Jesus, interrupted
Technology enables us to multitask like never before. Teens do homework while checking email and listening to an iPod. Parents cook dinner while watching the news and helping with homework. And pastors check voice mail while driving from a presbytery meeting to a hospital visit.
All of this multitasking takes its toll, in increased stress, fatigue, and even headaches and other physical symptoms — not to mention a decreased proficiency in the tasks themselves. Studies have shown that switching rapidly between activities increases mistakes. Talking on a cell phone while driving is said to impair reaction time as much as driving drunk.
Even for those of us who make multitasking a way of life, it just doesn’t feel right spiritually. Isn’t it better to do one thing at a time, to give it our full attention, and to see it through to completion before moving on to the next thing? Isn’t that “what Jesus would do”?
In Mark 5:21–35 Jesus is a man on a mission. While people press in on all sides with a variety of demands, he remains focused on his task — to make it to Jairus’ house so that he can heal his sick daughter. Nothing will deter him.
Nothing, that is, except the hemorrhaging woman, who touches the hem of Jesus’ garment in a last-ditch effort to be relieved of her suffering. The woman is behind Jesus, which means the power flows in one direction as he is headed in the other. It’s a potent image for any of us who have felt pulled in two (or more) directions.
The power seems to flow of its own volition; it’s as if Jesus cannot help but heal the woman. Jesus stops what he is doing, turns and addresses her, and sends her on her way a healed and whole person. Her flow of blood has already ceased, but in calling her “daughter,” he restores her to relationship with her fellow human beings. He takes the time to do this, even though it delays his arrival at Jairus’ house — a delay that has dire consequences for the little girl, at least temporarily.
To call Jesus’ encounter with the hemorrhaging woman an example of multitasking is a stretch. What Jesus models here is attentiveness — a willingness to tend to interruptions, to acknowledge that our lives do not conform to our careful plans and schedules. Jesus’ attentiveness provides a novel twist on the concept of flow.
Athletes and musicians can attest to the joy of being so completely immersed in one’s craft that the activity seems effortless, all encompassing and beautiful to behold. The term flow was coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who described it to Wired magazine as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake ... every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
In Mark 5 Jesus is so tuned in to his body, his spirit and the world that he knows “immediately” that he has been touched, that something has happened. He is able to shift gears gracefully, almost instinctively. In this story-within-a-story, the hemorrhaging woman is an important interlude. Jesus addresses both the detour and the destination masterfully.
It takes skill and disciplined practice to reach the level of flow. But most of us have witnessed it, or experienced it first hand: the hospital chaplain who connects with patients, family and staff with sensitivity and attentiveness to the details of each unique situation; the vacation Bible school director who manages a ministry with dozens of moving parts, yet still responds to the child who’s skinned her knee; the homeless-shelter volunteer who can monitor the soup on the stove while chatting with the guests.
Flow acknowledges the busyness and complexity of our lives, while calling us to be awake to what is in front of us — both the expected and the unexpected. Jesus did not multitask with the hemorrhaging woman, giving her half his attention while mentally calculating how long the interruption would delay him. He felt the woman’s tug and responded, not just in a perfunctory way, but with an encounter that would change her life forever. |
