If you are like me, most of the time I really hate to be interrupted. When I am focusing on a project an interruption can knock me off my train of thought. If I am engrossed in a mystery novel or TV program and I am trying to follow the plot, that is not the time I want to start a conversation. Or if I am listening to sublime music at a concert, I get annoyed if someone’s beeper goes off. And I really get annoyed when something intrudes on my best laid plans for the weekend, or the year, or my life for that matter.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t some very good interruptions. I want to be interrupted if a parishioner has an immediate pastoral care need. I want to be interrupted if someone I have not seen in a while drops by to visit. I want to be interrupted by good news.
I wonder how Mary felt about being interrupted by the angel Gabriel. Her life had been going pretty much as planned. She would get married, have a family in due time, and live peaceably in her village where nothing too exciting ever happened. She did not plan to rock the boat. I picture her busily planning her wedding to Joseph, maybe making a wedding dress. I suspect her plans for her life did not include the stigma of a baby born out of wedlock. There is nothing like a baby to produce interruptions. There are the cries for feeding or changing diapers that cannot be scheduled. There is the sleep that is interrupted by the scared child with bad dreams. Later, there will be skinned knees that need to be kissed, the trouble that a spirited kid can get into. I’m sure Mary could not have foreseen the anguish and grief that interrupted her life, as her child was nailed to a cross and was killed. If Mary could see all the changes that would come from that first interruption, would she still say “yes” to God?
Being interrupted by God is not an easy thing. There is not telling what he will ask of us. It is tempting to run away from it. Jonah tried to run away to Tarshish rather than go to Ninevah as God ordered. Moses tried to convince God he had the wrong guy – he couldn’t even talk well. When God interrupts, he may intrude on our plans for the weekend, or the year, or our lives. But God know what he is doing, and he know who he is asking. He also equips us for what he asks, and despite the interruption, there is joy and satisfaction in being part of God’s plan.
David knew what it was like to have his life interrupted. He was the most unlikely of kings, the youngest son of his father Jesse. Being anointed king was not in his plans. He was supposed to be a shepherd. God’s interruption led him into conflict with Saul, with Goliath, even with his own sons. David knew that God was unpredictable in what he might ask. Perhaps that is one reason that David wanted to build a temple for the Lord. Perhaps there God would not create as much mischief. God would not interrupt so often. David’s desire to build a house for God rested in the belief that God was a local God, belonging to Israel, who could be carried about. Somehow God could be kept in a tabernacle, in a box. But it seems that God did not want to be confined in a house or a box, but to be free. The idea seems quaint compared to our belief that God is everywhere, all the time. We know He cannot be contained.
And yet, we seem to put God in a box ourselves from time to time. When we consecrate the Eucharist at communion we believe that somehow, in some mysterious way, that the bread and wine actually holds within it the real presence of Christ. He is really with us in the sacrament. It is not that I say some magical incantation, and I call down Jesus as if I had some kind of superpower. But we believe that Christ cooperates with us, with his church, in joining us and being with us in the bread and wine. That is why we treat the consecrated elements with the utmost respect and reverence, because Jesus is with us in a very real way in the bread and wine. We ingest the bread and the wine, take into ourselves, and Christ becomes part of us, and we become part of Christ. It is a great mystery. And then what do we do? We put what’s left in a box, a fancy silver box to be sure, but still a box.
Of course, we should treat the sacrament with the greatest respect, but we should not fool ourselves in thinking that we can keep Jesus in a box. He is active and everywhere, all around us and within us. There he always seems ready to interrupt us, to butt into our lives. It is up to us to say yes.
We try, I think, to place God in a box in other ways. We may confine our thoughts about God to an hour on Sunday mornings. When we make a decision about our life or when we are tempted to something we shouldn’t or obtain something we don’t need, we might weigh all kinds of factors – will it be profitable, is it what I want to do, will it feel good? We try to follow the path that our parents, or our peers, or our culture has laid for us. Less often do we ask if this is something that God wants for us; we try to leave God in his box. God becomes a tool for us to use to get through life a little better, to take out when we need some comfort, and put back in the box when we don’t need him anymore.
But God will not be kept in a box or a temple, or a tabernacle, but he will make his dwelling place within us. For Mary, that was quite literal; Jesus took up residence in her womb. She was pregnant with God. She was Theotokos, the God bearer. Jesus wants to take up residence within each one of us as well. When we take communion, the real presence of Christ in the bread and the wine, we take Jesus within us, and if we let him, he will take up residence there. We too will be pregnant with God. And from that pregnancy there will come birth, new life. But make no mistake, that new life will interrupt our best laid plans.
God wants us to let him out of the boxes we have made for him. He wants our complete surrender. When we say yes to God, we are in for the greatest adventure of our lives.
It is tempting to keep God in the box, even to wrap the box in pretty paper, and cover it with beautiful tinsel. Maybe even put it under the Christmas tree, so we can open it for that special feeling we get on Christmas Eve that makes us warm and comfortable, helping us to be in fellowship with family and friends, giving us hope for world peace. It evokes that soft, protective, parental feeling we have for vulnerable little babies. That is fine as far as it goes. Remember that this baby will call us to a die to our old selves, will call us to a work that is of God’s purpose that will give us new life, maybe even change history. This baby will interrupt our best laid plans for the weekend, for the year, for our lives.
But with God’s grace we will get beyond the annoyance of the interruption and will be able to say with Mary “ Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”