GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:32
Interruptions
Interruptions. Early one Sunday morning, I sat in the office preparing for the day ahead. I used a loose-leaf Bible, so I laid the sermon outline beside it as I thought through the sermon. I received a call that a congregant needed help, so I grabbed my jacket and went to offer assistance. Returning to the office, I had just enough time to begin the morning service. I scooped up the Bible and hurried to the auditorium. When it came time to preach, I opened the Bible, read the text, and turned back a page to the sermon notes—there were no notes. Oh, maybe I put them after the text, so I turned ahead a page—no sermon notes. I remembered the Apostle Paul’s message to the young preacher Timothy: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (II Tim. 4:2) So I preached the word. When I finally returned to the office, there were the sermon notes, lying on the desk where I had placed them earlier.
St. Mark said that on one occasion, Jesus was teaching a large crowd when a delegation of critics from Jerusalem interrupted him. He dismantled their criticism and returned to his lesson when some men in the audience, since it is unlikely that there would be women in the audience at that time, passed him a message: “And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, ‘Behold, your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside seeking you.’” (Mark 3:32)—another interruption.
For several years, I taught a class for students in an elementary education program called “Science Teaching Methods.” In that class, there was a unit called “Incidental Teaching Occasions.” The goal of the unit was to encourage teachers to be aware of turning events that occupied a class’ attention into teaching occasions. Jesus had such an opportunity, as the attention of the audience was likely turned to the presence of his family.
Interruptions may be a wonderful opportunity to present the Gospel.
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