"When Interruptions Come Knocking”
March 1, 2015
Luke 8:40-56
INTRO: Has this ever happened to you? You've had a hard day. Finally you have a few quiet minutes for yourself, you pour a hot bath, you throw in some bubbles just for a touch of luxury. You put your toe in - kind of hot, but then you ease slowly into the luscious water, and just as you settle in….MOMMY! JESSE HIT ME! An interruption.
You decide to treat yourself and bake a pie. You get out the flour, make the dough, and reach into the canister for a handful to spread on the counter to roll the dough when the door bell rings. Now your arms are white, the vacuum is sitting in the middle of the floor, and you run to the door to find...Two smiling Jehovah's Witnesses. An interruption.
Interruptions. We all have to deal with them again and again, and it seems that they always come at the worst possible time. During dinner, when you are finally alone with your spouse after a week apart, when you have work to do and just barely enough time to do it. Interruptions. How do you cope?
Jesus used interruptions as opportunities for ministry.
-In the Gospel of Luke, the first miracle we read about is the result of an interruption. Jesus is preaching when a demon possessed man stands and starts screaming,
"Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the holy one of God!"
""Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him."
Then listen what happened: "The people were amazed and said to each other, "What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out." And the news of him spread throughout the surrounding area."
-In chapter 5, he is interrupted when a group of friends of a man who was paralyzed cut a whole in the roof of a house where Jesus was teaching and let him down through the hole to be healed. Jesus uses the opportunity to reveal his power to forgive sins. And the people were amazed.
-In chapter 7, Jesus is enjoying a dinner party at the home of a wealthy and influential religious leader, when a "Sinful Woman" (That means prostitute), comes along and starts pouring expensive oil on him, and wiping it off with her hair. He uses the opportunity to demonstrate the gift of grace.
-In Chapter 10, Jesus is teaching when a fellow in the audience stands up to "Test" him, to see if he is really as hot as they say he is. The lawyer asks him "What must I do to inherit eternal life." When they both agree that the answer is to love God and your neighbor, the guy persists in his interruption and asks "But who is my neighbor." That interruption led to Jesus telling one of his best known parables, "The Good Samaritan."
-In chapter 19, the unscrupulous tax collector, Zacchaeus, interrupts Jesus by his presence in a tree at the side of the road. Jesus seizes the opportunity, and much to everyone’s surprise goes to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner, where he reveals his mission even as he demonstrates it: “The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
-And one other interruption stands out. Jesus was teaching near the sea of Galilee, when a man pushed his way through the crowd, pleading for attention.
His name was Jarius, and his daughter was dying. He fell at Jesus' feet, begging him to come to his house, to heal his daughter before it was too late. Imagine his passion for this urgent problem. So Jesus started on his way. The crowd was thick, they wanted to catch a glimpse of the miracle worker. They wanted to get near. The Bible says that the crowd nearly crushed him.
You've seen crowds like this on the highway when there has been an accident. Rubberneckers, who stop even the help from getting through.
As Jesus was pushing his way forward, he was interrupted. A woman had somehow managed to get through the crowd to him, at great personal risk. She had had a problem with bleeding for twelve years, so she was weak. Worse than that, she was continually ritually unclean. In fact, she shouldn't have been out in public.
But somehow she pushed her way through, and touched the edge of his cloak, hoping to be healed. And immediately, immediately her bleeding stopped.
"Who touched me?" Jesus asked "Someone touched me; I know that the power has gone out from me."
And the woman came forward, and he touched her, an spoke with her, and blessed her. She was an interruption, but she had been an opportunity for ministry.
Unfortunately, she was more than just a minor interruption. Jesus was already being slowed by the crowd as he went to heal Jarius' daughter. The woman slowed him even more
Imagine Jarius watching this take place - trying to be patient but frantic at the same time. This woman has been sick for 12 years. My daughter is about to die right now! Jesus - Why are you stopping? Why are you talking to her. You can come back later, but you need to come to my house now before it’s too late!
And then, the worst happened. A messenger came out of Jarius' house with bad news. The interruption was too long; Jesus was too late. The girl was dead. What a price to pay for an interruption.
But he kept on, and when he got to the house, he went inside, took the girls hand, an said
"My Child, get up!"
And she did, and he fed her, and he used even this worst of all interruptions as an opportunity to minister to one of God's children.
And her parents (you guessed it) were amazed, astonished, overwhelmed.
Whenever Jesus was faced with an interruption, he turned it into an opportunity for ministry.
COPING WITH OUR INTERRUPTIONS
Just what is it about interruptions that makes them so distasteful to us? What is it that makes them so maddening?
Think about interruptions. There you are, going about your own thing, when someone or something else comes along, and want you to do their thing. Isn't that exactly what we find annoying? We like to set our own agenda for life. Interruptions are someone else's agenda imposed on us. And we simply don't like that. We prefer independence.
In fact, we are even inclined to insist on our own agenda when we minister to someone else.
We all approve of the idea of witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses. But we don't want to do it in their time, when they come to our door. We all approve of comforting someone in distress, but not during the Big Game. We want to be ministers of Jesus Christ, but we want to minister on our own turf, in our own time.
The problem with that attitude is that it simply doesn't work. Look at Jesus.He was willing to deal with people's needs where and when they had them, even if it interrupted his schedule, his plan, his agenda.
To turn interruptions into opportunities I need to:
Surrender my agenda to God’s will
If a sick person came to him on the Sabbath, he didn't say "Come back on Monday, when it's more convenient. I have office hours from 2 to 5." No. He healed them. He saw each and every interruption as an opportunity to touch a person's life. And you know, there is no better time to touch a person's life than when they come to you, wanting to be helped.
To turn interruptions into opportunities I need to:
Place the needs of others above my wants
Of course, one major factor in being able to turn interruptions into opportunities is thinking of yourself not as just John or Jane Doe, citizen, but as John or Jane Doe, child of God, minister of Jesus Christ. Each is called to ministry. Mine happens to be being pastor. Yours may be, probably is, something else. But whatever your calling, you are called to be a minister. When we think of ourselves as ministers, interruptions take on a whole new meaning.
To turn interruptions into opportunities I need to:
See my life’s purpose as ministry
As a pastor, I’m on call all of the time. That is part of my ministry. To be there when you need me. People often call and say "I know you are busy, and I don't want to interrupt you..." But that is why I'm here!
And that is part of every ministry. Availability is an attitude that says to God, “Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, whenever you call, I’m ready. Here I am. Send me.”
To turn interruptions into opportunities I need to:
Make myself available to God
Why does God send interruptions our way? Sometimes he sends them as an opportunity for us to minister to one another and to the world in his name. Sometimes he sends them as a way of ministering to us.
The fact is that sometimes you and I get in a rut. We start seeing life in one way, doing things one way, living one way, and acting one way. Our way. And those ruts can be pretty deep. We start living by our agenda, and our agenda alone. Then God sends along a little interruption, and he un-ruts us. He forces us to step back and take a look where we are going.
Every interruption is can be an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for ministry, an opportunity to serve God. Praise God for interruptions.
