Life's Distractions

 My head was still sleepy on my Pillow when I began to think about the concept of   ‘distractions.’

Distractions that disable us from doing a simple task.

More specifically things that interest, and move us, away from.  Away from Jesus’ invitation to live our lives as we desire to live. Or at very least hope to live.

Distractions are so clever, sometimes, we don’t even realize that we are captured by their power to move us past our center.

So I got up, made my coffee then looked up the Greek word for distraction: 

“ecstatic, ecstasy, a change of place, confusion of spirit, alienation.”

In Hebrew — an "illusion or terror."

 “Ecstatic means to remove oneself, to alter/ shake, to confuse, to bewitch, to lose one’s wit, go out of one’s mind.”

I am thinking about how easily we allow ourselves to be taken in by all the world’s distractions.

How we move, step by step, in directions the lead us further, and further, away from God’s way for our lives.

Two recent Sunday Gospels are good examples of how this distraction works.

The first Gospel comes in Luke’s chapter 10.  Where Martha got all in a knot because Mary was not doing her part to help with the meal preparations -- just sitting with Jesus listening to his every word. 

The distraction is Martha's putting Jesus in the middle of the problem.   Jesus says to Martha:  "Martha, Martha you ar worried and distracted by many things...

The other examples comes in Luke’s chapter 12.  Where the rich man decides to tear down all his barns and built larger ones to store his abundant harvest.  And then sit down to enjoy, for himself, his good fortune. The response: 

 ²⁰But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” ²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

But stop, just before that little story, about the rich man, we are told of another issue:

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ ¹⁴But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ ¹⁵And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ :...(Luke 12)

Now, if we are not careful we can miss the obvious distractions here.  

We can miss the point of Jesus’ story.

The point is not about the brother's inheritance, the rich man abundance or Martha's whining.   It is about them just thinking about them selves.  it is about not thinking about what God would want for their lives.

Do you remember what happened to Jesus after his Baptism?

He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to live for forty day. There he was tempted by the distractions posed by devil.

He was tempted by all of the things we get tempted by:  playing God instead of listening to God.                                                                                                                        

My simple interpretation.

God knows what kind of world we have been born into.

God also know the temptations we face; the distractions surrounding us each minute.

In our world we live with a lot of distractive noise. 

This noise is so much more real, and clearer, and easier to hear and understand. Then God’s word.