Pay Attention!

Half a dozen times in the Gospels, Jesus utters these strange words: Whoever has ears, let them hear. - Matthew 11:5. It stands out because it’s sort of awkward and doesn’t sit well in English. But scholars who try to get at the feel of the Greek sometimes paraphrase it like this: “Pay attention!”

In fact, so much of what Jesus was about could be summarized by those two words: Pay attention.

In the 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Shug Avery, the character known for her wisdom, puts it this way in the central theological dialogue of the book:

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”

- Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Whether it’s beauty or suffering or love or just the presence of another human being, are we noticing? Are our ears open to listen? Are our eyes open to see? Are our eyes open? If so, we may just encounter God along the way today.