Holy Interruptions

Holy Interruptions
Matthew 3:1-12

Have you noticed that the forms you fill out for membership in things keeps getting longer? Email address, beeper number, cell phone, fax number, then they want to know all the same information about your spouse. A nice safe feeling isn’t it—to know that the organization you are signing up for feels so secure that they need to be able to contact you in multiple ways, as if there might just be some sort of emergency that would cause them to need all this information. But, we are people who are wired and available at all times. At any time, or in the middle of anything we can be contacted. How many of you have had this happen to you. You’re at home watching a movie with your family—sharing a rare quality moment—when the phone rings. OK, no problem—the answering machine will get it, right? Then, about 30 seconds after the phone stops ringing, your cell phone rings? I had this happen to me once, and when I did answer the cell phone the person wanted to know if I had gotten the email he sent just a few minutes ago.

One of the hottest techno-gadgets this Christmas is the new I-Phone. This thing allows you to have your phone, email, and any other form of contact with the outside world all rolled up into one neat package that fits ion your pocket. —-I’m enticed—I must admit.

There is much that is positive and exciting about all this access. Amy and I have been in contact with Elijah’s agency workers half way around the world. The latest pictures we received of him show him looking so much healthier than he did back a month or two ago. Email access to our son’s agency worker is great. These types of things are the blessings of having such access.
But there is a price for being so wired: sometimes our houses sounds like a hospital ICU, and the once relative impermeable walls of our home that offered space for sanctuary and protection from the worries of other places have now been made very much permeable.

In an article titled “The Age of Interruption,” author Michael Ventura observed:
Interruption is increasingly taken for granted—both the right to interrupt others and the expectation that one will be interrupted in turn. The individual’s time, already experienced as a cross between a labyrinth, a cage and a treadmill, is now vulnerable to fragmentation without warning from any direction. All of this makes for efficient communication and contact but it also allows the outside world of work into our homes at all hours.

During Sunday morning worship, we practice a kind of boundary support that is otherwise not available on any other kind of routine. We all have been taught to turn off our cell phones in the theatres or at certain other special events. But, for most of us I would assume, there really isn’t any other time in our weeks when we are given permission to not be contacted for at least a few hours on Sunday morning. If you are new to coming to church on a regular basis, you may have begun to realize that after a while your friends and associates accept that you don’t answer the phone on Sunday morning. Every once in a while they may try to test this though, just to see if maybe the boundary is down. Amy gets a call every once in a while on Sunday morning from her neurotic boss. She doesn’t answer it, and then later returns the call with a friendly reminder that she does not answer the phone on Sunday mornings. It’s like having holy permission to not be available for at least a few hours during each week. You’ll still be enslaved during the rest of your week, but at least for these hours the church provides a kind of sanctuary away from the world of complete access.

Without this, or possibly other self-imposed boundaries on interruptions we don’t have a chance to be nourished by God or to nourish the other members of our family, or someone else we care about.

Today’s gospel lesson confronts us with a bit of an interruption itself. Right in the middle of our Christmas busy-ness, just when we are all sort of breaking stride with the increased pace of our Christmas preparation sprint to the finish—-God sends us John the Baptist with a message that is like a holy interruption. It goes something lie this.
[Skit]
“You brood of vipers. Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”
Bear fruit worthy of repentance? No I’m not listening—-I’m not answering his call—it will make me focus attention on my sinfulness. You know, all that selfishness that we get so wrapped up with during December. I want this —- I want that. So, like I said—-I am not answering the Baptist’s call. But, denial doesn't work—-I’ve already heard God’s Word. The ringing of those words are already in my head.
Bear fruit worthy of repentance!
Go away!
Bear fruit worthy of repentance!
Oh why must God torment me like this—-and just when I was starting to get into the Christmas Spirit.
Oh OK fine, maybe if I heed this for just a moment he’ll stop bugging me—Lord forgive me for my sinfulness. There, I repented. Now let me go back to my Christmas feeling.
(Pause)
Bear fruit worthy of repentance!
UUUGGGHH!
Lord, forgive me for my selfishness, forgive me for , forgive me, forgive me, forgive me……(silence)
[Now relieved]
Hey, that wasn’t so bad. No, as a matter fact. It was pretty good. Thank you Lord, for reminding me of what Christmas is truly about. —
Lord, you can interrupt me anytime.
I will..

John the Baptist is the one who was sent to prepare the way for Jesus. He did that by telling those first disciples that they needed to repent.
Still today, while we are busy preparing our homes, and our schedules for Christmas—God sends John the Baptist to prepare us—to prepare our hearts and souls for the coming of Jesus. God interrupts with an interruption that calls us to repent—it is a Holy interruption. When he heed it we encounter the true spirit of Christmas—-The gift of new life found in the forgiving grace of the crucified one, Jesus.

Meanwhile, as difficult as true repentance can be, we encounter a God who is not only accessible at all times, but he has given us the gift of prayer in the name of Jesus. That’s why we pray in the name of Jesus. In the cacophony of heavenly prayers going up to God. We have been promised that when we ask in the name of Jesus—we will not be put on hold.
God wants us to interrupt him. God wants to be accessible to us at all times.

In this world when we are trying, somewhat poorly, to be accessible to all at all times. Its good to know that God has made himself accessible to us at all times. And when we call upon him whether for repentance or in the joy of thanksgiving—we are given the permission for a holy interruption.


Amen .