4 Pentecost Proper 8

Some ask the question, have you found Jesus? Often my flippant answer to this question is I didn’t know Jesus was lost. I think Jesus finds us. That’s not to say we can’t go looking, but it is to say that not matter how hard we try to hide, God still loves us so very much that Jesus comes looking. And I also think that we get found in the oddest of times and places. In times and places that we just don’t expect.

I think we also tend to believe in a very limited God. We believe in this God, who only knows us when we’re in church, which goes hand in hand with believing in a God we can hide from. I believe in God, who seeks us out, who loves us so very much as to come to be with us, to stand by our side, to hold our hand, to carry us when we need help. This passage from the gospel of Mark is one of the stories that convince me of this. This is a story about opportunity and interruption. See, you can’t plan how you will be found; you can’t put a date in your blackberry and say to yourself, I’ll meet Jesus for lunch today. This is a story about where God finds you.

This story begins and ends with Jairus, a very important person, who asked Jesus to come to his house to heal his daughter. But it is also about the in between story, the story that interrupted Jesus. Jesus was on his way to Jairus’ house, I imagine he was fairly focused on getting there in short order, because the girl was dying. As Jesus made his way through the crowd, a woman reached out to touch the fabric of his prayer shawl so that she would be healed. Jesus, we know, was a good Jew; therefore he would be wearing his prayer shawl. A Jewish mans prayer shawl has fringes. In Malachi, there is a story that all good Jews would know, that even the fringes of the Messiah’s prayer shawl had healing power. So as this woman interrupted Jesus’ mission to Jairus’ house by reaching out and touching his fringes to be healed, she did it in confidence and faith that Jesus is the Messiah, and capable of healing.

There’s a fabric store in Austin Texas, where we lived when we were at seminary, called the Silk Road, and I would go there just to touch the fabric. It was in a wonderful old house, and there were stacks and racks of silks, and cottons, and linens, and I would wander around and feel the fabric. Fabrics that are smooth and rough, brightly colored and earth tones. I’ve sewed since my mother taught me how as a young girl, and for a while I even worked for an interior designer and I made beautiful window coverings and upholstered head boards and valances out of amazing fabrics. My journeys to the Silk Road were all about finding balance and healing. In the midst of the academic and intellectual world of seminary, I would go to the Silk Road to touch and feel, to be reminded who I am, where I came from, I would stop thinking for a while, and experience the moment of beauty in the fabric. I tell you this story of the Silk Road today because I think the story from Mark is about how God finds us in some very unusual and odd places, God finds us in interruptions. We get bothered by interruptions, but God finds opportunity in interruptions.

Jesus' willingness to resist the electric expectancy of the crowd and to complete the restoration of a faithful woman paints him as a person who sees opportunity in interruption. This passage encourages us to consider a theology of interruptions, to understand that God is neither bound to nor limited by human allocations of value and priority. Opportunity in interruption. That’s what my trips to the Silk Road were about, interruption of what I thought I had to do, in order to be healed, to be restored, to come back to myself.

Usually we experience interruption as an inconvenience. Interruption is being derailed, thrown off course. And yet, considering this theology of interruption brings us to a place where we can find ourselves, where we can be restored, where we can be balanced once again. A theology of interruption is to see and feel how Jesus finds us and makes us whole. A theology of interruption is to see and feel God’s grace. A theology of interruption shows us that we are not in control. God is present in the interruptions. God brings healing and restoration in the interruptions. God comes close in the interruptions.

We work so hard and spend so much time making plans and being focused on the outcome of whatever important thing we must accomplish, even when it is saving lives, we miss the opportunities for balance, for healing, for wholeness. We miss the opportunities to touch what is holy.

As I looked briefly at this morning’s paper, and saw the pictures of those who have lost jobs in this recession, I am reminded of the less pleasant interruptions. Losing one’s job, losing one’s health, these interruptions in our well planned lives are painful and difficult. But I am convinced that it is in these interruptions that we may be found. Because it is only in death that there is resurrection, it is only in losing our lives that we are created new. Touch the fringe of Jesus’ garment, feel the power that there is in Jesus. Go in Peace.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.