47 Seconds
Sermon from the First Sunday in Lent + February 18, 2024 + Pr. Craig Mueller
47 seconds. That’s all we have before we are distracted and lose focus. According to one researcher, 47 seconds is the average we stay on one screen when we are on our phones or computers. And it takes 25 minutes to return focus to a task after an interruption.1
47 seconds. Maybe that’s all I have before I lose you in this sermon!
I get it. I’m working on a Word document. I see that a text has come in. I come back to my document. Then if my email is open, I see my inbox has a present for me. Then I come back to my document. Then I decide I want to google a recipe for dinner. I come back to my document. Then I remember I need to send a work email but when I do, five new emails get my attention. And I am lost in a flurry of online assault. And when I get back to my original project, I’ve lost any ability I had to concentrate. As energizing as all this mental activity might be, scrolling between windows and screens, is downright tiring for my mind. Everything seems urgent. There is no downtime. And the stress begins to live in my body.
Sure, it takes some willpower on our behalf. But our gadgets and apps are designed to do this to us.
Fasting is one of the three Lenten disciplines. Sometimes I wish I could fast from the internet, or screens for an entire day. But so much of what I do is online. And what would I do if I didn’t have all that stimulation – and stress?
Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days. What did he do? No screens. No entertainment. No people to talk to. I would need to pack a lot of books, but what if there were no books there? Yikes!
I know some folks who love the season of Lent. The purple, the simplicity, the stripped-down stuff. But the wilderness? Even if we don’t hike into the wild, the metaphorical wilderness is stark, barren, and full of inner beasts. The Godly Play curriculum that we and some congregations use for Sunday School, use today’s gospel as one of their stories for young children. As kids run their fingers through large wooden sandboxes, the storyteller says, “the wilderness is a dangerous place. You only go there if you have to.”
In fact, as Mark tells it, the Spirit drives Jesus to the wilderness. It isn’t his choice. It isn’t a National Geographic expedition. It isn’t a cardiovascular hike. It isn’t backpacking.
Who’d want to be in the middle of nowhere with nothing but yourself and your demons. Your struggles and your doubts. And figuring out who you are and who you are called to be.
Two of the other gospels give some specific details about the temptation scene with Satan. Not Mark. It’s left to our imagination. I wonder what distractions Jesus faced. Did his mind wander? Did he want to throw in the towel? Did he argue with God? Did he question his calling?
Lent is a season to sharpen our focus. But that’s why it is so hard. Remember the 47 seconds? We have a hard time concentrating these days. Even if we pray, meditate, or practice yoga and attend to our breathing, our minds wander.
Maybe we should look to our spiritual ancestors for some help. I just finished a book by Jamie Kreiner called The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell us About Distraction. We think paying attention is a modern problem. Doesn’t it seem like all of us have ADHD? Kreiner shows that medieval monasteries were filled with people who wanted to focus on God, but couldn’t. Their minds wandered like ours, but they believed the distractions were associated with the Devil.
Attention was so important to these monks because they believed in a divine order and that God was worthy of their entire focus. One review of the book wonders why so “many of us have half-done tasks on our to-do lists and half-read books on our bedside tables, scroll through Instagram while simultaneously semi-watching Netflix, and swipe between apps and tabs endlessly, from when we first open our eyes until we finally fall asleep.” Could it be that all the things that corrode our attention do not merit it? At the end, the book The Wandering Mind moves beyond why our minds wander, to the more difficult, beautiful question of where our minds should rest.2
In other words, pay attention to where you pay attention.
Jesus’ wilderness test led to resolve and clarity about his calling. Perhaps we also need to get away—whatever that means for us—to discover who we are, who we are going to be, who God is calling us to be.
As one writer says, Jesus chose “deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.”3
Our gospel from Mark mentions that angels waited on Jesus. Even in a godforsaken, scary, grim place, filled with beasts and demons, there was grace. There was solace. There was peace. There was clarity. There was presence.
I wonder if Jesus reflected on God’s faithfulness. Perhaps remembering God’s covenant with his people, including Noah, that we heard about in our first reading. Perhaps there was a rainbow or another sign that reminded Jesus that God was in the business of salvation and making things new.
The wilderness is a dangerous place. You only go there if you have to. Like, during Lent.
Lent is a time for resolve. Lent is time for restraint, for fasting, for simplifying our lives. That’s why we have come together today. To encourage and challenge one another. To find focus. To turn off the screen. To go outside. To call or visit someone in need. To make a difference in someone’s life. To do something with our hands. Even to sit in silence or meditate.
And to discover here. In the emptiness. At this table. And in community, that God sends angels to wait on us.
47 seconds. Good thing divine patience, good thing God’s attention span isn’t like ours.
1 Gloria Mark, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. Hanover Square Press, 2023.
2 Casey Cep, What monks can teach us about paying attention. Book review in The New Yorker. January 23, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/what-monks-can-teach-us-about-paying-attention-wandering-mind-jamie-kreiner
3 Debie Thomas, “Beasts and angels,” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2924-beasts-and-angels
