And Jesus Stopped

We live in community. Which means that our lives are woven together with those around us in very practical ways. Day by day. Hour by hour. It makes life very interesting!

Take Friday, for example When we woke up, we had TWO items on our agenda for the day: Clean the house and finish our preparations for the Good Friday and Easter services at church. Two do-able things.

However, at morning prayer I was asked if I could host twin three-year-old boys at my house for lunch while their mother was at a doctor's appointment.

Then David was asked if he could take a neighbor to the food bank--she doesn't have a car and it is too far for her to walk.

Just as he got home from the food bank, our friends called, needing a ride home from the hospital in Tours--which is about thirty minutes away.

David was a taxi service. I was a child care. This is our life. And we like it!

By the end of the day, the house got cleaned (enough) and the church services got planned (mostly). We are learning to tolerate embrace the interruptions that come with living in community. Because that is what Jesus did.

While he was on his way to Jerusalem, someone interrupted Jesus. A blind man named Bartimaeus was begging on the side of the road, and he heard that the Nazarene was passing by. He began to cry out fanatically. Shamelessly. He was making a spectacle of himself, and the crowd was embarrassed by his antics. They tried to shut him up, but he shouted even louder.

"Son of David, have mercy on me!"

And Jesus stopped.

Jesus--the most important man in history, during the most important week in history--stopped. He set aside his own agenda, and took time to care for the needs of another. He did not shun the interruption, he honored it. And this wasn't a first for Jesus. He often stopped for children, foreigners, and sinners.

He is my model for what it means to live in community. With Jesus, people always come before plans, tenderness trumps tasks, and interruptions are embraced.

Oh, I am not there yet! I still bristle when I sense that my day has just been rearranged to accommodate the needs of those around me. I bristle, and then I think of Blind Bartimaeus. And I remember that Jesus stopped. And I ask him to stop me. 

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