One Sunday at Mass as the priest was giving his homily, a baby in the front row suddenly started crying loudly.
The mother did her best to pacify the child, but nothing worked, so finally, she got up and started to walk down the aisle to take the baby into the cry room.
The priest stopped his preaching, and very compassionately called out to the mother, “That’s okay, you don’t have to leave. The child isn’t interrupting me.”
The young woman turned around and said, “No, pardon me Father, but you’re disturbing my child!”
Have you ever been trying to accomplish something, some task, and found that you were nearly constantly interrupted? Just when we’re getting productive, just when we feel like we might start checking things off our to-do list, just when we feel like we’re “in the zone,” that’s when a stream of people knock on the door, or call on the phone, or just need a few minutes of our time.
As a child I was taught, that interrupting is rude. Think of the responses you might hear a parent give to an interrupting child: “Not right now.” “In a little bit.” “Just a minute.”
Today’s gospel lesson from Mark finds Jesus being interrupted while he’s on his way to the house of Jairus where he has been invited to heal his sick daughter. He’s on his way to heal a sick girl, when he’s interrupted by a woman who needs healing and disciples who don’t consider the woman worth Jesus’ time. But Jesus always seems to have time.
The woman is healed immediately, and the girl is later resurrected - each person is worth it to Jesus. We can be rest assured that Jesus would stop in his tracks for us- interrupted for us. We are worth God’s time.
