I have been trying to finish laying ceramic tile in my kitchen and back hallway. I got the kitchen done before the boys went back to school but for several weeks now I have had the back hallway to do. Finally this week I took part of a day to try to finish it--Chris went in to hold down the church office--I stayed home--Just me and the dog--no distractions--an uninterrupted time to focus on the task. I mixed my mortar to glue the tiles down--started cutting and placing--the dog walked up to the board I put down to keep her off the tiles--she stood there looking at me as I worked--staring at me--five minutes--ten--I was working as fast as I could with the mortar lest it dry--fifteen minutes. I suddenly realized she wanted to go outside so I stopped my work and let her out--but as I was hooking her out the neighbor working in her yard saw me and asked about the boys and college--as I stepped back into the house the phone rang--a sales person offering me a special deal--as I hung up there was a knock at the door--it's one of the neighborhood children wanting to tell me they had thrown a toy on the roof and not to worry their father will get it down later today but they wanted me to know whose it was--at which point the phone rang again --it was Chris at the church with a question and then the dog barked to come back into the house--as I returned to my tiling I found the mortar with a set film over it and I realized I would have to mix up another batch to finish the work. I was glad I had picked a time when there would be no interruptions or distractions.
Of course sometimes it is the interruption that makes the day worthwhile. The telephone rings and I hear Bill's voice at the other end--immediately I grab my calendar and whisper a silent prayer--"Please God, if he suggests a day let it be"--I quickly look for a free date--"Thursday" I decide--and I wait in anticipation of a possible invitation to play golf. There are some interruptions that I may rarely be able to embrace but ones that have a welcome place in disrupting my schedule. Interruptions--those persons, things, events that break into our lives. He had given careful thought to his sermon preparation. It was as if his whole life was intended for moments such as this. His every word seemed charged with God's presence and the congregation was captive to the power of his preaching. He saw her first--Entering the gathering late--Her body appeared to be bent and twisted by arthritic pain and contortions of some unknown disease. She was arriving late obviously due to her physical condition--bent over and crippled she seemed to move with great difficulty--each step was an effort not only of will but of pain. Although he spoke eloquently the gathered congregation was obviously distracted by the women's late entry--the scraping sound that accompanied her moves--as if she were dragging her foot--and the heavy sound of her breathing from the effort it took to move--his words were lost in the attention she received. For a while he ignored her but then he embraced the moment and called her forward to where he stood--she came slowly. Part of her struggle was embarrassment at attracting so much attention--each painful step brought more eyes to bear upon her--there was the sound of whispers. She finally stood stooped and bent before him--the sermon now interrupted beyond recovery--a new teaching moment was at hand. He looked at her--reached out to touch her--to touch her--no one had wanted to touch her for years--not since her body had become so twisted and strained. A human hand reached out to her--an arm embracing her--and then those words--"Woman, you are set free from your ailment." Immediately she stood up straight and began praising God--What else could she do?
Interruptions--those persons, things, events that break into our lives--most of the time we consider them distractions from the direction and order we had planned--a rain storm stops the ball game--drives the family picnic indoors--we aren't pleased but its not the end of the world. Unless the interruption is an accident that postpones indefinitely the schooling plans--or an illness that ends a promising career. Some interruptions can change a life. The woman who interrupted Jesus' sermon was simply living out the life she had struggled with for 18 years--but she was not the only interruption that day at the synagogue. For the religiously disciplined leader of the synagogue the expected patterns and demands of the law were also disrupted when Jesus healed the woman on the Sabbath. Six other days in the week when work might be done and Jesus picks the seventh day. The Sabbath in Jesus' time had become a day that stood by itself--not to be interrupted by the ordinary matters of daily life--and the religious zeal of the day required that normal eating patterns--walking and talking patterns--every facet of daily life be bent and controlled by the demand to keep the Sabbath. When Jesus declared the woman free from her 18 years of a crippled bent life he also declared freedom from bondage to all that would limit, restrict or bind us. Of course our modern world has long since escaped the bondage of Sabbath restrictions. Sunday closing laws are a thing of the past for most of our lives--most groups and activities can't imagine not having Sunday for their regularly scheduled activities--nothing interrupts our regular routine--and that may be the very challenge in our lesson for today. That we also need to be set free from the Sabbath but in a totally different way from that of the religious zealots of our lesson for today. Maybe we need to be set free not from Sunday but for Sunday.
Interruptions are actually rather important to our lives--they cause us to refocus and reassess. So the ball game is rained out--it really isn't the end of the world because no ball game is really that important--and the conversation we have together while we wait out the storm may be a real moment of contact that has been eluding us in the midst of all the activity--even recreational activity. The Sabbath was created as an interruption to the regular routine of the week--a break from busy-ness as usual--but most of the time today it is just another part of the busy-ness that quickly is as routinely scheduled as any other day of the week. The interruption--the unexpected encounter--the break from the routine--it is so easy to miss the interruption's ability to reframe our day--to miss the opportunity to meet another person--or to see, feel or experience our day differently. The interruption is more then a break from the regular routine--that's what makes it an interruption--and that is also what makes it possible for there to be found in such a moment something more than just the ordinary--or maybe the ordinary interruption is itself a little moment of grace for the day.
I had a meeting this week downtown--the meeting ended a little after noon and the weather outside was overcast so I decided to grab something quick to eat in the building's food court on the lower level before heading back to meetings at the church. I got my lunch and discovered that seating was fast becoming a premium with so many people deciding to stay in the building to eat. I was lucky and found an empty table for two in a little alcove. I started eating and people-watching. More and more people walked by with their food trays clearly looking for places to sit. I had an empty chair at my table. I had really planned on a simple, quick, quiet, and solitary lunch but the people kept walking by with their trays. I noticed one rather professionally dressed woman go back and forth by my table a couple times looking--looking--more than once our eyes met and she nodded politely as if she might know me. I nodded back. Finally the fourth time she came by the table I offered her a place to sit "Thanks," she replied, but she was "looking for someone from her office." She turned and continued her search--but a twenty-something young man with a number of silver earrings and a nose piercing was standing right behind her and had obviously heard the offer of my chair--he stood there for a couple minutes looking first at me and then the empty chair--then back at me. What could I do? I offered the chair and he sat down. Now I'd like to be able to tell you that what happened next was that the young man upon learning that I was a Lutheran minister repented of a wayward life--took out his cell phone and called his alienated brother and then his parents and declared himself drug free and asked me for the phone number of the seminary because he now knew that his calling was to be a missionary to the unchurched of Outer Mongolia. I'd like to tell you that in a few short minutes after my quiet solitary lunch was interrupted I had brought wholeness into a life that had previously been broken. But that is the stuff of our Gospel lesson--that is the kind of thing that Jesus does--not me. No--the young man sat down and began to eat-I also continued to eat. We studied each other trying to decide who should speak first and what to say. Finally he spoke, "Thanks." "What?" I asked. "Thanks," he repeated. "No problem," I said and smiled weakly. He smiled back--exhaled a sigh and took another bite of his lunch. We both looked at the passing lunch time crowd. A few minutes later--having finished my lunch I excused myself, "Well, I need to get going." "Right" he said, "its been nice talking. Thanks again." As I walked to my car to head back to Lincolnshire I had a peculiarly pleasant feeling about my luncheon encounter The young man had made no demand on me but to share my table--he had said nothing to me but a word of thanks. I walked away feeling good about myself for sharing a table that wasn't even mine and accepted thanks for a conversation that consisted of maybe a dozen words--a terribly ordinary interruption of my lunch time break but as I headed for my car the city seemed a friendlier better place.
The interruption of the ordinary--the reframing we do of each moment interrupted. There is no interruption in our lives that does not bear within that moment the possibility of discovering something unexpected--something truly grace filled--something that borders on the miracle. The interruptions of our lives are the moments in which we either despair or rejoice. You have the winning number--You have cancer--Can you read me a bed time story? I don't think we should see each other any more. Woman, you are set free from your ailment. We need the moments when we pause and break from the demands and expectations Sabbath-Sunday. There is more here then the inconvenience of time away from home and job. One of my favorite stories is of the two lumber jacks in the north woods who each bragged that they were the best in the land. Finally the one challenged the other to a day long wood chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard--chopping all day with only a brief lunch break. The other man had a rather leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day--the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had. "I don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did." "You're right," said the winning woodsman, "I did interrupt my work--but what you didn't notice was that when ever I sat down to rest I was sharpening my ax ." It may not seem like much is happening some Sunday mornings--but without the Sunday interruption to our lives the world becomes a far duller place. Jesus never did finish that sermon--but after the interruption we are told "the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing." May our week be filled with such interruptions.
Amen.