Creekside Church Sermon of July 2, 2000 "Welcome Interruptions" Mark 5:21-43	Rev. David Bibbee
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I have thought of these sage words often in eighteen years of ministry. Like many of you, I don't always welcome interruptions, especially when giving my total attention to something that must be done. I don't like to be interrupted by phone solicitors or Jehovah's Witnesses at the door. It's not that I don't want to be responsive. It's just that I don't want to be responsive, right now. What a wise person once said that one of the tests of character is a question: "What or who do you allow to interrupt you?" There's something you really want to do. There's a place you'd like to go. You have made reservations for six. Then something comes up and all your plans are on hold.

A question we should all ask ourselves when faced with an interruption is, "What is God's desire for me in this moment?" It could be that the interruption matters more than your plans.

On a December morning six years ago, Sandy Bendsen stuck her head in my office and said, "There's a gentleman out here who needs to see the pastor." I had had a hundred things to do, so why not have one hundred and one? One look told me this guy was different. He looked to be in his late fifties. He wore a trouper hat with the earflaps down. He wore some sports coats. That's right, I said coats, plural...I counted six-one on top of the other. "How can we help you?" I asked. While I spoke I was really thinking to myself, "How much money does he want?" "Would you be so kind as to reflect with me on matters related to my doctoral dissertation?" he said.

Most street people I have encountered are not working on doctorates. But his speech was impeccable, and he spoke with a German accent. Said he had been an intelligence officer with the CIA stationed in Austria. "Then God sent me someplace else." "Where was that?" I asked. "Princeton Seminary," he said. He spoke of his favorite professors. Some of them he named I knew were on the Princeton faculty. "Where are you headed now?" "I'm going to Vanderbilt University to apply for a teaching fellowship." "Really?" I asked. "Do you know if Vanderbilt is still a Christian school?" "No...I think they're Methodist now." I said. "Tell me, what's the topic of your dissertation." "I'm entitling it, 'The Polemic against the Marxist-Christian dialogue."

I asked if he had a family. He said his parents lived in Omaha and that his father had worked with General Alexander Haig in NATO. We talked for about an hour, and then he said he must be going-he had to catch a bus to Tennessee. I looked at his shoes. His toes stuck out from the large splits between the soles and the upper. I wished him well with his interviews. He asked if his appearance might be a negative. "It might be a factor," I said as I offered him $25 to buy some shoes. But he wouldn't take it. "You've already given me something." "I have?" "Yes. I can't tell you how long it's been since anyone took time to listen to me and I thank you." He asked me to pray for him. And after amen, he walked down the steps carrying a plastic bag with his worldly possessions. I insisted that he take the money to buy shoes. "It's an investment in your education," I said. "God bless you," he said as he walked through the snow to who knows where.

Who was he? Where was he from? Was he going to Vanderbilt? Was he schizophrenic? I don't know. All I know for sure is that his interruption probably meant more to me than anything else I had done that day.

Jesus had an urgent mission, but he was constantly faced with interruptions. He had ultimate business to tend to, but he was intruded upon by a man named Jarius, an influential leader of the synagogue. His daughter was dying. He wouldn't have given Jesus the time of day under any other circumstances, but his daughter was dying. She meant more to him than his good standing in the synagogue and society. So Jesus agreed to go with him, but he didn't make it far because of another interruption.

Without even a "pardon me", an unknown woman interrupted Jesus. There was no equal rights movement back then. Women were on the outskirts of society because of their gender. But this woman was even further away because of her affliction. In heart surgery when a new graft leaks, it's called a bleeder. This woman had been a bleeder for twelve years. "She endured much under many physicians," Mark says. She went to one specialist after another. Red tape. More lab work. More C.A.T. scans. More money. Denial of services because of unpaid bills. Insurance would not cover her...preexisting condition. Not a good risk.

There was no one to care for her. In her unclean condition, no one came near her. She wasn't allowed to go to church. She was about to give up hope. Then she heard of Jesus. She then defied all the prohibitions which kept her on the fringes and stripped of power. She wove her way through the crowds to touch Jesus...not talk to, just touch Jesus. Something deep within her weak body and shattered spirit compelled her to reach across the barriers to touch the Lord of life.

I heard about a very saintly woman who often said, "When you pray, you've got to pray with suction." Like the persistent widow who badgered an unjust judge until she was awarded what was rightfully hers, the sick woman placed all of her faith in Jesus as her last hope. She suctioned Jesus' power. In a single touch everything changed. In a moment, she felt herself restored. A dozen years of lifeblood flowing from her, and in a moment, life flowed back.

The power that flowed to her flowed from Him. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. "Lots of people are touching you," the disciples replied. But he turned to find the person who had taken from Him what he was only too glad to give. "Why bother looking?" the disciples wondered. But the moment Jesus' eye met hers, there was instant recognition. Mark says that she told Jesus the whole truth. Jesus didn't address this woman as a patient or a preexisting condition. She wasn't a disease. He called her, "daughter." To be called a daughter or son means you are connected...it means you belong to a family.

"Daughter, your faith has made you well." Many touched Jesus that day, but only one was healed. Jesus said it wasn't because of what he did, but what she did. Had she asked Jesus to heal her, he would have done it. But it wasn't necessary. You see, Jesus praised her for not resigning herself to a sad, slow death. After all those hours spent in doctor's waiting rooms, and all the tests and treatments, and insurance forms and after the final prescription which exhausted all other possibilities, there was yet one more thing left to do...see Jesus...just touch the hem of his cloak, that's all. That would be enough.

Last week we looked at Mark 4 and the story of Jesus and the disciples at sea in a terrible storm. The disciples knew Jesus. They had seen the miracles, the healings, the power. But though he was right there among them, they were scared to death. Yet this unknown woman who had never laid eyes on Jesus, much less see his power, believed she could be healed. And Jesus praised her for having what he scolded his disciples for not having...faith.

It is an awesome experience to minister to the dying. It is such an intense time of questioning and searching...of pain and prayer. It is also an intense time of caring and loving. Whenever I walk from a hospital room or a home having spent time with someone who is dying, I feel drained...like something has been drawn out of me. Prayer with suction. Jesus felt power flow from him, and turning and finding the woman said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well." Jesus treated her's as a welcome interruption. "Go in peace." he said. This sad chapter of life was over. She wasn't bound to stay on the fringes where we send those for whom nothing can be done. She wouldn't stay in her woman's place. She wouldn't let her life slip further and further away in a flow of blood, but instead was pushed the opposite direction on a current of faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the kind of hope which Paul said shall never disappoint us.

Mark carefully constructed story upon story. The desperate woman now healed, Jesus resumed his mission to Jarius' daughter who by now was dead. It's interesting to note the parallels between these stories. The woman had bled for twelve years. The little girl was twelve years old, the age at which in Jewish life, girls became women. Both were daughters. This was the only time Jesus ever addressed a woman in this way. Someone said this story of Jarius' daughter is a frame around the woman's story, and both are about faith. Jarius' faith was bold enough to risk his reputation, but colored with suspicion as well. The woman's, by contrast, was bold, and both was given back their lives.

Healing is such a mysterious thing. There's much we know about it, and much more we do not. As Christians we believe there is ultimately one source of healing, and that is the power of God made manifest in Christ. Beyond the bleak diagnosis or the hopeless situation given us, there is hope because we have a faithful friend who welcomes our interruptions. We believe as well that His power that is available for us also works through us to give us sensitivity to the interruptions by which we may help others.

Maya Angelou is a brilliant writer whose early life was incredibly painful. A child of poverty, she knew about life in the streets, she battled the hatred of racism, she endured physical and sexual abuse which caused her to stop speaking for several years. She was pushed to the margins, hopeless. But then she came back to life. I want you to hear her poem which contrasts the freedom of faith and the hopelessness of being bested by circumstances:

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
And floats downstream 'til the current ends
And dips his wings in the orange sun rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on the dawn bright lawn
And he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

What are we? Those with the freedom to fly on the wings of faith in Christ's love? Or are we caged, fearful, suffering, hemorrhaging hope? My message to you and me is this: You can come to Him. You are not a bother nor an unwelcome interruption. You can come to Him. If you are afraid to come close, He understands. Come as close as you can for now. Touch His outer garment if you want. You are sons and daughters to Him.

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