Whiteboard: On Interruptions

My work week starts on Tuesday.

I come into the church office, Janie and I sit down to go over things at our weekly staff meeting, and then I start formally compilingeverything I'll need for the coming Sunday's worship service. This includes writing the Call to Worship and Offertory Prayer, finding/creating the image for the bulletin cover, tracking down resource materials, reading up on this Sunday's sermon scriptures, and of course drawing on the Whiteboard.

This Tuesday I was absolutely sure where I was headed with the sermon (which, let me assure you, is not always the case!). I had tracked down the piece of artwork (a sculpture from the entryway of Christopher House in Austin) that would serve as the central image for the worship service and had even sketched out a more abstract version of it for the Whiteboard this week, and then...

...a new idea. A completely different direction for the sermon. One that isn't based on the image of the woman with the hemmorrhage reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus' garment in order to be healed but rather a sermon built around the Holy Interruptions that God uses to get our attention and get us back on the right track. After all, the story of the woman with the hemmorrhage in Mark 5:21-43 is in itself a Holy Interruption that happens when Jesus is on his way to perform a miracle for someone else.

I remembered this quote from Henri Nouwen's book Out of Solitude:

A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame. Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny twinkle in his eyes: ‘I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.’ This is the great conversion in life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return. 

I spent a longer chunk of time than I care to confess trying to come up with a better image for the Whiteboard that would illustrate "interruption" as the theme for the week...when I finally realized that keeping the same "pre-interruption" image on the Whiteboard would help keep the point even clearer in my mind for the week!

So my plans for this week's picture might not end up having a whole lot to do with where the sermon actually goes...and somehow that feels exactly right.

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Mark 5:21-43
A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years.She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.