Instructions for Living A Life: Pay Attention
Shady Grove United Methodist Church   -  

This sermon begins a three-part series called Instructions for Living A Life which is based on a section of the poem “Sometimes” by Mary Oliver, in which she identifies life’s instructions as: “Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It.” We start with the instruction to “pay attention” – a sometimes difficult thing to accomplish in our modern culture built on noise and information…on constant movement and revolving door schedules. Where in all that hurry do we find ourselves, much less God? In this text, Jesus invites his disciples to “come away to a deserted place and rest a while” — it is a call to us even today to be intentional about stepping off the hurried treadmill of life, in order to focus our attention on being still and knowing that God is God. It is a call to do as Jesus did – to practice strategic stillness. Scripture: Mark 4:33-38a & 6:30-34, 45-46