On the Need to Pay Attention

 

On the Need to Pay Attention

January 14, 2021

 

Hebrews 2:1 reads, “Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” NRSV. The context for this verse in Hebrews is rather odd. It is the assertion that Jesus is more than an angel. OK I guess, although I certainly have never thought of him as merely an angel or the equivalent of an angel. When I read that verse recently however a very different context for it came to my mind. Between early 2002 and the end of 2017 I was a practicing parish pastor. Many times during those years I described myself as a “professional Christian.” I had some Sundays off to be sure, but mostly I preached every Sunday. Mostly I led a full worship service every Sunday and occasionally at other times as well. Mostly I led a Bible study or other adult education group every Sunday. I lived immersed in the Christian faith. I lived immersed in the Bible. I had answered what I considered (and consider) to have been a call from God to become a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In many ways the Christian faith was the center of my life. I paid an enormous amount of attention to it. I had to. Like I said, a was a professional Christian.

At the end of 2017, at age 71, I retired from active Christian ministry. I’ve been retired ever since. I’ve preached a few times in my retirement, but not often. Until the COVID-19 pandemic I taught a Bible study class at a local retirement residence, but I haven’t done that for nearly a year. Since the pandemic forced me into isolation starting in early March, 2020, I’ve written many essays for this blog discussing many different Christian issues, but writing something and clicking the “Publish” button on a blog site is hardly the same thing as teaching people in person. Writing is pretty much exclusively head work. In person work involves much more of a person. It can satisfy in ways head work alone does not. I just haven’t been as immersed in Christianity since I retired as I was when I worked as a parish pastor.

I have been aware for some time that I do not experience the Christian faith as deeply and as powerfully as I used to. That’s mostly because I’m retired, although the isolation caused by the pandemic has played no small role in my isolation as well. That isolation has cut off most of my in person contacts with other Christians. Yes, I’m married to a Christian pastor who is still working. We talk about faith some but really not all that much except to deplore the way popular American evangelical Christianity distorts and debases the faith. Not only do I no longer create and lead worship, I don’t even attend it. I watch the recorded worship service of the church I belong to every Sunday. It’s technically very slick, and my lead pastor is a very fine preacher even on video. But I no longer sing in the church choir because there is no live church choir. I don’t teach anyone anything. I don’t meet new people. I don’t get to know people I know a little better. No, my faith life is nothing like what it used to be.

I truly don’t intend this post to be nothing but a long complaint about how much I’ve lost since I retired and the pandemic shut so much down. I intend it more as a meditation on Hebrews 2:1, “Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” I believe that my experience in retirement and pandemic isolation illustrates just how true that statement is. Christian faith prospers much better in community than it does in isolation. It’s been said that the main things a community of faith does is gather the folks and tell the stories. Even if we go to church more for social reasons than for reasons of faith we still hear the stories when we’re there. We participate in the rituals of prayer and sacrament. At least to some extent we pay attention to what we have heard. Unless we’re new to the faith we’ve heard the stories before. We’ve heard them read and maybe even read them ourselves. We’ve heard sermons on them and maybe even given such sermons ourselves.

Yet it never hurts to hear them read again. It never hurts to hear them preached on again unless they’re preached on badly, as sadly they are so often. Exposure to the faith strengthens faith. Sharing the faith with people of faith in a community of faith strengthens faith. Experiencing the cycle of the Christian year from Advent through Christmas and Epiphany to Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and beyond again and again over the years strengthens faith. Yes, it is possible to keep and live into one’s Christian faith in isolation. People have done it in the past, the so-called desert fathers and mothers from much earlier centuries in the Christian tradition being prime examples. I suppose some people do it today. May God bless them in their efforts to do it. Yet doing it that way is much harder for most of us than is doing it in Christian community.

Hebrews 2:1 is correct. Our faith flourishes when we pay attention to it. It can atrophy when we don’t. So if you want your faith to be strong, find a good Christian community. Even in these times of isolation and remote worship at least some degree of Christian community is still possible. It’s not as good as in person community, but it’s a lot better than nothing. And of course even in private we can pay greater attention to what we’ve heard. You’ve almost certainly got a Bible. Read it, but read it for its overall message of God’s love and care for the least and the lost not the passages that give a contrary message of judgment and hatred. Find a kind of prayer that works for you and practice it regularly. Pay attention to what you’ve heard. It will strengthen your faith, and you’ll find it more than worth the effort.