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Connect with people in your neighborhood and interruptions will
happen. Build relationships with people and interruptions will
come to your life. How’s that for a recruitment pitch? Get
involved in your neighborhood. Pay attention to the people God
puts around you in your life. And oh, by the way, one result
will be interruptions will come to your life. Your schedule
will need adjusting, your plans might need to be changed. It
might be that you’re settled in, ready for a nice, quiet evening
at home and the phone rings. It’s a neighbor with a need.
They’ve learned through the neighborhood contacts and
conversations that you’re a person of some compassion and
interested in their life and now they have a need. It might be
that you, as an observant and concerned neighbor, recognize a
need. Such as what we saw two weeks ago in the video—a neighbor
with a broken arm and his lawn needs mowing. You planned to
work in your yard Saturday morning, but now a slight change of
schedule—taking some time to mow your neighbor’s yard. Become
more visible and connected in your neighborhood and
interruptions will happen. It happened to Jesus. It will
happen to you.
In our Bible passage for today, Jesus has
returned to his neighborhood—Capernaum. Previously, he was in
the region south of the Sea of Galilee where he healed a demon
possessed man. Now he’s crossed the lake and returned home to
his neighborhood. Word has begun to spread about his teaching
and his compassion and a crowd has gathered around Jesus. What
is he going to say to them? What wonderful teaching of Jesus
might we receive, remembered and passed along by his disciples
gathered there with him, eventually becoming a part of the
gospels we’ve received? Another parable? A teaching along the
lines of the Sermon on the Mount—this one to be called the
Sermon by the Lake? We don’t know…because Jesus gets
interrupted. Jairus, a leader over the synagogue there in
Capernaum comes to Jesus with an urgent request. His daughter
is sick. Will Jesus come and heal her? Moved by his
distress—and his faith—Jesus begins to go with Jairus. The
crowd follows anticipating another wonder to be seen by this
Jesus. And one can imagine this was a welcomed interruption to
the disciples because their relationship with the authorities
was shaky and here was an opportunity to mend some fences by
tending to the synagogue ruler’s daughter. But along the way a
second interruption. A woman with a bleeding problem expresses
her own faith—and the shame of her distress—by simply hoping to
touch the hem of Jesus’ garment and be healed. She is discreet
because her bleeding makes her ceremonially unclean. She
shouldn’t be out mingling with a crowd. For twelve years she
has been burdened by this problem. Now, not wanting to burden
or bother Jesus—or to be revealed out in public—she reaches out
and touches a bit of Jesus’ clothes; perhaps the sleeve of his
robe as the crowd presses in around Jesus. But her secrecy is
lost by Jesus’ awareness that something has happened. “Who
touched me?” Jesus asks.
One can sense the frustration of the
disciples with this new interruption. “Lots of people are
touching you, Jesus. Look at the crowd around you. Now come
on, there’s good to be done at Jairus’ house!” But Jesus wants
to know who needed the power that he felt coming out of him.
One can feel the tension of the moment, the silence as Jesus
searches for whoever touched him. Finally the woman, “trembling
with fear,” identifies herself and tells Jesus the “whole
truth.” And after twelve years of suffering and embarrassment,
the woman is blessed by Jesus and sent away in peace, freed from
her suffering.
One thing we all have in common is the
frustration of interruptions. The day is planned out, we’re
focused on a project, perhaps we’re just needing and wanting
some down time…and an interruption comes along and…well,
interrupts our plans. But something we learn from Jesus is that
he responds to the interruption. He’s concerned about the
person behind the interruption. He doesn’t dismiss Jairus, or
tell him to get back with him when they can check their
calendars. And on his way to Jairus’ house, he doesn’t dismiss
the woman and her concern, but seeks her out to affirm her faith
and bless her. Jesus recognizes the opportunity present in an
interruption. So, in our encouragement to connect with people
in your neighborhood, we warn you in advance that interruptions
will result. But with those interruptions are wonderful
opportunities.
A few years ago, I attended an Evangelism
Conference put on by the Presbyterian Church. I know that we
tend to shudder at the word evangelism, but its literal—and
practical—meaning is simply “good news.” Being prepared to
share good news with those that need it. In one of the
workshops for the conference, the presenter ended the workshop
with a prayer that I’ve never forgotten. A simple request,
“Lord, keep me alert to every opportunity you give me to share
the good news with someone you bring across my path.”
Interruptions are opportunities to be Christ’s representative
wherever you are, wherever you’re called, to share good news
with someone who needs it.
And there are many who need it. As you
begin to connect with people in your neighborhood you’ll quickly
learn that everyone has a story, everyone has an area of need
for good news. Think back two weeks ago to Blake Hightower in
the video. A man with a rough background, a rude demeanor…in
need of good news. And a neighbor insistent on mowing Blake’s
lawn because of his broken arm leads to a commitment to Christ
and a new friendship. I know I’ve shared this story with you
before, but it bears repeating. At another conference on
outreach, I heard a man share his story about reaching out to
his neighborhood. His initial efforts weren’t always well
received. He shared about a new family that had moved into the
neighborhood and he and his wife baked a cake to give to them.
When they rang the doorbell, a man answered the door. When they
explained to him who they were and that the cake was a welcome
gift from them, the man said, “No thanks,” and slammed the door
shut. Makes me wonder what’s going on in that man’s life.
Where does he need to receive good news? At any rate, the man
and his wife continued their outreach to the neighborhood,
hosting neighborhood barbecues and dinners. When the
opportunity came to share with the neighbors some of their
story—after inviting and listening to the stories of
their neighbors—this couple shared as a part of their story the
importance of their faith to them. A few weeks after hosting a
neighborhood dinner, they received a call from one of their
neighbors—a woman whose husband was in the hospital having just
received a serious cancer diagnosis. This woman and her husband
were not Christians, not involved in any church, and she didn’t
know anywhere else to turn but to this couple in her
neighborhood. He offered to visit her husband in the hospital
and over the course of time, led them both to a profession of
faith in Christ.
But, that’s not the end of the story. The
neighbors had a daughter in college and engaged to be married.
She and her fiancé had agreed to wait to be married until after
graduating from college. Now, however, there was a real
question about whether her dad would live that long.
Consequently, the family decided to move up the date of the
wedding. However, the mother and father weren’t able to deal
with the details of planning a wedding—they were too involved in
simply managing his illness. So, the neighborhood pulled
together and planned the wedding! They worked with the couple
in working out the details and even helping with the finances of
the wedding. And, while the father wasn’t able to walk his
daughter down the aisle, he was able to be there—weak and
confined to a wheelchair, but able to be present for his
daughter’s wedding. Two weeks later he died.
“Lord, keep me alert to every opportunity
you give me to share the good news with someone you bring across
my path.”
Connect with people in your neighborhood,
begin to establish intentional relationships with people in your
neighborhood—your neighbors, the clerk at the store where you
shop, the barista at the coffee shop, the waitress at the
restaurant you frequent—and your life will get interrupted with
their need to receive good news. But that is where Jesus’ heart
is—with those who need good news. And why he attends to the
opportunity presented in the interruption. And it’s likely that
the interruption you experience is an opportunity God is putting
before your path as you walk with Him. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer
puts it in the quote on today’s bulletin, “We must be ready
to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be
constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans…sending us
people with claims and petitions. It is a strange fact that
Christians frequently consider their work so important and
urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think
they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are
disdaining God’s ‘crooked yet straight path.’”
“Lord, keep me alert to every opportunity
you give me to share the good news with someone you bring across
my path.” Are you able to make that your prayer each and every
day? Even when the interruptions come? Especially when
the interruptions come? To begin to trust God in the details of
the day and view interruptions as opportunities sent by God? I
need to be reminded of that frequently because I can find the
interruptions frustrating, losing in the moment the sense of
walking with God and His plans, not mine, for my life…my day. I
have a postcard tucked into my mirror at home that reminds me as
I prepare for the day that I am “God’s handiwork, created in
Christ Jesus to do good deeds which He has prepared in advance
for [me] to do” (Ephesians 2:10). I need to add to that the
reminder that an interruption can likely be a part of what God
has been preparing in advance for me to do. Can you walk each
day with God in similar fashion? Trusting in God to lay out the
plans for the day? Trusting that God walks with you, wanting to
bring good news to those He brings across your path that day?
Connect with people in your neighborhood
and interruptions will come your way. But present in those
interruptions is the possibility of participating with God in
bringing good news to someone who desperately needs it. |
