This may not come as a surprise to those of you who know me, but I struggle with focus. It’s never to the point that I need some medicinal support, but it certainly has reared it’s ugly head in some pretty inopportune times. Sometimes my focus is really good and I get really engaged in a topic, conversation, or whatever and I get some end goal achieved or some relationship has really grown because I’ve been present. At other times, I’m floating and can’t put two sentences together.
I think my kids have inherited this trait of their dads. Their school work and report cards represents some really great focused students. Sometimes their homework time is done quickly because they have such great focus, and other times…not so much. Sometimes they hop from toy to toy and forget what they’re doing. Sometimes they’re so engrossed in a tv show or in play that it takes a super dad whistle to get their attention.
As I reflect on both our focus and attention issues, I’m reminded of a passage of intention and focus from the life of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus is constantly on the move – it’s the most hyper-active of the gospels and almost appears to have little real focus to it – it’s Jesus on the move. One day as Jesus is moving about with this huge demanding entourage, a religious expert approaches Jesus with a question. “Teacher, what’s the most important commandment?” The question was a trap. There were over 600 different commandments that a devout jew was called to follow and the debate as to which was the one commandment that reigned supreme was a point of constant debate and contention. Asking Jesus this question was an invitation into further scrutiny and taking sides. No matter what Jesus’ response, so thought the expert, Jesus was going to irritate someone.
With all the distractions and focus grabbers that Jesus had to live with, his response to this religious leader was laser targeted precise. “You want me to sum up all of God’s interactions with humanity? Here you go, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE, so Love this God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy. And here is the second, Love others as well as you love yourself.” He didn’t give the expert or his followers a commandment, he gave them an affirmation of faith, a creed, a prayer.
Jesus quoted to the expert what is called the Shema. It’s the prayer every Hebrew both begins and ends his or her day with. I recently picked up a book that explored the Shema and the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language has 8,000 words in it’s vocabulary. Compare that to the over 400,000 words that make up the English language, and you can quickly understand that in Hebrew a word can have multiple meanings in order to explain life. There are two words in this prayer that I find really interesting: Shema and Echad.
Shema is actually the first word of the prayer and it’s often simply translated as “hear”. But shema is so much more than hearing what’s going on around you. I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop and I’m “hearing” a lot of things – other customers, the baristas, the espresso machine and my iTunes playlist in my headphones. I’m hearing a lot but I’m not engaged in any of them but what I’m typing. To Shema something is to not just hear but to be moved to action. To shema means that I understand what is going on and I will do something about it. So, this prayer begins, Listen and know, understand and get ready to move into action…
The second word is echad and it’s often translated One. As Christians, we understand God to be known as triune – One God in three persons. Wouldn’t it have cleared up a large mess if Jesus had just decided to be more clear on this? Jewish scholars are now understanding that while echad can indeed mean single one-ness, in this case that definition may not be fully correct. They don’t step away from traditional mono-theism, but some think the use here may be more about singleness of intention. In other words when the shema says God is One, it maybe saying that God is THE God of all. This God is the single-focus for all of humanity.
In this light, what Jesus is inviting this expert, and all in ear shot, to is to “hear, know and get ready to jump into action because this God, our God – the intimate, almighty God – is the focus of life and our attention, therefore, love this God with all you are; and while you’re at it, love everyone else the way you’re hoping to be loved.”
Can you imagine what living with that kind of daily focus could do to someone? To be honest, it’s a little intimidating to me. Of course, it’s also extremely comforting! What could happen if those who claim to be followers of Jesus lived with that kind of intention and focus? What could happen if we listened and were ready to act? What could happen if we loved this way and experienced a God who was our intention? Would all the other demands and troubles of life be handled if we sought our God first?
I pray that sometime over this weekend, we’ll be able to pause and listen. I pray that in listening we’ll know that our God is close and longs to be our focus. I pray that in hearing we’ll let go and be ready to be loved and to love radically!
