Jesus Pays Attention
One of the first homework assignments that I can remember, is from the fourth grade. My teacher asked us to sit outside somewhere one afternoon and make a list of twenty things we observed happening. It seemed a simple task, but in fact it took effort; perhaps most importantly, it took time and attention. I remember a number of classmates not completing the assignment and complaining that it was silly. I remember them saying, “We’re not even doing anything in this assignment. How does it relate to what we’re learning? What’s the point?”
It’s a pertinent question that echoes the values of our culture. What’s the point of attention when we already have plans and projects? What’s the point of patience when we have deadlines? What’s the point of appreciation when we already know what’s important and what’s not, who’s in and who’s out?
What’s the point in paying attention?
That’s what Jesus’ followers are often asking. Remember when Jesus is walking in the midst of a large crowd, being pressed in on all sides, and a woman who has suffered from bleeding for twelve years makes her way anonymously through the crowd and touches his cloak (Mark 5:24-34). Jesus is so attuned to the people around him, that he can distinguish this touch of desperation and need from all the other incidental contact. He is moved by it. “Who touched me?” he asks. His disciples, who are probably playing crowd control and trying to keep Jesus on time for his next appointment, reply, “Who hasn’t touched you? What difference does it make?” And of course it makes a world of difference for the bleeding woman, who is healed as Jesus meets her faith with his full attention and love.
Or remember when some mothers and fathers are bringing their little children to Jesus (Mark 10:13-16). The disciples are indignant and speak sternly to the parents. “What’s the point?” they must be thinking to themselves. “Our Lord has much more important things to be doing.” But Jesus is moved by these little children and says, “What could be more important than these little ones? You could learn a thing or two about living in the kingdom, if you bothered to pay any attention to them.”
Or remember Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10)? We might chuckle at the thought of a “wee little man” climbing up a tree to see Jesus. (I know more than one Sunday Schooler who has come to the conclusion that this little man, who had lots of money, was in fact a leprechaun!) But when Jesus spots the tax collector and is moved to declare, “Zacchaeus, I’d love to eat with you today,” the crowd are not chuckling. They are grumbling with confusion and anger. “What’s he see in Zacchaeus? Doesn’t he know he’s a sellout to the Romans, a greedy, rich, dirty sinner?” But Jesus goes and feasts with Zacchaeus, and he is saved. No longer does he seek salvation in riches or power, but he gives away over half his possessions and rejoices in the love he has finally found.
The list of people whom Jesus notices, whose hearts he discerns, goes on and on. The widow quietly donating her coin at the temple, the blind man whom the crowd are trying to silence, the rich man whom Jesus looks upon and loves, the Samaritan woman at the well whose deep, dark story Jesus somehow fathoms before she tells him. It is common to think that Jesus’ knowledge and healings are supernatural, a bit of divine magic coursing through his mind and out his fingertips. The problem, though, with turning Jesus into a divine magician, is that we can then dismiss his deeds as being impossible; we deify him instead of following him. Perhaps the real miracle is much simpler. Perhaps it is Jesus’ humble power of attention and appreciation. He sees and cares for what his disciples and others dismiss. He is supremely attuned to others. He hears not only what they say with their lips, but what their bodies are saying, and what their hearts are hiding. And so he can speak a language that is “deeper than words” (cf. Rom 8:26), a language of compassion that touches their deepest wounds with healing.
His actions speak louder than words. They say something like this: “I see you. I know what you’re feeling and going through. You are God’s beloved child, and I love you.”
The Language of the
Heart
Luke, who wrote the books of Acts, tells us that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit swept down among the gathered Christ-followers and filled them up, they began “to speak in other languages” (Acts 2:4). Folks from all over the world suddenly hear these unlearned Galilean men speaking in their native tongues (Acts 2:6). It sounds magical to me. Now, far be it from me to say “No, this couldn’t have happened,” to delimit the power of God’s Spirit. But I am inclined to think that God is just as alive and active today as God was back then, that history is not split into a biblical age of supernatural miracles and a secular age of natural phenomena. And quite honestly, I just haven’t seen this kind of instantaneous knowledge-absorption in our world today (though I’ve seen many middle and high school students put it to the test—studying the morning of!).
So this week, I found myself wondering, “How did these followers of Christ ‘speak in other languages’?” And suddenly, it hit me. Remember Christ? His spirit of attention and appreciation? His remarkable attunement to the hearts of others, especially those to whom society was least attuned, those whom society dismissed? It was as though he could speak their language. He could get through to them, could speak to them, could heal them, because he knew the language of their heart. Could it be so simple, then, that the day of Pentecost is when Jesus’ spirit of attention and appreciation suddenly floods his followers and they are able, like him, to speak the language of the heart, the true “mother tongue” of humanity, where the grammar consists not of nouns and verbs, but of fear and love, sin and forgiveness, shame and belonging, hurt and healing, death and life?
The day of Pentecost has long been celebrated as the birthday of the church, and rightly so. But rather than think of it as the day of a grand, magical spectacle, the likes of which we will never see, I’m inclined now to think of it as the day when the followers of Jesus suddenly recognized, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that God’s love is for everyone. God’s love is the language of every heart. Pentecost happened at a grand Jewish festival, Hag Shavuot, the beginning of the wheat harvest, and there were people from all over the world in Jerusalem. The time was ripe indeed. The Spirit of Christ rushes upon his followers and opens their eyes to the hearts of every person they see. Because God’s love is for everyone.
It’s like Paul says. The Spirit doesn’t speak Hebrew or English. The language of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). It’s the language of the heart. It’s our first language, the language of God’s love.
“Parthians, Medes,
Elamites…”
Readers have long observed that the day of Pentecost is like a reversal of the Tower of Babel. Whereas in Babel language is the cause of great division and dispersion, at Pentecost it unifies. But its unity is unique, unlike what we usually see in our world. One of the strongest unifying forces we see time and again throughout history is war, or the threat of invasion, which calls people to band together, to defend and protect their own, to sacrifice themselves for the cause of their people. In other words, nationalism and other sorts of tribalism invite us to divide the world into us and them, and to prioritize the needs of ourselves over others.
Yet at Pentecost, the unifying force of the Spirit moves not against other nations but to embrace them and bring them together into one body. All of this happens at an Israelite festival, so it is all the more surprising that there is no rhetoric of “Israel first” or “for God and country.” Instead, “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome…Cretans and Arabs” (Acts 2:9-11)—all of them are addressed with the same spirit of attention and appreciation and love with which Jesus addresses widows and tax collectors and little children. According to Paul, this is the “mystery of Christ” (cf. Eph 3:1-12). The “nations” are equally embraced by God’s love. God’s love is for everyone.
Tomorrow is a holiday that confers great attention and appreciation toward those who devoted their lives to the nation in which we live. And it is good to be attentive and appreciative. That is the Spirit of Christ that we see in his life and among his followers at Pentecost. For me as a Christ-follower, Pentecost raises the difficult question of where I confer great attention and appreciation. Because the Spirit of Christ does not seem to play by the same boundaries that I do. It confers such great attention and appreciation upon the traitor tax collectors, widows, and children, upon the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, that it can speak their language. It does not presume that their interests are secondary to mine or their lives less sacred, but that God loves them as much as God loves me. What would it look like if the same Spirit that filled those first Christ-followers and enabled them to discern the hearts of others and to speak their language—what it would look like if that Spirit filled me?
Prayer
Whose attentive, appreciative Spirit
We know first in Christ—
Inspire us as his followers
By the same Spirit.
Disarm us of judgments and assumptions
That block us from the hearts of others
…
And move us to seek their hearts
And speak their mother tongue,
Your language of love.
In Christ, in whom there is no east or west: Amen.
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