Who doesn’t enjoy a good magic trick? Even as we may feel foolish for being taken in, it’s fun to be dazzled. And a good magician knows how to dazzle by diverting our attention. I read a profile of a "theatrical pickpocket," one of the world’s most talented, who can lift a watch off a wrist or remove keys from people’s pockets without them being aware. How could anyone be so dumb? They’re not. They’re normal. The pickpocket is able to get in close, direct their attention where he wants, and then take what he wants.
Jesus certainly got people’s attention with both his teaching and his “deeds of power,” or “signs,” as John’s gospel calls them. As this week’s passage begins, we see that the crowd whom Jesus had given the slip by walking on water to his disciples’ boat, and then “magically” getting the boat to its destination, is once again searching for him. They can’t figure out how he got to the other side of the lake.
So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
Their attention, he says, is on their immediate needs, not on the Life of God at loose in the world. Another group he admonishes for only being interested in the miracles, and for their flash value, not the life-altering power to which they point. One way or another, if our attention is on the temporal, on what we think we need, or what we’re impressed by, we’re apt to miss so much of what God is doing in and around us. Jesus invites us to focus on the eternal – and thus to bring transforming power into the everyday.
“Do not work for the food that perishes,” he says, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
The evil one tries to get us to focus on all the things that don't matter, so that he can rob us of our peace, our power. Then anxiety and depression and conflict increase - as do wars and advertising budgets. Is your focus today on things that give life or sap life? There's something to pray about...
Jesus is not a magician – but as we allow him to get close to us, he can draw our attention to where it needs to be, on his love and power and grace. He just may pick our pockets of all the valuables that mean nothing, and then, presto!, from behind our ears produce a pearl of great price, and invite us to hold it tight.
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