Ministry of Interruptions

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”
— John Lennon

“Humans plan. God laughs.”
— Yiddish saying

What if, for many years now, we’ve all been too driven by the clock, instead of being driven by life?

I’ve been pondering that this week as we look forward to the scripture for Sunday. The Gospel lesson tells the story of Jesus getting interrupted by one ministry crisis while he was in the midst of another.

And one of the meta-messages of the passage is that much ministry of beauty and power is born of simply being present.

Jesus doesn’t plan his time, so much as he he simply responds to what life gives him to do. 

Don’t get me wrong, we *need* plans if we are going to ultimately get to any destination. But sometimes in modern life we fail to realize that the crooked journey toward our goals is also filled with moments of blessing and importance; things that are unplanned and yet holy.

For example, this week we had our first in-person committee meeting at the Church in fifteen months. It was an unusually long meeting, but it felt like much of that was because most of the folks in the room were just happy to sit with other people!

And as we went through our agenda for the night, we also could hear the laughter from our KPUMC Alcoholics Anonymous group next door.

I don’t know what they were laughing about. It really doesn’t matter. The point is that I stopped long enough to hear the laughter of that group, muffled by the wall. 

I was with a group of humans.
That could hear *another* group of humans, laughing.

It was a small, beautiful grace and moment.
And I was grateful not to miss it.

So, as the world opens back up and we dip our toes back into being out in the world, by all means, “plan” your days. But remember that many of us learned how over-scheduled we had become. Maybe there is a gift in not jumping back in to being over-scheduled.

And remember: there is much beauty in the “ministry of interruptions.” 

Sometimes, the place we need to be is the place where interruptions happen, and plans we’ve made are transformed by the grace of a present moment.