Interruptions

Mark 1:29-39

February 5, 2012

J.W. McNeill

Interruptions.  People have different tolerance for interruptions.

Did you notice the interruptions in the Gospel story this morning? Picks up last time. Do you remember then that the man with the unclean spirit interrupted Jesus’ teaching?

1.      After this they go to (Simon) Peter’s mother-in-law’s house for dinner after church. Good plan. But that plan is interrupted because Peter’s mother is sick.

2.      Jesus interrupts that sickness and the Sunday after church dinner resumes.

3.      Then the visit at Simon’s house is interrupted by the crowd that gathers at the door and Jesus interrupts the sickness and the demon possession.

4.      The next morning Jesus leaves all these people behind to go the deserted place.

5.      The disciples go looking for him and then they interrupt Jesus at prayer.

6.      Then Jesus interrupts the stay at Capernaum to take the disciples with him to the neighboring towns to preach and to heal.

You’ve probably had a number of interruptions in your life this week. Things happen. At church we had a big interruption because Margaret’s father died and she had to leave in pretty short order to go to Scotland. A major interruption.

I’ve been thinking about interruptions because of a big interruption in Martha’s and my life that I’ll tell you about in a few minutes.

I’ve been thinking about interruptions as the intersections of stories.  An interruption is where one story enters another story. Sometimes it absolutely takes it over.

I’m going to be away this week to direct and teach at Local Pastors’ Licensing School. I was remembering that when I went to Licensing School as a student 30 years ago, one of the activities we did was everyone was instructed to sing out loud their favorite hymn as we milled about the large room in which we were meeting. I can’t remember what I began singing, but within just a few minutes the song that interrupted all the others and took over all the rest was – any guesses??  Onward Christian Soldiers! Started by one of the faculty members who had come into the Methodist Church out of the Salvation Army.  The stronger song takes over and the stronger story can take over as well!

So here’s the interrupting story that is about to take over Martha’s and my story – and your story as well:

Four weeks ago tomorrow -- on a Monday I received a phone call putting me on alert that I would soon be receiving a phone call from one of our Conference Superintendents, asking me for a phone number where I could be reached in the next couple of hours.

Within a short time I did receive a phone call from Dick Barton, the DS of the Finger Lakes District. He asked me if I would be open to talking about moving to become senior pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Ithaca.

I gave him a pretty long story about why I really did not think I should move. He understood my thinking on it and said that there was really no pressure, but that the bishop and the whole cabinet were convinced that I was the right person for the appointment. I agreed to at least read the material and give him an answer within 24 hours whether Martha and I would agree to move forward.

He emailed me the material and Martha and I spent the afternoon quite distraught. Not wanting to leave Fairport. Wondering whether moving was the right thing. I spent some time just being quiet asking God what would be the right thing. As I kept going over the material there were just a few things that didn’t feel right to me. I concluded that I was really not meant to go there.

So before 5 pm that afternoon, I called the Superintendent back and told him I didn’t think it was going to work and how appreciative I was that I was being allowed to decline.

Interruption over.  I had a meeting that night down here and went ahead getting back into life in the midst of Fairport UMC’s story.

Tuesday went by.  But I had an uneasy feeling. I had a scheduled meeting with my spiritual director (my spiritual counselor, who I’ve been working with for about 15 years) and I described what had happened and how I had really felt called NOT to move to Ithaca. But just beyond my full awareness, the words were ringing faintly hollow.

I decided not to worry about it and move on. But when I went home for lunch on Wednesday, Martha immediately raised some new conversation about the possibility of the move and I told her that I had also had some second thoughts. I have to say that we spent a pretty intense hour, because I knew it could not be long before they moved to offer it to someone else.

I called the Superintendent back and asked him if we could still talk about the appointment in Ithaca. He said that as things had worked out, he had not gotten anyone to move forward with it yet and we could still talk.

We went over some of the considerations we had talked about and we agreed to go ahead and try to schedule a time for Martha and me to visit Ithaca and meet with the Staff Parish Relations Committee at St. Paul’s Church in Ithaca.

That meeting could not be arranged until this past Tuesday, when Martha and I went to Ithaca and met with the Staff Parish Relations Committee and we all agreed that I would be appointed as their Senior Pastor as of July 1, 2012.

The interruption is here.  On Thursday night, our District Superintendent, Ted Anderson, met with me and our Staff Parish Relations Committee to tell them of what had happened and to talk about how we would make this announcement this morning and how Fairport UMC would go forward.

Of course, the plan was that Pastor Margaret would be at that meeting and would be here this morning – to preach actually – but that story was overtaken by the story of her father’s death. A story that is overtaken by God’s eternal life story.

I will tell you that this is not easy. We’ve never lived anywhere for this long. Martha and I are very sad to be leaving this wonderful church home. I can’t really say a lot about all that right now, because I want to keep myself pulled together and going into too much detail is liable to make me cry. Martha and I have not been anything but blessed to journey with you for the last 16 and a half years and have our children grow up among you.

Interruptions are where stories intersect: Last week we read about Jesus’ story intersecting with the story of the man with unclean spirit and interrupted that unclean spirit story episode, freeing that man in the synagogue.

Jesus interrupted Simon’s mother-in-law’s sickness story with a healing story. Jesus interrupted his ministry story with a prayer story that intersected him at the deepest levels of cosmic love and then the disciples overtook that story – or went with Jesus to carry that cosmic love story into the despairing and desperate stories of hundreds of people seeking to be overtaken by healing and wholeness stories.

So let me just tell you a little about how St. Paul’s in Ithaca’s story was interrupted. Last November their pastor, Margie Mayson, died suddenly of an aneurysm while she was with her daughter out west. The church was stunned. They are still hurting very deeply. Margie was about the same age as Margaret and I. You can imagine.

In God’s wondrous and interrupting way, their story is now overflowing to intersect our story. Their story is particularly overtaking Martha’s and my story so that we are being absorbed into their story. And in turn all that we have lived with you here will go with us to become spoken or unspoken parts of the story we will live out with them.

In that cosmic way, you go with us. That should not be too surprising, of course, because overarching all our stories is God’s bigger story that is drawing us all together into the biggest story that will overtake all the stories of all of us who have ever lived: the story of God’s cosmic love that Jesus lived out among us.

We share in that story together as we gather as one people around this table to be refreshed and nourished to live out that love in Fairport or Ithaca or anywhere in God’s love.

Thanks be to God. Amen.