Sacred Interruptions
by Mike Yankoski
We often hear a lot about “surrendering” to God, don't we? Surrender your hearts to God! Surrender your finances! Surrender your future! Surrender your life! We look to Christ and see Him surrendering His will to the Father's, even in the Garden of Gethsemane when doing so meant forfeiting his life. “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will’” (Matt 26:39, ESV).
Surrender is a critical theological concept, no doubt. It puts us in our place before the One who gave birth to the Universe: I’m God’s. Not mine. For most of us in the developed world one of the hardest things for us to surrender is our time. With stubborn, disgruntled faces we say to God, “You can have my life, but my time, well, that’s mine! You can have an hour on Sunday morning, and maybe fifteen minutes in the morning before I go to work, but no more!”
I had an interesting experience while my friend Sam and I were living on the streets as homeless men a few years ago. One Friday evening we slept right next to a church’s sanctuary in Phoenix, AZ. This was a large church with multiple buildings on their beautiful, landscaped campus. The next morning, Saturday, we woke up early to the sounds and delicious smells of a breakfast being set up in one of the nearby buildings. We hadn’t eaten the day before and the hunger pangs began immediately.
At that point, Sam and I had gone about five weeks without a shower. We both had long scraggly hair and long beards. Our clothes were badly torn, black with dirt, and reeked like you wouldn’t believe. We definitely didn’t look like we belonged there.
After a few minutes two gentlemen came walking over toward the sanctuary door which was only feet from where we had slept. They moved briskly and with definite purpose. Without really slowing as they neared us, one of the men looked down and with a stern expression told us “You need to leave.”
They quickly entered into the sanctuary.
Now, when you’re homeless and hungry and there's a free breakfast going on somewhere nearby there’s no way you’re going to leave without trying to get at least some food.
We stayed put.
A few minutes later the two gentlemen reemerged from the sanctuary and were quite shocked to see we hadn’t moved. “What’s the deal, guys?” One of them asked. “I told you you need to leave and you haven’t moved.”
“Yes, sir, I realize that,” I said, hoping I was being polite enough. “We don’t understand why, though”.
“These are church grounds!” The man exclaimed, quite frustrated. “Church grounds aren’t for this! We have a bunch of people coming soon and you need to leave!”
With that he turned and both men stormed away. With a big sigh of disappointment Sam and I left, frustrated and still hungry. The next day was Sunday, and we came back to the same church for the Sunday morning service.
After the service something rather incredible happened. From the back of the church we heard a booming voice calling out “Guys! Guys! Guys!” As we turned to look a man ran across the back of the church, down the main aisle to the pews right behind us. It was the man who the day before had kicked us off the church's property. As he reached us he literally threw his arms around both of us in a great hug.
Soon we all stood back and the man wiped away some of the tears that were streaming down his face.
“Guys, I’m so, so sorry. I can't believe I did that. We were having a church breakfast, and I kicked you off the church’s property. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me!”
“That’s okay man,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “We’ve been on the streets for a while now, met some church folk, and, well, we’re sort of used to it by now.”
“You see, that’s just it!” The man said passionately. “You shouldn’t be used to it at all! If there’s anywhere you should be loved and accepted exactly as you are, it’s the church!”
I couldn’t agree more. Christ welcomes all, regardless of ragged clothes, unkempt hair, mangled past. He welcomes us as we are and He can heal us.
At that point, the man put his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet a bit, obviously a little embarrassed. “You know what guys? Here’s the funny thing: the funny thing is that I’m the director of a homeless outreach program.”
What!?!
Wait a minute... Let me get this straight: the director of a homeless outreach program kicked us off a church’s property during a church breakfast?
How does that work?!?
The way it works is that the homeless ministry happened to be on Tuesday evenings.
So, on Saturday morning nobody was thinking about “homeless ministry.” They were thinking about “church breakfast.”
Is that how it’s supposed to be? Are we just supposed to cram our schedules as full as we can and then hope that somewhere in there God can work?
What about listening, following, surrendering to the will of God?
What does it mean to surrender our entire lives, including our crazy, hectic, maniacal schedules, every single moment of them, to Him?
It means looking for and welcoming what I like to call Sacred Interruptions.
In Mark 5:21-40 we get a glimpse of how Christ Himself responded to these “interruptions.” Jesus’ fame is growing and Jairus—a fairly important guy—has asked Jesus to heal his sick daughter. Everyone is excited to see Jesus do something incredible. You can feel the buzz, the excitement in the air as they walk toward Jairus’ house.
But then, unexpectedly, Jesus stops in the middle of the road. He silences the whole crowd, demanding to know who just touched him. The disciples laugh. He's in the middle of a crowd; lots of people are touching him! But Jesus is adamant. “Who touched me?”
A woman comes forward, confesses everything before everyone. About her pain, her disease, her hope that in touching Jesus she would somehow, miraculously be made well. You can almost see Jesus kneeling down beside her saying to her alone but loud enough for everyone to hear “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
Despite the “main event” of going to heal Jairus’ daughter, the Good Shepherd stops in the middle of everything to meet the need of a single, diseased, broken old woman.
Christ, the one we're to imitate responded with love and compassion to the sacred interruptions the Father brought His way. His purpose was glorifying the Father by doing His will: loving people.
I know you’re busy.
We all are.
But stop for a moment and ask God to help you look for and respond well to the sacred interruptions He has for you today.
Read more stories from Mike Yankoski’s experimental life on the streets in his book Under the Overpass. But first, check out this week's book review.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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