passage above, and consider these questions for personal reflection or family discussion:

1) How do you respond when your plans are interrupted?
2) What would it take for you to view interruptions the way Jesus does?
3) What is God teaching you through this hurricane?

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