Allowing Interruptions

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

​The other day, I listened to a podcast by Father Mike Schmitz entitled “If You’re Too Busy, You’re in Danger of This Grave Mistake.” He discussed the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14. In the story, a man hosted a banquet and ordered his servants to send out invitations. As the servant approached prospective guests, each offered a reason they couldn’t attend. The first recently bought a field to see; the second owned five yoke of oxen to care for. The third got married and wished to spend time with his new bride. The servant returned with the news, and his master ordered him to invite everyone he met on the street: the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.

In his analysis, Father Mike noted that the first three individuals were too occupied by their obligations to attend. They weren’t “excuses” per se. In fact, all were fair reasons, reasons we might all have given had we been invited. Yet their preoccupations kept them from shifting their attention to something of greater symbolic significance. The mystery of this is that their lives were full of honorable commitments—a new field, oxen, a wife—yet each kept them from being “interruptible” when a new invitation arose.

One might make the point that tending to a field, caring for oxen, or spending time with family lands higher on the hierarchy of importance than accepting a party invitation from a random stranger. If we take the story at a literal level, I believe that’s true. But I wonder what the field, the oxen, and the wife might represent for us today? Perhaps they look like social plans, our own agendas, or “me time.” Maybe the “banquet” today looks like a service opportunity, helping a friend in need, or making time for a conversation. Might there be moments when God asks us to surrender something we want for something that builds the Kingdom?

Father Mike reflected on this in humility, acknowledging it as a habit of his heart. If we’re honest, I think we’ll find that it's our habit, too. Perhaps our lives grow so full of obligations, responsibilities, and plans that they hinder our love. Many of us would likely insist that we want to love God and our neighbors, yet perhaps we fill our lives to the brim and don’t allow time.

I’m reminded of the story of the rich ruler in Luke 18. The rich ruler asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to follow the commandments, sell his belongings, and distribute them to the poor. The ruler found the level of surrender Jesus asked for too great to embrace. In this story, the rich ruler loved God and followed the commandments, yet in this crucial moment, he loved his belongings more. We often interpret this story in terms of wealth and possessions, and I think largely that’s true, but I wonder if there are moments when we love our time more than we love God. I wonder if we guard our schedules and plans more than we submit to interruptions for God’s kingdom-building purposes. Perhaps we share a commonality with the rich ruler. We may love God and follow Him in many ways, but when Jesus interrupts us for a meaningful encounter, we end up loving our time more.

Father Mike posed the question: Does God have our permission to interrupt us? He made the case that being interruptible means making space for the question: What matters most in this moment? The willingness to change our direction and engage in what is most important might be the fullest expression of our love. Perhaps in the disruption of our earthly inertia, we find faith refined by surrender.

My next-door neighbors live this virtue well. As chance would have it, we often arrive home at the end of the day around the same time. As I pull into my driveway, they’ve usually just stepped out of their car and begun walking to the front door. Even when they’re over halfway to the door, they always take the moment to stop, turn around, and offer a warm wave and smile. It’s a simple routine I’ve observed, yet never evaluated for deeper significance until viewing it in the light of interruptibility. Even with a destination in mind, they pause and acknowledge my presence. Sometimes, we focus so heavily on where we’re headed that we forget who is beside us. We forfeit attentiveness for urgency. I think my neighbors understand the value of being interruptible.

I’ll never forget how my best friend lived out this virtue a couple of years ago on my birthday, which falls during spring break. That day, dark clouds masked the sky, and rain fell in buckets while I sat alone at my apartment with a cold. My friend came over with a bag of groceries and my favorite video game. She cooked us a meal, and we spent the afternoon playing video games together. I will never forget how deeply cared for I felt in that moment. I’m sure she had other things on her plate, and she likely didn’t picture herself spending a day of her spring break with a sick friend and risking getting sick herself. Yet, she sacrificed her time to brighten my day.

The ever-wise C.S. Lewis puts it like this: “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.” So often, we view our priorities and agendas as “life” and anything that takes us away from them as an inconvenience. Perhaps God calls us to lean deeper into the interruptions. Who knows what we will discover in this unfolding space?

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