God in the "Attention Economy"

A Sermon for the 9th Sunday After Pentecost

In today’s Gospel reading, we heard the account of Lord’s disciples as they sailed across the Sea of Galilee immediately after the feeding of the five thousand. Christ Himself was not with them in the ship, since He had remained behind, wishing to withdraw alone to a mountain to pray. During the night, the sea began to stirred up by a ferocious storm. As the disciples’ ship was being tossed to and fro by the waves, suddenly in the dead of night they saw Jesus walking on the water. Although they had just witnessed so great a miracle as the feeding of the five thousand, nevertheless they still assumed that no living man could possibly be walking on water in the midst of the stormy sea — “and they cried out for fear” (Matt. 14:26), thinking they were seeing some sort of ghost or demon. But Jesus immediately spoke to comfort them, assuring them that it was He and that there was not any cause to be afraid.

St. Peter — always the most zealous of the disciples — then made an extremely bold reply: “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water” (Matt. 14:28). And Christ — always so patient and so condescending with us sinners — answered: “Come” (Matt. 14:29). And St. Peter too began to walk on the water, even amidst all the tumult of those stormy waves.

But then St. Peter made a terrible mistake: he took his eyes off Christ. He began to look around. He began to look at the roaring winds and the crashing waves. He began to think of the terrible danger surrounding him on all sides. He began to realize about the utter impossibility of what he was doing. And as he did so, he began to sink into the depths of the sea.

My brothers and sisters, each one of us ought to take this Gospel story closely to heart! It reveals to us a terrible but extremely important truth: that something so seemingly insignificant as our attention can be the difference between finding salvation from even the most terrible dangers one the one hand, and perishing totally on the other. As long as St. Peter fixed his attention on Christ, he was able to do the impossible. But as soon as his attention became distracted from Christ, he nearly lost his very life itself.

We should also be brought to great spiritual sobriety by the fact that even St. Peter — the Chief of the Apostles himself — could literally be standing right in front of the incarnate God-Man Jesus Christ as He was performing mighty miracles, and yet somehow still become distracted and preoccupied with vain and worldly thoughts. What, then, of us? How much more must we then take heed to ourselves, and with how much more vigilance and care must we then struggle to keep the eyes of our hearts fixed upon Christ!

And truly, we ourselves are not at all strangers to the roaring winds and crashing waves of the storm of this temporal life. We live in what many now term “the attention economy.” We are surrounded on all sides by the most powerful corporations and the most advanced technology in the history of the world, all cleverly preying on our psyches to keep our attention constantly fixed on the desires and cares of this world. From morning till night, we are assaulted by advertisements and app notifications, status updates and message requests. We are bombarded constantly by the news, with its headlines telling us “of wars and rumours of wars” (Matt. 24:6), of the most recent economic developments, the latest celebrity scandals, or the promises and prevarications of our politicians. This is all on top of our own personal cares and concerns: the bills coming due, the future of our careers, the lives of our children, the problems in our marriages. In short, the entire world is screaming out to us for our attention — sometimes so loudly that we can hardly even hear ourselves think. But despite the world’s unshakeable insistence, the question nevertheless remains: are all these multitudes of cares and concerns really as important as we might think?

Our abbot, Fr. Seraphim, once told me a story from the time he was a novice. At that time in his monastery there was an elderly monk. Some of the fathers noticed that this monk appeared to be getting lost as he walked around the monastery, and so Fr. Seraphim was given the obedience to take him to the neurologist to be examined for dementia. When the monk arrived, they began to go through the standard battery of questions for neurological patients. “Sir, do you know what day it is?” The monk immediately answered — but gave the Old Calendar date, thirteen days behind the secular calendar! “Are you quite sure about that?” the doctor asked. “Oh yes, absolutely!” replied the monk. “Well, do you know who the President of the United States is?” The monk said: “I have no idea!” Finally — and this was during the time of the First Gulf War — the doctor asked what the monk thought about the current conflict in the Middle East. “We’re in a war??” exclaimed the monk in surprise. So in the eyes of the world, the obvious conclusion was that the monk had completely lost his mind. But of course, this was not true at all: he was simply pious. His attention was simply fixed firmly on “the one thing needful” — on Christ, on the Church, and on the state of his own soul.

And, my brothers and sisters, we must all ask ourselves a very serious question: what exactly did that monk lose by his single-minded devotion to Christ God? I believe the answer is clear: absolutely nothing at all. The follow-up question then becomes obvious: what exactly would we ourselves lose if we, too, began to practice the simple-hearted piety of this monk? I believe the answer is just as clear: absolutely nothing at all. On the contrary, we will have gained the “pearl of great price,” for which it is worth selling the entire world.

Perhaps you might be thinking: “That might be all well and good for you monks, but I live in the world, and I cannot afford the luxury of such ignorance.” Well, I’m certainly not trying to tell you to abandon all your duties and shirk all of your responsibilities. What I am suggesting is that each of you acquire the habit of asking yourselves: “Are all these things really so important? Is it really necessary for me to spend so much time reading the news, scrolling through social media, worrying about the future and all the multitude of problems about which I can do nothing at all?” After all, it was not to monks but to all Christians that the Lord said: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34). In fact, what I am suggesting is eminently practical: stop spending time on things that do not have any effect at all on your life at this very moment — and which therefore only serve to keep your mind and heart separated from Christ.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes:

The man… whose meditation is always upon God drives away the demons from himself and uproots the seed of their wickedness. The heart of the man who oversees his soul at all times is made joyous by revelations. He who gathers within himself the vision of his understanding beholds therein the Radiance of the Father. The man who despises every distraction beholds his Master within his heart.

Homily 15

And later he writes:

The man of many concerns can never be meek and peaceful, because the necessary demands of his affairs, in which he wears himself out, compel him to be involuntarily and unwillingly disturbed, and completely disperse his calm and stillness, but without distractions the devil has no means of entering the soul.

Homily 19

In the eyes of the world, what more pressing concern could St. Peter possibly have had than the fact that he was standing at night in the middle of the sea, surrounded by terrible winds and threatening waves, with absolutely nothing but water under his feet? But it was not his circumstances that almost caused St. Peter to drown: on the contrary, it was his own distraction, his own fear, and his own forgetfulness of God. The Holy Fathers assure us that exactly the same thing is true for each of us as well. There is no calamity that can possibly do us any harm at all, as long as the eyes of our hearts remain fixed firmly on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And truly, He is standing before each and every one of us just as surely as He was standing before St. Peter in today’s Gospel story. He is ready to work magnificent and incomprehensible miracles for each one of us just as surely as He was for St. Peter that night on the Sea of Galilee. No matter what storms and waves, no matter what fears or dangers are threatening to engulf us in our own lives, all we need do is fix our eyes on Christ and call out in simplicity of heart like St. Peter: "Lord, save me” (Matt. 14:30).

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Revelations 3:20-22

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.