Have you ever stopped to think, man, being stretched by God or life is so inconvenient. I mean, it is usually caused by some type of interruption to our routine or our norm. Then it has the audacity to take us for a loop and out of the way and often at a cost and a loss for us. 20
I’m serious, it’s a really problem with me—whenever I’m being stretched, it is super inconvenient and my routine is interrupted. I hate it. I hate being interrupted. I hate being inconvenienced. I hate going out of my way. But I understand that if I am not, then I will never be stretched beyond what I know and what I do. In a lot of ways all people feel the same way. You abhor inconveniences and interruptions. That’s why we don’t even need to go into a store to have coffee anymore, we just drive thru. We don’t need to shop at a supermarket, we just have it delivered. We don’t need to work with customer service, the computer talks for us. We don’t need to reconnect with friends, we have Facebook, twitter, Instagram where we don’t actually have to be interrupted from what we’re doing or inconvenienced by the timing of a phone call. Sometimes, people want to take me out to lunch, you know, because they’re trying to be a good friend, and I’m so annoyed because I’m always being inconvenienced by this interruption called friendship.
Life was never intended to be lived interruption free. No, Inconvenient interruptions are a gift from God to make us stop just long enough to make us think that there is more to life than whatever we think is important that we’re currently doing. It’s a true story. I know. We’re going to look at several passages this morning to understand that to be stretched by God to do something bigger with your life, we will undoubtedly be faced with inconvenient interruptions to our regularly scheduled mundane program. Luke 10:29-32, let’s go.
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. (Luke 10:29-32)
I love this story. This story makes everybody think. Here’s what it makes everybody think: it makes everybody think that they are indeed the good Samaritan. It’s funny how in all of our experiences and recollection of stories that we’re always the good Samaritan. We are always the one going out of our way and being interrupted and being inconvenienced. Am I right? Aren’t you always the one that has to take care of your parents, and then your siblings? It kind of falls on you. Maybe you’re the person that has to make good on promises your bosses made at work. Whatever it is, we are that good Samaritan, aren’t we? Very rarely would be flat out say that we’re this Levite and/or priest. The lawyer asking Jesus the question, “who is my neighbor?” feels the same way. He’s the good Samaritan, he’s the one that looks out for everybody and does everything. All of that may be true in your actions, but what is it like in your heart?
I’ll tell you what—we need to take a hard look at ourselves and understand the heart of the Samaritan. We are sometimes good with interruptions, no matter how inconvenient, because we know it’s our obligation. Sure, we’ll do it, yes, it will be inconvenient, and we’ll suck it up and take it on the chin. This is exactly the problem. When we are stretched, we cannot be stretched because of our so called obligation. No, God doesn’t want our obligation. That type of stretching gets us nowhere and not what God wants. I want you to see interruptions and inconveniences as gifts of God because when we read this story of the Samaritan people miss that. They see the obligation, but they never stop and think about the intention and the heart.
The priest moved to the other side of the road after he saw his fellow countryman beaten on the street. It was probably a smart move, he didn’t want to be the first responder, he probably had other appointments to tend to. Jesus, in his story never mentions why the priest doesn’t stop and frankly, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the priest saw this man, half dead, and didn’t want to be inconvenienced by it, so he doesn’t let it interrupt his journey. Likewise, there was a Levite, who also sees the man, but doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by it, so he too, walks away.
Don’t lie to yourselves, how many of us see situations that cross our paths, and because we don’t want to be bothered, avoid it by walking to the other side? This is human nature; it doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor or a well-meaning Christian—none of us want to be inconvenienced; some of us because we’re so selfish and shortsighted; and others of us, we have no intention in our lives to care for anybody or anything outside of me, myself, and I. I’m going to tell you right now that the way we receive interruptions in our lives matters more to God than what we actually accomplish when we push ahead with our agendas in life. Go to Zechariah 7:4-14.
4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: 5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”
8 And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. 12 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts. 13 “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the Lord of hosts,14 “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.” (Zechariah 7:4-14)
What the prophet Zechariah was saying to the people of Israel is the same exact thing Jesus is trying to teach this lawyer guy from Luke 10: we sometimes get wrapped up so much into what we do that we forget that life is about being interrupted by the people in it. Yes, it is sometimes painful and most like will end up costing us more than we’d like, but that’s why we live. That’s why we have livelihood. There is nothing worse in life than doing what we usually do in life thinking that we’re doing it for some other reason when our intentions were about ourselves.
You and I know so many self-righteous people doing the right things at the right times, but when it came down to it, you know deep down inside you cannot count on those self-righteous folks. You can’t end up like them. You can’t allow yourself to be one of those people who fail to stretch out past our actions because our intentions are negative or non-existent.
When we look at verse 9 – 11 of this passage, look what it says because I think Zechariah meant this literally and figuratively: 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.
Nobody can render any true judgment on an interruption to our lives until we actually stop to pay attention to it. The people who suffer the most from our callousness are the widows, fatherless, sojourner, and the poor. Yes, it means those people, but I know a lot of you will say that you don’t know any of those types of people in your life, but in fact, I want to argue that we have so many people in our lives who are like widows—people with nobody else to rely on. The fatherless—yes, people without fathers, but without the Father. People who come and stop in our lives momentarily and are gone, people who you didn’t grow up with nor have any special affinity toward—they all need you to stop and be interrupted by them because they are gifts to you by the Lord God for you to show your intentions of love and grace toward.
God in all his great intention of love, interrupted history—this is a fact, not just a faith statement, to send his one and only son, Jesus Christ to live, die and be resurrected for our lives. The greatest interruption of all time marked by the blood of God, was a gift to humanity, to all who believe. Yet, we fail, as followers and receivers of this great gift from God, to allow interruptions in our lives. God created this life that you live for interruptions so that he can stretch your faith and your ability to love beyond our everyday routines and our circles of love.
Romans 8:28 says that “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This is the future glory that our interruptions add to our lives. When we are being stretched, God helps us in the form of the holy spirit that intercedes for us because we just don’t know what to do and say. It doesn’t matter that the interruption you are facing causes you to be overwhelmed because you’re not used to seeing the half dead body on the floor. What matters is that you stop and receive the interruption to your life as a gift from God that you receive and do whatever it is that you know how. Let’s go back to the Luke 10:33-37.
33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” (Luke 10:29-37)
Jesus concludes his story by introducing a third character: The Samaritan, the type of person who shouldn’t be in the forefront of a morality lesson, but here he was. He wasn’t always the best person for the job, but he had the right intentions when interruptions took his life. He understood that the interruption before him was not a burden, but a gift from God to love somebody who he wouldn’t have normally had the opportunity to love. The Samaritans didn’t like the Jews and the Jews didn’t like the Samaritan. But now the Samaritan had the chance to take this interruption God gave him while he was on some type of journey to love somebody who would have otherwise died.
[Drawing]I want you to see how much opportunity we lose sometimes because our intentions are not to receive the interruption as gifts from God, but as burdens that sometimes we are and are not responsive to. We would never treat our children as interruptions, but its sad when we who profess Christ and the love of God treat God’s children with no intentions. How can we be stretched by God to be more than what we are now if we are not willing ourselves to be receive interruptions to our lives as gifts from God to love.
Not only did this Samaritan take this stranger, he did what he personally could before being the benefactor to his needs through an innkeeper. Then he turns around and incurs a debt he never had to. It is only because the Samaritan received this sojourner that this man was able to know love and care. I’m sure the Samaritan was stretched beyond himself and he only was stretched by God because he welcomed the interruption as a gift.
What interruptions have you been missing out on? What ways can an interruption from God stretch you to do God’s will and live for his glory? As we pray, I want us to think about why we’ve hid ourselves from interruptions. Let’s pray.
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