“Stay awake… watch!”
--Mark 13:33-37
I was reading Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express
the other day –in preparation for a student book club I was
sponsoring. The girls chose the book
with the hope of going to see the new movie.
However, when it came time to discuss –most of them had not finished it
and some had not even started. A couple of girls spoke of how hard it was to
read –that Agatha Christie wasn’t a very clear writer. That claim, they
supported by saying they couldn’t always tell who was talking. I was sad for
them on two accounts. One, because I found the book quite charming and easy to read. And two, because while reading it, I had came upon a
scene that struck me as reflecting a very profound insight into not only the solving of a
murder mystery, but also the reading of literature and perhaps the living of a life. And then, later as I
contemplated it –in light of Sunday’s gospel reading from Mark—I found in it
also a beautiful theology of attention.(Do I imagine that Agatha Christie was intending any theological lessons in this novel? Probably not, and certainly not the kind it inspired in me... but... Here goes.)
The scene
went something like this: Poirot was relating to M. Bouc (and a doctor) something
he had seen – a clue—but was not yet ready to speculate what it meant, and yet Bouc
states without hesitation exactly what it must mean. Yet Poirot responds only with
silence. He is still waiting and watching.
He is still attending to the facts.
He was still alert. His “little gray cells” were still working. He is
still (staying) awake. While his friend (Bouc), has fallen asleep.
A good detective
does not rush to create his conclusion; he considers and carefully observes. To
rush to a conclusion would be to fall asleep. To not be awake to the evidence,
but to drowsily stumble toward a dream of what they might mean, what we would
like them to mean. What it would be convenient for them to mean.
To be a
good critical reader of texts one must stay awake and be alert to the words on
the page –the text—and not attempt to force a meaning upon the text, not dream
of what it should or could or might mean.
But to read precisely and exactly what is on the page. A good reader reads with eyes open, mind
open, awake to what is on the page, always prepared to be caught unprepared;
ready (and willing) to be surprised; alert even to our own somnambulism, and
ready to discover in the “overly familiar,” that which we have never truly seen
before.
Jesus says:
stay awake. Often this is read as an
injunction. Stay awake, or else! But
that isn’t what I hear. What I hear is something
akin to the voice of a friend telling us to watch this! They want us to see something
truly amazing –I’m thinking of Willie Mays chasing after a fly ball, or Roberto
Clemente throwing a runner out from deep left, or Gene Kelly dancing on a
piano, or that breathlessly tender scene in The
Best Years of Our Lives when the young girl helps her fiancé take off his
artificial arms!
Could it be
that Jesus isn’t warning us, but encouraging us? That He knows the importance
of everything we see, everyone we meet; that He knows that every challenge we
face is a portal of grace and that every kindness we share is a glimpse of
Heaven. What if He is telling us to stay awake, not in case the Lord comes, but
because He is coming –every moment of every day—in fact He is among us, even
now.
I hear Jesus saying, not –be careful!
Stay awake or you’ll get in trouble. I hear Him saying: You don’t want to miss
this! Not a second of it. So, stay
awake.
