“Choosing to Pay Attention”
John 4.1-41
March 22, 2020
Paying attention is essential to our everyday life.
The quality of our life is influenced by what we
give our attention to. Consider reflecting on your
life up to this point. You might see how the
fashioning of your life comes from what you’ve paid
attention to and what you haven’t. Looking a little
deeper, you might see the myriad options, thoughts,
and feelings you didn’t focus on and the relative
ones you did, which became your ‘reality.’ If you
are like me, at this point, I am bamboozled by the
fact that if I paid attention to other things, my
reality and my life would be very different. What we
pay attention to matters.
It is what keeps us from distracted
driving; it is necessary for deepening our
relationship with those we love, and it also affects
how we encounter our lives. One of the most
significant challenges we face is being present at
the moment, finding the flow of creativity, and
maximizing our presence. What we give our attention
to impacts our experiences. One psychologist put it,
"My experience is what I agree to attend to." What
we pay attention to matters because in giving our
attention, we will discover the tiny threads of
healing and transformation that are developing
moment to moment. When we are distracted, we miss
what is happening, really happening, in front of us.
But when we are present with one another, with
ourselves, and with God, focusing our energy on the
positive, our worldviews and understanding of life
will expand, and the negativity of life will shrink.
Of course, this takes time. To pay
attention in a way that leads to what Barbara Brown
Taylor calls reverence means we must give up the
false belief that we are not gods, and that we are a
part of something much more significant than
ourselves. The healing that can come from paying
attention requires a willingness to go slower, take
detours, and endure pushback that comes from others
who might see this pace as wrong or not normal.
Paying attention is what will lead us deeper into
the heart of the Trinity.
Consider today's Gospel lesson. A lot
happens in this story, but the main event is Jesus
restoring sight to a blind man. Before we continue
with the story, it is essential to pay attention to
a few details, like what Jesus says in verse 2 in
response to the disciples wanting to blame someone
for the blindness. "Neither this man nor his parents
sinned," Jesus tells, "he was born blind so that
God's works might be revealed in him." Where the
disciples want to focus on blame, Jesus rejects the
idea that God brings about sickness to punish them
for wrongdoings. Jesus offers a different approach,
one that affirms the agency of this person who was
cast to the side by society. Jesus wants the
disciples to see the man as God sees him—a beloved
child of God.
It isn't just the disciples who need
their sight checked. It is the entire community.
After Jesus tells the man to wash in the pool of
Siloam, nobody in the city recognizes the man.
"Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?" If it
wasn't bad enough to be harassed by his neighbors,
the man had to endure from religious authorities as
well. The man who was blind but now can see had to
undergo an excruciating examination by these folks,
which included his parents, who out of fear leaves
him out to dry. Rather than embracing what happened,
the community and their leaders gave their attention
to blaming someone for this man's blindness. When
there was a chance to celebrate the restoration of
this man's sight and the subsequent restoration of
the community, the religious leaders showed
contempt. It is as if they would rather pay
attention to how the 'normal' was disrupted and
ignore the illumination of God happening right in
front of them, which is what the blind man does.
In the religious leader's last
examination of the man, and in an attempt to finally
have reason to arrest Jesus, the man declares, "I do
not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do
know, that though I was blind, now I see." They keep
pushing the man to give the details, an attempt to
deflect what happened, but the man persists, "I have
told you already, and you would not listen. Why do
you want to hear it again? The man gets theological,
too, and calls out there need for control. He calls
out how they want to blame someone rather than
embracing the gift that is happening in their midst.
Radically the man challenges the desire to remain in
the dark rather than dwelling in the light of God.
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The task of the church is to restore
the community at all costs. An essential component
to the restoration of community and justice is
listening to people without the boxes we wish to
place them in. The Gospel lesson today invites and
calls us to see beyond the surface of our
experiences and to pay attention to their entirety.
Assuming things gets us nowhere. But listening to
the concerns and perspectives of others, standing up
for the rights and well-being of others—even when we
don't benefit from them directly or if they
challenge what we think is normal or status quo. We
are to address the injustices in our communities
head-on.
Jesus does this at the end of the
story, too. In verse 39, Jesus says, "I came into
this world for judgment so that those who do not see
may see, and those who do see may be blind." The
judgment Jesus speaks of is seeing things as they
are—and the man he encountered experiences the
restoration of his true self. As one pastor put it
so beautifully, “The blind man sees Jesus as wholly
and purely as Jesus sees him; the gaze and the
recognition in this story are mutual. Because the
healed man has no preconceptions, because the
spiritual ground he stands on is soft and supple, he
can see God as God is.” The blind man, you and me,
we are image-bearers of the Divine.
Friends, we are alive in some unusual
times. With each new day, we face the challenge of
paying attention or turning away. We will have the
choice to pay attention to the ways we are
interconnected or to turn away from this reality,
seeking to figure out who is to blame. We will have
a choice to pay attention to the new normal, which
includes being church and neighbors differently; or
choose to hide behind dogmatic political views or
our legalistic approaches to justice, fairness,
generosity, and sympathy. We will have the choice to
pay attention in a way that invites us to have eyes
to see God in our neighbors, regardless of whether
they are sick or healthy, insured or uninsured,
citizen or foreigner, protected or vulnerable.
Paying attention to the goodness of God in our lives
amid the chaos will be what saves us as God’s
people.
Paying attention is what leads to the
blind man’s sight being restored. It took time, too.
And along the way, he encountered challenges, and
still, he persisted. We are on a journey, not unlike
his—facing life together in new, unforeseen ways.
What we can learn from the blind man is the
importance of listening for God’s voice, responding
to it in faith, and sharing what we know to be true
about God—that though we were once blind, in
trouble, feeling too far down and out—we now see,
can sing a new song, and that God rescued us from
the impossible.
In the coming days and weeks friends,
take time to pay attention. Take time to listen for
God’s voice amidst the chaos by shutting down the
distractions and being fully present to the moment.
The more we pay attention, the clearer we will see
God’s presence in our midst. To see takes time, like
having a friend takes time. So be patient with
yourself and with others. Allow each other time to
let our eyes adjust to the new things we see. And
while the practice of paying attention offers no
quick fix for such weariness, with guaranteed
results printed on the side, it is one way into a
different way of life, full of treasure for those
who are willing to pay attention to exactly where
they are.
Friends, as we choose to pay
attention, may these words from poet Mary Oliver
guide us on our way:
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
May it be so. Amen.
Adam Quinn of First Presbyterian Church in
Lincoln
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