What does it mean to be attentive? Does it mean being constantly vigilant, missing nothing? I believe that attentiveness is very context- specific; for example, we usually pay swift attention to red alerts that are issued to protect public safety, we go running immediately if a child falls in the playground, a person in distress has our full and immediate attention. But nobody can remain permanently on alert. Too much unremitting attention can be counterproductive to the creative process. Scientists, artists, musicians, authors, and even preachers testify that breakthroughs of insight often come when they have taken a break from extended periods of concentration. 

The Gospel text for this week tells us to place first things first. The things of God are to be given the most urgent priority in our lives.  Neither fear nor worldly distraction are to lure us away from God’s tender, attentive care. There’s that word again that we heard in the Gospel last week: distraction! There are many distractions that pull us away from God’s word, many projects and pursuits that divert attention from the things of God. 

I say this to state that today’s Gospel should not be taken as a call to endless vigilance. Today’s Gospel shows us clearly that neither the servants awaiting the return of the master nor the homeowners on guard against thieves were able to remain on watch 24/7.  And this call to constant alertness may not be exactly in line with Jesus’ teaching, at least not the way Luke tells it: “Be dressed for action”, “Be like those waiting for their master to return.” It is helpful to read these in the context of the words that come before them “Do not worry about your life,” “Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”. Perhaps the kind of attentiveness that Luke is talking about refers to the way we live our lives on a daily basis, which puts us in a state of readiness: a state of being attuned to the things of God. 

One way to look at this might be to look back on last week’s Gospel question:  what does it mean to be rich toward God? we are reminded again how easily we can be distracted from the riches of the Kingdom of God which God is offering to us. Being rich towards God means seeing all of God’s creation as an abundant gift from a generous God, a gift which is not in short supply. 

The Christian disciple is perhaps a complex mixture of Martha, Mary, Peter and yes, even Judas. There is a little bit of each of them in each of us. We live our lives in the shadow of the cross, but we also live in the presence of the risen Christ. To be rich before God is to live in daily companionship with Jesus, at the table, in extravagant acts of compassion and generosity, in moments of worship. Sadly, we live our lives in a world that is obsessed with a scarcity mindset, which tempts us to close in on ourselves and give little, all in a world where violence and cruelty, crucify people every day. 

But to follow Jesus is to adopt a mindset of abundance. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus provides blessed abundance: At Cana he produces 180 earthenware jars of wine, way in excess of what the wedding guests can drink. He feeds five thousand hungry people with bread and fish, and there are twelve baskets of food left over. After fishing all night, Peter hasn’t caught a thing, but Jesus tells him to cast his nets on the other side of the boat and when he does so, his catch is so enormous that the nets can’t hold it all. When we look at creation, we see that God has a mindset of abundance and if God isn’t stingy, then neither should we be. Neither receiving nor sharing is possible when we have closed hands, closed minds, or closed spirits. Being rich before God includes opening our perceptions towards the ways that God’s generosity manifests itself in the world. 

How then does this relate to the image of servants who watch day and night as contrasted with a homeowner who fails to anticipate the arrival of a thief?   Being on “high alert” and being “asleep at the wheel” are not our only options. We can focus our anticipation, our watchful waiting, in ways that are neither fixated nor fuzzy. We can systematically cultivate tacit awareness, peripheral vision. Instead of  being disposed to what we have been conditioned to look for:  “Seek out this, look out for that …;”  we can develop a disposition of awareness. In Gospel terms, we can position ourselves to be surprised by God. 

Surprise is what the master’s servants surely experience when he at last appears and turns their expectations upside down – serving the very ones who have served him. The Kingdom of God which we are instructed to strive for is presented to us, not as compensation for achievement, but as a gift, just as the banquet was for the servants in today’s Gospel story. 

Think back to those creative people I referred to, who in taking a break, encounter a breakthrough. It does not “just happen”. One must carefully nurture disciplined awareness over time, and through that cultivated awareness, fresh insight comes when and from where we are not looking. An accomplished painter put it this way: “I listen to the colors, who tell me, in good time, and in no uncertain terms, how I must proceed”. The painting thus produced is at once a gift to, from and through the artist. 

So the servants go about their regular work from that time on, attuned to the one for whom they are working. The house owner who falls asleep at the switch, misses the thief for whose arrival he has been watching for so long and hard. The key to attentiveness for the Christian is to be attuned to the movement of God through daily practice.  Amen.

 

 

 

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