Bazaar United Methodist Church

Bazaar, Kansas

Isaiah 65:1
Ephesians 1:15-19a
Matthew 26:40-41

Pay Attention

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all his people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Ephesians 1:15-19a TNIV

I, the LORD, was ready to answer even those who were not asking and to be found by those who were not searching. To a nation that refused to worship me, I said, "Here I am!" Isaiah 65:1 Contemporary English Version

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:40-41 TNIV

Over the past several weeks as we have talked about happiness, one of the things that we have said was important was that we pay attention. We need to pay attention to how we are thinking about things. Are our thoughts positive or negative? Are we feeding on good memories or bad ones? Are we handing out compliments or raining on someone's parade? Those things are important to our happiness quotient.

But today there is another place where we, as those who follow Christ, need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to God's activity everywhere we are. As we sang (prayed) the prayer of St. Patrick this morning, Christ be with us, Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ on our right, Christ on our left, Christ where we lie, Christ where we sit, Christ where we arise, Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of us, Christ in every eye that sees us, Christ in every ear that hears us. Did you consider as we prayed that prayer this morning that we have to be paying attention to where God is at work around us for us to notice Christ in each of these places? That Christ is there, there is no doubt. But for us to attend to his activity requires of us intention and attention. We must intentionally be paying attention. And we must have had some practice attending while we were alone in our prayer closets with Christ.

That is why I chose the scripture from Matthew this morning. It was not because I wanted us to go back to the Garden of Gethsemane, but because we need to be reminded that an hour alone with God is really important to the health and well-being of our spiritual life; the most important part of our lives. That doesn't mean it must be an hour down on your knees praying, though it might. But an hour in prayer and study and meditation is really very little. Thomas Steagald calls it the intersection between lectio and examen. Where prayerful study meets studious prayer. Where prayer is study and study is prayer. Now that hour doesn't have to be all at one time. It can come in 10 or 15 minute intervals throughout your day-and yes, if you have to go to the bathroom to get time alone, if you have to do some of that time in the shower or in your bed, I understand that. But really, if we can sit down and watch 2-3 hours of television in the evenings, if we can manage time to do the other things we want, then we can manage time to listen to God if we want our spiritual lives to grow as well.

God is always present, always making God-self known to us. But we have to be aware, we have to have eyes that see and ears that hear. Steagald repeats his friend Frederick Buechner's advice that every day, wherever we are, we must "'pay attention,' believing that in every moment and circumstance there is more grace that one set of eyes can see, more warning and reproof than one set of ears can hear, and more reason than we have yet realized to give abiding thanks." Which certainly means that there IS grace present for us to see, there are things we may need to hear and there is so much for which we need to give thanks that we have not yet even begun to realize that we are missing out on a great big dump truck load full of joy!

My old mentor Tommy Tyson told a story of a young friend of his who was going home from a Bible study one night. Now for Tommy at that time young could be anyone under 50 so I have no idea how old Tim really was. But he had been at Bible study so he had been immersed in God-talk for a couple of hours. Being immersed in prayerful God-talk helps us tune our eyes and ears to God. He was going home and he had an urgency to go buy milk. He recognized who that urgency came from and said, "But, Lord, we don't need milk." And he heard it again. "Go buy milk." So he did. There was a store on his way home so he stopped and picked up a gallon of milk. He asked God for direction but heard nothing so he headed for home. As he passed by an area of town that was mostly industrial, he heard God again. "Turn right at the next block." "It's industrial down there." But Tim turned anyway. Four blocks in he was supposed to turn left. Sure enough, there were a bunch of small houses. It was late. All of them were dark. He crept along the street and in the second block God told him to stop and take the milk across the street to the house. The windows were black. "OK God, I agreed to be a fool for you, but I have to say this is the nuttiest thing I've ever done. I'm gonna wake up somebody and they are not going to be happy."

He rang the bell and waited. He could see a glow down the hall at the back of the house. In a minute a large figure obscured the light entirely. He was huge, in a pair of sweat pants and an undershirt. His arms were as big as Tim's thighs. He was quaking just a little when the porch light came on and the door opened. The man's voice was surprisingly soft and quiet when he asked, "What can I do for you?" But then he saw the gallon of milk, "Is that for us?" There was only a nod, "Milly, Milly, our prayers have been answered, there's someone here with milk for the baby. Come on in," and Tim found himself wrapped in a fierce bearhug and scuttled down the hall to meet Millie and a very hungry baby.

It seems that Roy was a logger who had been injured. He had used every cent they had to pay the bills up to now and though he had returned to work, the next paycheck wouldn't come for another three days. They were down to their last dime. They had no money for food. They had been praying for milk for the baby. Since they were new to the area, they had no idea where to turn for help. That night they not only got milk, they were hooked up with all the other help they needed as well. By the next day they no longer had to fear that one missed day of work would mean that their baby was going hungry. They were hooked into a church and a good support system, as well as a social support system.

Tim was aware. He had his eyes and ears open. Are you listening for God? Are you watching for God's activity everywhere so you can participate in it? Can you feel God at work within you and around you? Do you know God's presence in the midst of your daily activity? To do those things we must pay attention. God is as present as is the air we breathe. We don't pay too much attention to the air unless the wind is blowing or we can't catch our breath for some reason. We need to pay attention to God without God having, as he did with Saul, to blind us so we can see.

When we were created, we were created in the image of God. That means that every one of us has within us that imprint of God on our lives. It really is as though a portion of each of us is like memory foam; the imprint of the divine remains on us no matter what. When we add to that the Holy Spirit which we received at Baptism and continue to receive in greater measure as we ask for and receive transformation in our lives, we grow more and more and more Christ-like. The scripture says we go on from glory to glory, being transformed into Christ's image as we contemplate his glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Contemplation doesn't happen on the run. It requires quiet time. Even ten to twenty minutes of quiet time can make a tremendous difference. And the fact is; we make time for what is important. We make excuses for everything else. Believe me, I know. I am a great (or horrible, depending on how you look at it) excuse maker. But think of the wonder of being changed, transformed day by day into the likeness of Christ until we bear a striking family resemblance in word and deed, in thought and spirit to the Lord Jesus. What wondrous glory is ours for the asking and a little intention and attention on our part!!

In a remote Swiss village stood a beautiful church. It was so beautiful, in fact, that it was known as the Mountain Valley Cathedral. The church was not only beautiful to look at-with its high pillars and magnificent stained glass windows-but it had the most beautiful pipe organ in the whole region. People would come from miles away-from far off lands-to hear the lovely tones of this organ.

But there was a problem. The columns were still there-the windows still dazzled with the sunlight-but there was an eerie silence. The mountain valley no longer echoed the glorious fine-tuned music of the pipe organ.

Something had gone wrong with the pipe organ. Musicians and experts from around the world had tried to repair it. Every time a new person would try to fix it the villagers were subjected to sounds of disharmony-awful penetrating noises which polluted the air.

One day an old man appeared at the church door. He spoke with the sexton and after a time the sexton reluctantly agreed to let the old man try his hand at repairing the organ. For two days the old man worked in almost total silence. The sexton was, in fact, getting a bit nervous. Then on the third day-at high noon-the mountain valley once again was filled with glorious music. Farmers dropped their plows, merchants closed their stores-everyone in town stopped what they were doing and headed for the church. Even the bushes and trees of the mountain tops seemed to respond as the glorious music echoed from ridge to ridge.

After the old man finished his playing, a brave soul asked him how he could have fixed the organ, how could he restore this magnificent instrument when even the world's experts could not. The old man merely said it was an inside job. "It was I who built this organ fifty years ago. I created it-and now I have restored it."

That is what God is like.

God created you and me and he will restore us as much as we will allow him. But for us to be restored fully into the image of God in which we were created, we must pay attention! We have to have our eyes and ears open so we can see God's hand at work and hear his voice. We must have our minds attuned to God's frequency so we know when we are thinking God's thoughts and when we are off on a tangent of our own or of the enemy. And we must be conscious, recognizing our feelings so we can sense God's presence because, though God is always present, sometimes God's presence is palpable.

And when we bring all of these things together in our lives, then God works miracles every day and we are transformed into the image of Christ with ever increasing glory. Amen.