1
CAPITOL HILL SERMONS
“Interruptions Along The Way”
a sermon by Andrew Walton
based on Genesis 12:1-9 Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
June 8, 2008
When I first became a pastor a new colleague named John Hall who had been a pastor for thirty years, and who subsequently became a dear friend and mentor, told me, “You’ll discover in being a pastor that more often than not those things we first perceive as interruptions become the places where real ministry to people takes place.”
And do you know what? He was right. I have now been a pastor for only half the time he had been then, and I can tell you more stories than you want to hear of phone calls during dinner, knocks on the door, meetings on the sidewalk, encounters in the grocery store, conversations at the ball field, and visits by angels disguised as strangers – all that came while I was doing something else. Song writer and singer John Lennon says in one of his songs, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”
I sometimes wonder what life to date would have been had it gone according to my plans. Then I quickly realize that I can’t even remember most of those plans. And most of the ones I can remember, I now thank God they didn’t happen.
Both of the stories we read this morning have elements of this life dynamic. In Matthew we heard the phrases:
As Jesus was walking along… / …as he sat at dinner… / While he was saying these things… / Then suddenly a woman…came up behind him…
Everything significant that happens in this story of calling and healing is rather happenstance. Come to think of it, most of Jesus’ life appears that way.
In retrospect it may look to us as if Jesus had a “three year plan” for his ministry, but I strongly suspect, and many of the stories support my suspicion, that Jesus didn’t do a lot of long term planning. There is no indication that he set out to find disciples. He didn’t put up a booth at the local synagogue’s career day. Nor did he announce that he would be hiring down by the fishing docks. I seriously doubt that his disciples distributed flyers announcing healing services, or sermons on mountainsides. There were no lighted billboards promoting “signs and miracles.” There were no advance crews, except that one time when he sent some disciples ahead to find a donkey and a room in Jerusalem. About the only plan Jesus ever had was to travel from town to town and teach his gospel, his good news, in the synagogues. From that broad sense of calling, all of the particulars fell into place as they happened.
Over in our other story this morning, Abram is called by God to “Go from your country…and I will make of you a great nation.” That’s the plan – not a lot of particulars.
As a matter of fact, in reading the entire story, especially the part just proceeding what we read this morning, we discover that Abram is already away from his country of Ur, because his father Terah had already left Ur and was on his way to Canaan when for some reason he stopped in Haran. So Abram is actually part of a plan that has already been interrupted.
And when he gets to Canaan, he doesn’t stop. There is the slight problem of somebody else already living there, so he just passes through to Bethel. And while he’s passing through, God promises the land to him and his descendents.
Then the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Lot, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and everybody all the way to Moses are the stories of interruptions on the way to Canaan.
My friends, how appropriate it is for us to read these stories on the day we celebrate 144 years of ministry in the community we call Capitol Hill – 144 years of “on the way.”
And along that way there have been many who had goals, objectives, and plans, without which we wouldn’t be here today. But the ministry of this congregation has taken place in the lives, the callings and healings, of the people who have come and gone and continue to come and go.
In some ways this congregation, as are all others, is like Jesus himself. We are on our way with our plans, when people reach out and touch us.
There are some here this morning, as there are nearly every Sunday, who are here for one time in their lives, on their way to some place else, but for a brief moment we come in contact, and the mystery of God’s presence works in our lives. Who knows how many people have been called and healed in these rooms, without our knowing?
And each one of us has stories of calling and healing in our lives. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be here today. We may not even recognize the calling and healing in our lives because we’ve seen them as interruptions to our plan.
I recently read a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that helps illustrate this dynamic.
“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particulars, meantime within [humanity] is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty to which every part and particle is equally related – the eternal One.” (The one whom we call God).
The modern physicist tells us that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, and that the whole is contained within the parts.
What Emerson and physicists are really saying here is that each and every moment of our lives is sacred, and each and every moment contains the whole of sacredness; and I would add even those that appear otherwise.
Anniversaries are good times to look back and re-examine the interruptions of our lives to see God at work, and to re-claim those interruptions as places of grace, love, calling and healing.
My friends, we all know that if we ignore our past, especially the mistakes, we are bound to repeat it. We also know that without goals, plans, and dreams life is aimless and empty.
However, our stories of Abram and Jesus this morning remind us that life, collectively and individually, is a journey and that if we spend too much of life looking back or peering ahead, we fail to appreciate where we are right now.
Maybe that’s what interruptions are after all, God’s reminder to us to live in the present moment, whatever and wherever it may be.
Amen.
Genesis 12:1-9
1Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy—five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and invoked the name of the LORD. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.
10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 12But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."
18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live." 19And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21for she said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well." 22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well. 23When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. 25But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.
201 Fourth Street SE * Washington, DC 20003
202.547.8676 TEL * 202.547.2182 FAX
* www.capitolhillpreschurch.org