I have the utmost admiration for anybody who can live amid constant crises. I cannot do that very well. If you are the kind of person who can keep your sanity when there are ten unplanned things happening around you, I salute you. How do you do it? That’s not me. That’s not my skill. I like things to be planned out. I want to deal with things that are expected. I want it all scheduled. Things aren’t “real” to me unless I have written them down in my appointment book.
Now some of you are saying, “Pastor, then it’s a good thing you were never a mother, because mothers deal with crisis on a moment-by-moment basis.” And I guess that’s right. When my children were little I managed to be out somewhere “doing the Lord’s work” so much of the time that I missed out on such joys as trips to the Emergency Room or refereeing the wrestling matches. Margaret bears those scars proudly. But even if I had been there, I doubt I would have handled it well. It wasn’t planned, you see, that accident; that fight was not on my calendar. And so I would not have been ready to respond. I need planning.
Pain, however, ignores the appointment book. When people hurt, they need your help. They are not interested in what else you have to do. At that moment, they want you to see them as the most important thing going. They want to be the center of your universe. If they are in pain, they do not care what is on your appointment book. They just want help, that’s all.
I have the utmost admiration for anybody who can live amid constant crisis. But that’s hard for me. Last Thursday evening I had parked to go into the pharmacy, but I heard a loud slam. I looked up just in time to see a car spinning around in the middle of Colesville Road, having been hit by another car coming out of a side street. I started to run toward the accident; I got as far as the pharmacy door, but I hesitated. This was not on my plan! I am supposed to be picking up a prescription at 6 o’clock! But, then, pain ignores the appointment book, so I ran on down to the corner. As it happens, no one was hurt; but someone called 911, and within three minutes of the accident there were two police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance on the scene. All these people who dropped whatever else they were doing and responded to a crisis! More power to them; I would have a hard time with that. I want to schedule things. I want to plan them. “Let’s see, your accident, we can put that at 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon.”
In fact, I go into an anxiety attack if I don’t have my little appointment book with me. This thing lies right next to my Bible in my daily toolkit. If I leave home without it, I turn around and go back to get it, lest I miss something I was scheduled to do. I’ve gotten over that, now, however; I am a recovering appointaholic. I no longer have to keep my book in my pocket . Why not, you ask? Because now I have it on a computer program, I have it on my web site, and it’s duplicated on the secretary’s desk! Steal my wallet, if you will, but take not, oh take not, my appointment book!
However, pain ignores the appointment book. When we are faced with a sudden need, whether it’s our own need or somebody else’s need, we either paralyze or we panic. We either paralyze or we panic. We are not ready. Flexibility is not in our spiritual toolkit. And so either we paralyze – I remember someone I used to supervise, who could never get his work done because he was always trying to fix this or that emergency; or we panic – like Ichabod Crane, of whom it was said that he jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions. But pain ignores the appointment book. It just happens! And we need to do something better than paralyze or panic.
I want to invite you today to the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. In this chapter, Jesus is meeting crises. For Jesus, pain ignored His appointment book. But watch what happens with His disciples. They got paralyzed once, and they panicked once. What did Jesus teach them about paralysis or panic when pain ignores the appointment book?
I
First, they learned that compassion means that we work together to do whatever is needed. We work together if we have compassion. Together is the operative word. When there is a need to be met, we do not tackle it alone. If we do that, we will paralyze. But if we work together, the grace of God has a way of providing for the needs.
You know the story of the feeding of the five thousand. I need not repeat it in detail. In fact, if you have worked in our church kitchen, you have lived the story! When folks are hungry, they are just plain hungry, and they expect that somehow you will pull off a meal. They don’t care how! Just do it.
So let me put together a couple of phrases from this story that might help us. It says that when Jesus and His disciples went ashore, “He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them”. And then, as it got late, the disciples came and said, “It’s getting late, it’s time to eat – send them away.” And Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” “There is a problem – you solve it. You deal with it. You give them something to eat.”
Can’t you just see their reaction? Who, me? Us? Are we supposed to go wreck our bank accounts to buy food for this crowd? Jesus, we don’t have the resources for this. Where’s the Safeway, anyway? Jesus, we don’t have the money, we don’t have the time, we don’t have the energy. And besides, it wasn’t planned. It is not in our appointment book.
But now watch. Jesus does not say, “You figure it out, it’s your problem, not mine.” Nor does Jesus say, “Well, if it can’t be done, it can’t be done.” He does not dismiss the problem. He does not encourage them to stick their heads in the sand and hope that five thousand hungry people will just go away.
No, Jesus says something very simple. He says, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” And when they have gone to find out what they have to work with; when they have agreed to look at their resources; when they have worked together on the problem – then and only then does He bless the five paltry loaves and two scrawny fish and multiply them.
When compassion leads us to work together to meet a need, one that wasn’t in our appointment book, one we hadn’t counted on – when compassion leads us to work together to help somebody in crisis, then the Lord will bless our efforts and will use what we have to meet that need.
When you face a crisis moment, and you face it alone, I can almost guarantee that you are going to paralyze. None of us is strong enough to meet our own needs, let alone meet others’ needs. We need each other. We need to call on each other. We need to be available to each other. But none of us needs to be heroic, trying to solve problems on our own; and none of us needs to stall, paralyzed, because we don’t know what to do. God has placed in His church the gifts necessary to meet the needs that are here.
Did you catch that? Isn’t that remarkable? God has placed in His church – in this church – God has placed in this church the gifts necessary to meet the needs that are among us. If we, like the disciples, look at what is here and who has it, then the Lord in His grace will multiply it and use it beyond our wildest imagination.
Yes, pain, like the hunger of the five thousand, ignores the appointment book. It does not always come at a convenient time. But working together, we, in this community, can feed hungry people, we can house homeless people, we can counsel hurting people, and we can heal broken people. We can do it not by saying, “Pastor, that’s your thing, go do it.” Nor by passing it off to some agency somewhere. But by trusting one another, and most of all by trusting the multiplying grace of the Lord, we can commit our compassion and work together to meet the needs of people.
Pain ignores our neat appointment books, but the Lord gives us to one another at crisis times.
II
However, there is something else that the disciples learned from Jesus. Not only did they learn how to go beyond paralysis over some need they didn’t expect. They also learned how to calm the panic that comes when we get ourselves into a crisis we didn’t expect.
Jesus put the disciples in a boat, right after the five thousand thing, and sent them on their way across the sea. And wouldn’t you know it, a storm came up! Oh, that’s just the way it is, isn’t it? Just when you think you have done all you can do, and it’s time for a little R and R, here comes one more thing, rough and tumble. I suppose that if you had been up there on the seashore noshing on bread and stuffing yourself with fried fish, you might be feeling a little seasick right now! And here comes this storm, one more thing, and you think you are going to drown in it all! Panic time! Not planned.
In the month of June, we really ate well around here. We ate ourselves silly, just about. Well, we are Baptists, so I guess that’s expected. But in June we really did it. There was the installation reception for Rev. Wilson; there was Anniversary Sunday with dinner-on-the-grounds; there were a couple of weddings, complete with receptions; and there were a few smaller meetings, which involved food. Our church hostess, a most diligent worker, said to me, “All I really need right now is for somebody to die and we have to do a repast.” Well, the Lord was merciful, and it was several weeks before that happened, but you know how she felt, don’t you? Overwhelmed with things to do. And feeling that one more would drown her. Especially something unplanned. Too much.
It’s easy to panic when we’ve been busy doing for others, and things start storming in our own lives. You’ve worked hard, but suddenly health breaks down, and you can’t think too much about what others need. You can only think about your own survival. You’ve taken care of business, but there’s been a downsizing, and the money isn’t there to do what you have to do. You can think about nothing else than creditors and bills. You focus on your situation, and you get panicky. You didn’t plan for this. Maybe it happened because you didn’t plan. Or maybe it just happened and nobody is at fault. When you are on the stormy sea, looking for somebody to blame is beside the point. The disciples were terrified. They were panicky. They saw nothing they could do to save themselves from drowning.
But now look at this .. this is absolutely fascinating. Stay with me. “When evening came, the boat was out on the sea .. and [Jesus] saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind .. He came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea.” Did you get those time references? Let me highlight them for you again. At evening Jesus saw that the boat was in trouble, in a rough wind. It was not until early the next morning that He came walking toward them on the sea.
What do you make of that? Why didn’t Jesus respond right away? Why didn’t He jump and do what only He could do at the very first sign of danger?
Is it possible that Jesus wants us to take the time to get our faith together before He jumps in to rescue us? Is it possible that He wants us to take the time to trust Him implicitly for everything? So sometimes He lets us stew and stress in our little stormy lifeboats, indulging ourselves in panic for a while, until we see that no amount of frantic activity will save us. No amount of anxiety will rescue us. We are saved simply by putting our trust in Him and waiting on His timing. Not our timing, but His timing. Not our appointment books, but His timing.
Several weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, I was in a panic. A number of things that I had counted on other people to do had not been done. I had come at eight o’clock with my long laundry list of Sunday morning preparations, only to discover that there would be even more that I had not expected. Well, I panicked. I jumped. I jerked. I ran down the hall to do this, I took the stairs two at a time to do that. I was not fit to talk to, nor, if the truth be told, was I in fit condition to teach or to preach. I was in that panic all the way through my Sunday School class, and Lord only knows what they got from me that day. But when I came downstairs, nay, when I tumbled downstairs to do three more things before worship – coming toward me, calm as you please, collected and smiling, was Rev. Wilson. And she said, “I’ve taken care of everything. It’s done. Now are you all right?!”
Pain is not on my appointment book. Nor is storm, nor disappointment. These things ignore my careful planning and my good intentions. But what does the Lord do for me? First, He lets me stew in my own juices for a while, so that I might learn some perspective and might learn to have faith in Him. And then He simply walks on the water, striding quietly through the mess, and makes it right.
I thought it was late, but He is an on-time God. I thought it wasn’t going to happen, but He is an on-time God. I thought I was going to drown, but the Lord our God, He is an on-time God! Why should I panic? Have faith. He will do what needs to be done in His own time, and it will be the right time.
Says the hymn writer,
“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.”
Pain ignores our appointment books. Things don’t get solved when we want them to get solved. But in His own time, He builds our faith; and in His own time He calms our panic.
III
And so, friends, today we do have time. You and I together, we have time. We have time to meet the crisis of others around us, and we have time to meet our own crisis.
We have time to meet the crisis moments of others, and not be paralyzed, even when their pain is not in our appointment books, because we are gifts to each other. The Lord has placed among us all we need for Him to do His multiplying work and meet those needs. There ought to be no paralysis among us.
And we have time to meet our own crisis moments, too, and not to be panicky, even when our own pain is not in our appointment books. The Lord is simply growing us to put our faith in Him and to let Him do, in His own on-time way, what He wants to do for us.
We have time. We have time. That means we can get busy with what is most important of all. We have time to get outside of the crisis of the moment and bring others to Jesus. We have time.
The Scripture says that after the feeding of the five thousand, where spiritual paralysis was handled, and after the calming of the storm on the sea, where spiritual panic was cured, they got out of the boat, and everybody “rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick … to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went … all who touched [even the fringe of his cloak] were healed.”
They threw away their appointment books, didn’t they? It wasn’t important any more to have life work at their own convenience; all that really mattered was that they bring the sick to Jesus. It wasn’t upsetting any longer that hurting people just showed up and asked for help; in fact, they went and found the hurting people and brought them there, right away. No appointments for next month some time; no placebo, “Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.” But come on, let’s go now; I know where you can get help.
Oh, pain ignores the appointment book. Needy people do not arrive on our schedule, or at our convenience. But trust Christ; know that He has placed you in a church where people work together to meet needs. Trust Christ; wait and let your faith grow because He is always on time. Trust Christ, and you don’t care about convenience any more. You’ll just want to help people.
There’s an old joke among preachers that when somebody asks you to do something you really don’t want to do, you look in your appointment book and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I have a funeral that day.” (Like you already know, six months ahead, who’s going to die and when!). But when you trust Christ, your plans, your convenience, are no longer at issue. It is up to Christ, and He can be trusted. He has fed the hungry, He has calmed the storm, and, best of all, He has risen from the dead. With all that, what could there possibly be that I would not trust Him for? Nothing! Nothing at all!
I have time. You have time. We all have time. We have time to bring others to Christ. We have time to go out and find the lost. We have time to discover the lonely. We have time to remember the forgotten. We have time to guide children. We have time to counsel youth. We have time to repair broken marriages. We have time to heal hurting families. We have time to bring them all to Jesus.
No, these things may not be convenient. But pain ignores our appointment books. The cross was not on men’s appointment books, either. But it was in the plan of God, so that Jesus might handle both our paralysis and our panic. We have time. We have time to bring them all to Jesus.
