Do you find these days that interruptions are just nonstop? You’re talking to someone and they check their phone mid sentence because they feel it vibrate or hear it ring. Or these days they might look at their watch because it’s one like mine that connects to the phone and vibrates when someone is calling or texting. Or you’re deep in conversation with someone and there’s someone waiting in the wings because they want to talk with the person you’re talking to and you feel obliged to let them interrupt you. Interruptions can be quite annoying and frustrating. You’re trying to have lunch or dinner and the phone rings and these days it’s someone wanting to come around and change your light bulbs or shower heads or talk to you about solar panels. It always seems to interrupt your meal times. Or you’re working on something on your computer and the chat box pops onto your screen with someone wanting to chat with you and creating time wasting. Interruptions are constant and it gets to the point where you don’t want to have your phone by your bedside just for a bit of rest.
Today’s Gospel reading is all about interruptions in Jesus’ ministry. He’s having dinner at Matthew’s house – the Pharisees complain about it – then a synagogue leader interrupts and wants Jesus to come and heal his daughter – then on the way a woman who had a bleeding disorder comes and interrupts by touching Jesus’ cloak. Interruptions were a huge part of Jesus ministry and we need to be careful that we don’t dismiss all interruptions as nuisances. Sometimes God sends interruptions – like he did with Jesus.
Jesus didn’t complain that his dinner was interrupted. Jesus didn’t complain when a woman – without permission – came up behind him and touched his cloak. He could have growled at her like I’m sure many of us do when that unsolicited phone call comes and we make sure we block that number in future. He could have slammed the door on the synagogue ruler and put up a sign “do not knock” like many houses have.
Or he could have told the bleeding woman to go away and put up a “no junk mail” sign. Isn’t that how we often treat interruptions?
But what if that is how God sends people our way – through interruptions? And why has Matthew interrupted the story of Jesus going to the Synagogue ruler’s place? He could have written them as 2 separate stories but I believe that by doing this Matthew is wanting to have us really focus on this woman’s interruption. In fact, Mark’s account of this links these 2 situations even further in that the girl, Jairus’s daughter was 12 years old and the woman with the bleeding complaint had been ill for 12 years. This woman had suffered from a bleeding disorder for twelve years and had spent all her money trying to find a cure. In the end, she was left penniless, alone and still diseased.
Mark’s version said she had spent all her money on doctors, but instead of getting better she got worse. But one fateful day, she heard about Jesus, the healer who was passing through her town. She knew she had to meet him. She thought, “If I can just touch His garment, I will be healed.” In a crowded space, she worked her way through the crowd, purely focused on touching Him. Finally, she reached Jesus from behind and touched the hem of His garment. Suddenly, she felt the flow of her blood stem and Jesus felt the flow of his healing power and the disease was gone from her body. She was afraid, but Jesus stopped and called out to her, “Who touched Me?”The disciples were surprised by Jesus’ question as people were pressing all around Him. But, Jesus knew that someone had touched Him with a faith that had healed them. Jesus’ gaze searched the crowd until it rested on the woman with the issue of bleeding. She fell at His feet and told Him the truth about what she had just done. Perhaps she was afraid – would Jesus undo her healing? Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
This woman was healed because of her faith. But Jesus did more than just physically heal her. He had restored her dignity by calling her “Daughter.” By His love, He had transformed her life into something new, something beautiful. There are many people living without dignity in our world and most likely all around us.
Do we see them? Do we stop to help them? Maybe we’re too busy or too focused on other things, like the priest and Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan who crossed over to the other side of the road when they saw one of their brothers in need. Or perhaps like the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son who was angry at his brother’s restoration because of how he spent his father’s inheritance in wild living.
Sometimes God calls us out of our comfort zones to think about other people.
And sometimes that calling out can be quite challenging. Like Abraham in our first reading. Abraham, or Abram as he was known then, was living a very settled life in Harran with his father, his wife, and his nephew when all of a sudden God interrupts his life: The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. So Abraham didn’t know where God was sending him – he didn’t know why he was sending him – he didn’t know how he would support himself or how long it would take. Abraham simply trusted God: So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
Sometimes God will disrupt our comfortable lives, like he did to Abraham. Sometimes God will disrupt what we believe our mission to be – like he did to Jesus. We need to be open to those interruptions. It’s easy to just go the way we’re going but who knows whether sometime in the future God is going to place before us a mission challenge. He may send us from here to where he wants us to be. As Jesus said – it is the sick who need a doctor – and there are many spiritual sick people around us. Just as Jesus was sent to call the sinner and not the righteous maybe we need to go where the church and the Gospel is needed. I’m not saying that we’re going to sell up and move like Abraham did – but what if that challenge were put before us? Would we miss it because we’re too old – like Abraham was – 75 years old.
What we need to do is to listen to God’s call when it comes and sometimes that means we need to be in tune with God like Elijah was. A great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went. Let us not be afraid to listen to God’s voice even when it interrupts our routine. Let us look for those opportunities to bring God’s word of grace to those we might be missing like the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and give hope and dignity. Let us ignore the scoffers and those who hold us back like the people who laughed at Jesus. Let us, like Abraham, trust in God and be ready to go wherever and whenever God calls us.
As Paul reassures us when we trust in God as Abraham did: No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Friends, we are needed in so many places so let us listen to God’s call as he interrupts our lives and trust enough as Abraham and Jesus did and go where God needs us.
