“Are You Paying Attention

“Are You Paying Attention?”

Text: Luke 4:14-21

© January 21, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen

Back around the 1700s, many Protestant churches in America appointed one of their members to be the tithingman. And the tithingman had a very important job in the life of the church. His job was to ensure that order was maintained during the Sunday worship services. And so the church member who was appointed to be the tithingman would sit at a table in the front of the sanctuary, usually right in front of the pulpit, and the tithingman would keep an eye on the congregation to make sure that everyone behaved themselves.

In particular, it was the tithingman’s job to make sure that everyone stayed awake during the sermon – no easy undertaking, as you might imagine. But to help him carry out that task, the tithingman was equipped with a rather long pole with a big, hard knob on the end of it. And so if the tithingman saw some man or some boy nod off, he would pick up his pole, walk down the aisle and poke the man or boy in the head to wake him up. And quite often the tithingman poked them hard enough to give them a lump or bruise on their forehead. In the case of women or girls who fell asleep, they got off a little bit easier. Because for them, the tithingman used the other end of his pole, which usually had a rabbit’s foot or a fox tail on it, and he would wave that in their face to tickle them awake.[1]

You know, I don’t think that was such a bad idea. So after the worship service this morning, if you’d like to apply to be the tithingman for St. Philip’s, get in touch with Father Walt and I’m sure he’d be glad to set you up with a good sturdy pole to use.

But when you think about it, the original purpose of the tithingman wasn’t all that bad. His job was to make sure that people’s eyes didn’t get droopy and fall shut. Because when our eyes close and we stop paying attention, we end up missing what God is trying to say to us. And although you might not think so, every once in a while during a worship service, God does try to get some message across to us.

And that’s what Jesus was saying to those people in Nazareth. As they gathered for worship, Jesus read to them from the prophet Isaiah where it says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” But Jesus must have wondered if they were paying to attention. So he basically said, “Wake up. Wake up and listen to those words. God wants us to bring good news to the poor. God wants those words to be fulfilled. Bringing good news to the poor – that’s what God wants us to be doing.”

But even though that was the sermon that Jesus preached there in Nazareth, sometimes we hesitate to do that. You see, whether we like to admit it or not, we often operate under the assumption that, generally speaking, if someone is rich, it’s because they have been blessed by God with that wealth. And if God has looked with favor on someone and made it so they’ve become rich, there must be a reason that God has done that. And so we figure that if someone is rich, it’s God’s way of rewarding them for being a good, faithful person.

And so the flip side of that kind of thinking is that if some people are poor, it must be a sign that God is punishing them. And if God is punishing them, we figure it must mean it’s because they’re sinners, because they’re bad people. And so we figure that if people are poor because God disapproves of them, it’s only appropriate for us to look down on poor people and express our disapproval as well.

If you don’t think that’s true, consider this. Shortly after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, two pictures appeared in the newspapers. The pictures were almost identical. Both pictures showed families carrying armloads of groceries out of a flooded store that obviously wasn’t open for business. But the caption for the one picture described the scene as a family finding food in order to survive. And the caption for the other picture said it was a family looting a local store.

If the pictures were almost identical, why did they end up with such different captions? Well, the difference was that the family that was said to be “looting” was a black family. And around New Orleans, generally speaking, if you’re black, you’re poor. And if you’re poor, it’s obvious that you can’t be up to anything good. And so they were described as looting that store.

But in the other picture, the family coming out of that store with food in their arms was white. And around New Orleans, generally speaking, if you’re white, you’re not poor. And so we assume that people who have money don’t do bad things like stealing or looting. No, in a time of crisis, rich people go out and “find” food.[2]

Wake up, Jesus says. Pay attention. Our job as Christians isn’t to accuse the poor. Our job isn’t to blame the poor. Our job isn’t to condemn the poor. No, our job as Christians is to bring good news to the poor.

But in America today, focusing on the poor and helping people who are in need isn’t always everyone’s top priority. No, the tendency that many people have is to focus on themselves and to see how much stuff they can get for themselves.

Back when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, he was asked, if he could, what one book he would give to the Communist people in the Soviet Union to show them why the United States was such a special country. What book do you think he chose? He didn’t pick the Bible. He didn’t pick some book about our Constitution or our form of government. No, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that if he could put one book into the hands of all the Soviet people to show them what makes America so great, it would be the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog.[3] In other words, if you want to know why America is so great, look at all the stuff we can buy for ourselves!

But again Jesus wants to bump us in the head with that pole and say, “Wake up! Pay attention! Focusing just on yourself, and obsessing about getting more and more stuff for yourself, that’s not what life is all about. That’s not what God wants us to be doing with our lives. No, God wants us to direct our attention to the people in the world around us who need our help. God wants us to direct our attention to bringing good news to the poor.”

Well, how are we supposed to do that? When it comes to poor and needy people, are we supposed to feel guilty that we have stuff and they don’t? That doesn’t seem to do too much good. Should we be willing to take up a collection and send a donation somewhere? Well, that certainly seems to be closer to what Jesus has in mind.

But when it comes to the poor, I think that beyond feeling guilty, and beyond just making out a donation check, Jesus calls us to enter in to relationships with the poor. Instead of looking at poverty as a problem that needs to be solved, I believe Jesus calls us to enter in to relationship with poor people and to see them as human beings, people just like you and me, people who God loves, and people who God commands us to love. And when you think about it, it’s kind of hard to love someone if you have never met them face to face. It’s kind of hard to love someone if you’ve never seen them, if you don’t even know what their name is.

At a conference I attended last summer, something one of the speakers said really stuck with me. The speaker said, “What marks you as a Christian is not who you will feed, but who you will eat with.”[4] What marks you as a Christian is not who you will feed, but who you will eat with. In other words, it’s one thing to put a can of soup on a poor person’s front porch, ring the door bell, and run off. But it’s quite another thing to take the time and make the effort to stop and get to know that person, or get to know that family, and help share with them the good news that they are loved by God.

I recently came across a story that Tony Campolo told. Tony Campolo was a professor at a Christian college in the eastern part of the state, and he’s someone who travels widely and speaks at all kinds of conferences and seminars. One night it seems he was on the road and in a different time zone than he was used to, and so he had a hard time falling asleep. So he got up and walked down the street where his hotel was and came across an all-night donut shop. As he sat there at a table eating his donut, all of a sudden a group of prostitutes walked in, apparently finished with their work for the night. And so Tony sat there and sort of listened in on their conversation.

The one woman, a woman named Agnes, said, “Guess what? Tomorrow’s my birthday. Tomorrow I’ll be 39.” But one of the other women snapped back, “So what? Do you want me to go out and get you a birthday cake? Do you want me to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you?” But Agnes replied, “Why do you have to be so mean? I’m just saying that tomorrow is my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should I have a birthday party? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”

When the women left, Tony went up to the donut shop owner and asked him if those women came into his shop every night. He said yes, they did. So Tony got together with that donut shop owner and they began to plan out a surprise birthday party for that prostitute. So the next night when Agnes walked in, everyone yelled, “Surprise,” and she couldn’t believe it. She got so choked up, in fact, she had a hard time blowing out the candles on her cake. And when the time came to cut the cake, Agnes asked if it would be OK if they didn’t cut it. She said that since it was the first birthday cake she had ever been given, she wanted to keep it for a while and treasure it.

As the party was about to break up, Tony asked if he could say a prayer. The donut shop owner looked at him and said, “I didn’t know you were a minister. What kind of church do you belong to?” Tony said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” The donut shop owner said, “No, you don’t. There aren’t any churches like that. But if there was, I’d join it. Yeah, I’d join a church like that.”[5]

Is that the kind of church we want to be a part of? Do we want to be a part of a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning? That story really made me think. At first it made me think that what Tony Campolo did was wrong. After all, if he was a real minister, shouldn’t he have told those women that what they were doing was wrong? Instead of serving up cake and ice cream and being so chummy with them, shouldn’t he have denounced what those women were doing with their lives?

But when you read the Gospels, you find that Tony Campolo did just what Jesus did. Because there in the Gospels, we are told that Jesus associated with prostitutes, that Jesus associated with tax collectors and thieves, that Jesus associated with the poor. But instead of wagging his finger at them and condemning them, more often than not Jesus started out by having them over for dinner and throwing a party for them. He did that to help them experience the good news that they are people who God loves.

Today is known as Christian Unity Sunday. But in many respects the unfortunate reality is that quite often there is not a spirit of unity among the various Christian denominations. We don’t all agree on all the fine points of theology. We don’t all agree on the “right” way to worship God. But where I believe we can find that unity is by joining together with one another in bringing good news to the poor. We can find that unity by waking up and paying attention to the mission that Jesus has set before us.