Ash Wednesday Sermon 2/17/21: "Pay Attention Where You Pay Attention" (Pr. Craig Mueller)

Pr. Craig Mueller

Ash Wednesday

February 17, 2021

Pay Attention Where You Pay Attention

Sometimes I feel I have an attention deficit disorder. What about you?

Recall teachers saying, pay attention! Parents saying, pay attention. Spiritual guides saying, pay attention!

In the mid-1980s Michael Goldhaber, a former theoretical physicist was on to something that we know all too well. He predicted that the internet would dominate our lives and rewire our brains. He realized that human attention is a finite resource. And he was aware of the information glut already back then. There was more access to news, opinion, and entertainment than our minds could handle.

Pay attention to one thing and you ignore something else. It’s called by some “the attention economy.” Especially during the pandemic, this attention economy seems to involve every part of our lives. Advertising. Journalism. Media. Politics. Most of the polarizing factors in our country are attentional. Who gets attention and who gets ignored?

What are we to do? Goldhaber quotes this maxim: attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention. (Howard Rheingold)

Today’s Ash Wednesday scripture readings seem desperate to cut through our limited attention span and open our eyes to truths we’d rather ignore. The prophet Joel announces God’s judgement and calls the people to repent. We could imagine Joel with a megaphone, shouting to folks who eyes are otherwise glazing over. Sanctify a fast. Call an assembly. We’ve got some serious business to do. Repent. Turn to the Lord with all your heart.

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday is a bit of a shock to our system in a number of ways. And one is the augmented, longer than normal confession of sin. Wait! Isn’t sin an old-fashioned word? We are all too quick to point out the evils in others. We aren’t the ones who enforced slavery. We aren’t the ones who have sent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Yet, as a community we have been complicit.

We will take our time with this catalogue of sins, if you may—that they truly catch our attention. Pride, envy, hypocrisy, apathy. Neglect of human need and suffering. Indifference to injustice and cruelty. Prejudice toward those who differ from us. Waste and pollution of God’s good creation. We live as we have no need for God, no need for salvation, no need for anyone but ourselves. Pay attention to what you pay attention to.

The cross of ashes is an attention-getter if there ever was one. Especially for a death-denying culture. You are dust and to dust you shall return. Life is short. All things will die. It is our nature. It is the nature of all things.

One colleague said we have had enough death and loss in the past year. Maybe we should cancel Ash Wednesday! But hold on.

As folks living with terminal illness often say, confronting human limitation and loss opens our eyes to the wonder of life, the gift of life, the treasure of life. When we are young, we think we will live forever. Then something stops us in our tracks. A pandemic. A loss. An illness. A heartbreak.

 And suddenly each and every day is a treasure. What really matters? Pay attention to where you pay attention. As Jesus says in our gospel, “where your treasure is—where you put your attention—there your heart will be.”

Mary Oliver was a poet whose words help us pay attention to nature and the gift of life. Fellow-poet and writer Christian Wiman writes of a time that Mary Oliver was in downtown Chicago for a speaking gig. Somewhere on crowded Michigan Avenue Mary noticed a small bloody bird on the sidewalk. She picked up the dead pigeon and showed the small group with her where a hawk likely had struck. Then she stuck the dead bird in her pocket! Even as she was facing her own cancer, she didn’t look away. She paid attention to a sign of mortality and all that it means to be a creature.

That is not to say that there aren’t times to lament. Perhaps this Ash Wednesday is one of them. The past year still seems unbelievable and we may tear up or cry at surprising times. Sometimes we feel so helpless and alone. We want to shout out to the universe, get God’s attention: where are you? We’ve had enough. A pandemic of despair. Hatred. Scapegoating. Our intercessions tonight will be in the form of lament, a biblical way of focusing our attention on our human vulnerability.

Paul tries to get our attention with a wake-up call: now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the change to make amends. Now is the time to begin again. This day is all we really have. Be reconciled to God. Make your life count.

Finally, Jesus gives us the final Ash Wednesday whammy. Pay attention to your religious motivations! Don’t be hypocrites. Now that could make us all run away from anything religious at all. But wait! Jesus assumes that we will observe the “big three” ancient spiritual practices. Giving alms—in other words, practicing generosity, especially toward those most in need. Prayer—connecting with the holy in liturgy, meditation, and living a prayerful life. And fasting—stripping away non-essentials from our lives, curbing our appetites for a day or season. So embrace these and other spiritual and religious practices—not to impress others but to bring you closer to the priceless treasure of life itself.

Pay attention to where you pay attention. We can’t escape the attention economy. But we can look at the ways our attention is manipulated, valued, degraded. The inward-looking season of Lent invites us to take a look at how our minds work, how we value our time and the time of others. How we use our limited resources for the common good.

The gift of Lent is a new beginning. Humbling for sure, as we journey through another Lent at home leading to yet another Easter that we will not be able to be in person. Our hearts are heavy just to think of it.

Yet, there will be resurrection, there will be Easter, there will be spring.

So pay attention to the sins we will confess. Pay attention to the ashen cross on your brow. Pay attention to the laments of your heart. Pay attention to your motivations. Hard work, indeed. The discipline of Lent, it is called, after all.

But before we get overwhelmed and give up before we’ve started, pay attention to the gift, the grace, the blessing of Ash Wednesday. A God like a tender parent who is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. A Christ, our greatest treasure, who joins us in our wilderness trek toward Easter. And a Spirit whose desire is the healing and liberation of all creation.

Charlie Warzel, “The Internet Rewired Our Brains. This Man Predicted It Would.” New York Times, 4 February 2021.

Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art