“Interruptions or Opportunities?”
Mark 1:40-45
How do you react to interruptions?
Think about that for a moment.
Think about times you have had your plans interrupted.
Perhaps you had bought plan tickets to visit someone or go on vacation and your flight is delayed.
How did you react?
Perhaps you are on your way to an appointment and you get stuck in traffic.
What emotions does that conjure up in you?
Maybe you are in the middle of a fascinating conversation or you are reading a really good book and the phone rings.
What is your first thought?
Or perhaps you have a landline and the phone is ringing and you are in the bathroom.
So, you rush to the phone half-dressed, out of breath, heart beating a million miles an hour and it turns out to be a tele-marketer.
Maybe you are on your way into a restaurant and a needy person asks you to stop and give them money for a bus ticket.
How does that make you feel?
(pause)
If you are like me, almost nothing in life is going to go as planned.
And that is because, just about no matter how hard you might try to avoid it, something or someone is going to interrupt you!!!
Maybe it’s your kid wanting breakfast.
Perhaps someone knocks on your door.
Maybe your smartphone starts buzzing with text messages or news updates.
Perhaps someone really needs to talk with you about something.
And before you know it, your plans have been interrupted.
Perhaps our entire day has taken a different turn.
Interruptions are inevitable, and we can look upon them as something bad…
…something that drives us crazy…
…something that stresses us out…
…or…
…we can take an entirely different perspective altogether.
In our Gospel Lesson for today we are told that “A man with leprosy” interrupts Jesus.
“He came to him and begged him on his knees, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
How did Jesus handle this interruption?
What was His first “gut” reaction?
Did He tell him to get out of His way?
Did He breathe hard and act annoyed?
Did He tell Him to go to a doctor instead?
No.
Instead, we are told the exact opposite of all that.
We are told that Jesus’ immediate reaction to being interrupted is that He was “filled with compassion.”
The Greek word translated here for compassion literally means to “snort like a horse.”
Now, since it would be pretty strange, to say the least, to read that “Jesus’ snorted like a horse and then reached out his hand and touched the man,” translators, instead try to find a common English word to convey the feelings of Jesus at that moment.
And so, the feelings that Jesus had when he saw the leper came automatically—Jesus was suddenly and deeply moved by the situation of the man.
His experience was one of complete empathy—Jesus was totally in-synch with this man’s difficulty and pain…
…so “at one” with the man that it was as if He felt what he felt.
And a noise arose out of Jesus, a deep guttural noise like the snorting of a horse.
That is intense, when you think about it!!!
As you know, my dad passed away in August.
The Sunday before Labor Day our small family held a memorial service in my middle sister’s back yard.
It was really emotional.
In any event, my oldest sister—Wendy—had this really cool idea to release like 30 Monarch Butterflies at the end of the service…while Mary Ellen sung the Hymn of Promise out of the United Methodist Hymnal.
I happened to have my eyes on Wendy when the butterflies were released.
Her “guttural reaction” will stay with me forever.
She literally convulsed with grief and pain.
That’s kind of how I think of Jesus’ reaction to the man with leprosy.
Jesus convulsed with compassion for the man.
In Jesus’ day lepers suffered, not only from a physical illness, but from a social illness.
They were considered to be impure; unclean—dangerous.
For that reason, when a priest would discover their impurity, he would cast them out of society to wander in the lonely and isolated places.
They could no longer pray in the synagogue or the Temple.
They couldn’t be with their family, their friends, their children.
They were, quite literally, a separated species.
Again, let’s talk about the word translated as compassion—it’s a Greek Word—“splanch-ni-zomai”—not only does it mean to “snort like a horse” it also means “a profoundly intense emotional response that viscerally propels someone feeling compassion into action on behalf of others.”
The compassion of Jesus is not just some sentimental pity for this poor man.
It doesn’t just cause Jesus to say, “I feel sorry for him,” and then be on His way—it compels Jesus to reach across the boundary of disease to touch an untouchable, which violated Jewish Law—according to Leviticus Chapters 13 and 14.
And in doing this, Jesus makes Himself “unclean.”
Jesus makes the leper clean and…in essence, takes upon Himself the poor guy’s leprosy!!!
That’s why, as we are told in verse 45 that Jesus could “no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places.”
Jesus Himself—the Son of God—could no longer openly enter a town, a synagogue, a Temple.
He was ritually unclean.
He was now an outcast.
The man had come to Jesus begging, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus “reached out his hand and touched the man.
‘I am willing,’ he said.
‘Be clean.’”
“I am willing;” “I do choose.”
This defines the reality of the Gospel.
God, in Jesus Christ, is willing, He does choose to come to this earth and reach out and touch and heal a bunch of sinful, lost, broken, unclean folks like you, like me, like everyone who will ever allow Him!!!
And Jesus’ compassion for you, for me, for all humankind is a profoundly intense emotional response to human suffering.
Are you suffering this morning?
Are you hurting?
Are you afraid?
Do you feel like an outcast?
Are you living on the margins?
Are you sick with sin?
Cry out to Jesus; beg Him on your knees: “Jesus if you are willing you can make me clean.”
Jesus’ answer will be “I am willing—be clean.”
We are told that “Immediately the leprosy left the man and he was cleansed.”
Then an interesting thing happens.
We are told that Jesus sent him away at once…“go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’ [And] Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news.”
Jesus asked the former leper to accept the Law.
But the healed man has found a new way of liberation and a new Kingdom that supersedes the control of the priests.
And don’t you think Jesus knew this would happen all along?
It has been suggested that Jesus was angry at a social system that demonized and excluded an entire group of human beings who were guilty of nothing more than being “different.”
After-all, don’t many of us become angry or extremely frustrated with the way our own culture continues to stigmatize the “different” among us: the diseased and disfigured, the immigrant, the very poor, the slow to learn, the social misfit of every sort?
If we aren’t we should be.
For one thing, from the very beginning, the Church of Jesus Christ has been founded on the sick and the outcast.
And also, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are to share in Jesus’ “splanch-ni-zomia”—His compassion which is propelled into action on account of those who suffer, those who are lost, those who are marginalized, our fellow human beings, our neighbors, our friends—even our enemies!!!
And sometimes this takes a great deal of courage.
You know why?
If we walk beside people and point them to Jesus for relief, healing, salvation, affirmation…
…if we sow compassion, we must reap the consequences.
If we genuinely help people, they are going to tell other people.
And those other people will remember and will seek us out when they need help.
And you know what that means?
It means more interruptions!!!
But what if interruptions are the very nature of ministry—of doing God’s will?
Some might say that interruptions are ministry!!!
As a matter of fact, if we are to truly follow Jesus, we may very well find that our lives will become one interruption after another.
But, you see, this is where we can begin to allow interruptions to become—not simply irritations—but opportunities to serve God.
What if the things we consider inconveniences are the very tools God uses to help us grow into God’s likeness?
I don’t know about you but every time I’ve had something BIG planned in my life, I’ve been disappointed by the outcome — or at very least, surprised.
The reason is we weren’t meant to live like that, bouncing from one big thing to the next.
When our journey is more about destinations than the points in between, the arrival rarely measures up to our expectations.
What if we, like Jesus, learn to fall in love with the whole process of life, not just some particular event?
One way to do this is by welcoming, not dreading, the interruptions.
These include flight delays, long traffic lights, and even that needy person who takes up more time and money and perhaps conversation than we had originally planned for.
What if we were to surrender to these moments that frustrate us to no end?
Would they teach us to let go of control?
Would they remind us that life is not just about “me.”
Would they help us become more patient, more fulfilled, more at peace, more compassionate, more like Jesus?
So the next time we wake up six times at night to a teething baby, can we remember to be present and even be thankful for the moment?
The next time a person “just wants to talk,” can we listen and really care?
The next time an opportunity to hang out with a friend or spouse comes, will we take it (even if we’re under a deadline)?
None of us should be too busy to spend time being compassionate.
And none of us are too important to make a new friend.
The legacy of our lives will not be judged by how many emails we responded to or how well we maximized our lunch break.
It will be measured, I believe, by how interruptable we were.
How often did we let the world pull us away from ourselves so we could focus on others?
When everything is said and done, how do you want to be able to answer that question?
May Jesus say of us, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
In Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
