Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans
Joy Haertig | Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:00PM How does one even begin to unpack the reading from Acts today?
In this brief story we could be drawn to the rather strange encounter between Paul and the pagan girl who is a slave and eventually annoys Paul enough that he called the “spirit” out of her. Maybe you wonder what happened to her as she disappears from the story.
Or what about the men who had enslaved the girl and out of revenge have Paul and Silas brutally beaten and thrown into prison, or the earthquake that caused the walls of the prison to fall down.
What about the prison guard who almost took his own life and was baptized by Paul along with his whole family?
It is quite a story! It is a packed glimpse into the ongoing impact that the followers of Jesus are having since they were called out to serve in his name (become apostles).
It tells us about the ripple effect of a pebble dropped by the good news of Christ’s transforming power of love.
The story reminds me that sometimes it is life’s interruptions that become the “real” story of our lives. Paul was annoyed by the pagan slave-girl because she interrupted his purposeful journey.
He and Silas were on their way to one place and ended up in a different place completely! They were on their way to a place of prayer and ended up beaten and sitting in prison.
How often are we on our way to one place and end up somewhere else? It happens, doesn’t it?
We are on our way to mid-life and we end up having to deal with a frightening illness or the loss of a job.
We work hard in school and yet can’t seem to keep up with what is expected of us and we feel very much alone.
Wednesday Sarah, Staci, Marcia and I attended a workshop on understanding addiction and supporting recovery. We saw a brief video of young kids at camp who are children of alcoholics. They interviewed some of them – one little girl said “I just want to be a kid”…but her growing up is interrupted by the illness of her parent.
Gary and Lee were supposed to leave for Italy a month ago but the volcano grounded them – Bonnie and Jim Buchan were relieved as Jim ended up facing surgery on a brain tumor. Jim and Gary have been friends for 40 years.
I remember that saying, “Life happens when you are busy making other plans.”
Sometimes the side-trips are simply awful, almost impossible to find some silver lining.
But other times the side-trips end up being just the place where we need to be if we can have the faith to hang on and keep showing up, even if it is unclear where the path is taking us.
The words in our closing hymn today “Lead on Eternal Sovereign”, remind us to keep the faith even when the way may seem fearful or unclear.
Sometimes it can seem like God is taking us to places we might not normally choose to go.
Last week I learned about a woman named Jessica Sales who had worked against the oppression and bloodshed of the Philippine government in the 1970’s. She talked about it in a workshop she led at a Christian Conference in Asia in 1977. She said to a friend after the workshop that it went very well but that she thought perhaps the things she had said may have cost her, her life.
There had indeed been a spy at the conference who reported Jessica to the military in the Philippines. When she returned to the Manila Airport, they were waiting to arrest her. A few months later, her body was found in a mass grave and showing evidence of shocking torture.
It is hard for us in the U.S. to wrap our heads around the idea that we could die for the actions our Christian faith calls forth from us.
Is that because we are blessed by so much freedom of religion in our country – free speech and all of that, or is it because we choose to live out our radical faith in a very safe way?
Marcia McLaughlin met a woman whose church in Lake City is forming a safe house for prostitutes to take refuge in and escape from their “owners”.
Let’s be honest – people in that church are putting their own lives at risk by caring for these women.
I don’t know the history of this church’s decision to create a safe house for these women, but I bet some kind of “interruption” caused them to go down that particular path of ministry.
Sometimes God takes us down paths we might not normally choose to go.
Our life could be in danger by living our faith convictions – even here.
On Friday we watched the documentary called “Food, Inc.” – I learned about a mother who lost her beautiful young son to e. coli due to eating a hamburger, he died in 12 days after being diagnosed. This is a side trip that no one would ever wish for or imagine…Yet she has made her own silver-lining by becoming active in fighting for safe and healthy laws in the food industry so that no other mother or father has to witness such a horror.
Yes, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.
Today’s scripture then leads me to note two other things in tandem with that –
- Part of our relationship and covenant with God involves remaining open and willing to take the side roads. It means realizing that even our brief lives (as individuals and communities) are part of a larger story – a bigger picture that we don’t have control over. (Perhaps my side trip might help someone else)
- Nurture and practice those rituals and traditions that help us “keep the faith and trust in God” while we are walking down a path we might not understand or want to be on.
#1 - Paul and Silas were on their way to a place of prayer but were interrupted by people who were in need – who were searching for some form of freedom, now this happened to Jesus regularly.
In the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar there is an image instilled in my mind of Jesus going off to be alone and pray when he is disturbed by hungry, thirsty, men in a lepers colony, chained to the rocks. They reach their long thin arms out to him, longing for their freedom.
Our comfortable lives WILL BE interrupted time and again by difficult experiences – illness, angry teens, depression, loss of job, by people who are hungry and homeless, who need our support and our voice for justice and freedom.
God intends for us to take those side trips, not all of them, but most certainly, some of them.
And some of those side-trips will lead to new life and transformation, even if we cannot see it right away.
#2 – Paul and Silas are beat up, stripped of their clothes and thrown into prison. What a crummy side-trip. Ugh. But while they are there they sing hymns and pray.
Obviously these are two of the things that help them keep the faith and their trust in God, alive and well – even when they are not sure what is ahead. (Consider the power of song in the Civil Rights movement as an example!)
Singing hymns and praying are two of the things we do at church – maybe some of you do these things away from church! My friends we must participate in the traditions and rituals that help sustain our faith and trust while we are on the side-trips of life.
I don’t mean the traditional American rituals of keeping busy, going shopping (mall therapy), watching football or avoiding our feelings…
I mean the rituals and traditions of our spiritual lives.
Singing – Praying – Reflecting on God’s word – Breaking bread and celebrating baptism, being in community with others who are intentionally nurturing their relationship with a Higher Power and a higher purpose!
We need to pass these rituals and traditions on to our children too. Time playing on soccer teams provides some wonderful, wonderful connections and outlets for fun, skill development and learning about teamwork – but it won’t sustain them when you get sick or when their best friend is killed in a car accident.
Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.
There will be side-trips – mostly unplanned ones.
Some of them are simply awful and have no silver lining.
Others are God’s way of taking us to people and places that need our voice, our gifts, our resources; our love.
They might be side-trips that ultimately help us grow and deepen in ways we would never imagine.
There will be and are side-trips that we will and do look back on and say, “Wow, look how far we have come.”
And in the mean time - in order to survive the side-trips, we need spiritual rituals and traditions that keep our faith and trust alive so that we can say to God, “lead on; take us where we need to go.”
Let us be in silence together.
