It’s so very easy to be distracted! Here in Glencraig Church, we are surrounded by extraordinary microphones and sound equipment, and strange personnel operating all this paraphernalia. Yet to a listening audience, we are pretending this morning in Church that everything is normal! So, we have to really make sure that we focus on what we are supposed to be doing

It is no bad thing to have to focus our attention!

There were two men, one old and one young, pushing their trolleys around IKEA when they collide.

The old guy says to the young guy, “Sorry about that. I’m looking for my wife, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.

The young guy says, “That’s OK. It’s a coincidence. I’m looking for my wife too; I can’t find her and I’m getting a little desperate.

The old guy says, “Well, maybe we can help each other. What does your wife look like?”

And the young guy says, “Well, she is 24 years old, tall, blond hair, blue eyes, long legs, she’s wearing a small top and white shorts... What does you wife look like?”

And the old guy says... “It’s alright – let’s look for yours.”

It’s far too easy these days to be distracted by a bombardment of images and messages, teachings and movements, and things that often seem to run completely contrary to what we are supposed to be really focusing our attention on!

Is it any wonder that Church seems to be competing as just one option in a kind of market place that simply didn’t exist 150 years ago when Glencraig was first consecrated; no emails, texts, TV or internet! Distractions, as such, were very limited then; but now, if we’re lucky, church is just ranked beside all our other commitments and involvements.

The only way we can make our Christian commitment the centre of our lives is by focusing on it; it’s not always easy and every relationship, as our relationship with God, needs to be worked at, and our attention given to it!

We used to live in the middle of the Irish countryside in Abbeyleix in County Laois. When we returned home from living in London, it really was, for my parents, a ‘coming home’. But for me, I was moving from the only real world I knew, and that was the centre of a busy capital city. I hardly knew which end of a cow was which, and they still terrify me to this day! But once ‘home’, a good excuse for a day off from boarding school at Kilkenny College (and I can hardly believe I’m saying this) was to attend the major ploughing championships! As a city person, it all didn’t mean a great deal to me at the time, to be honest; but I do remember the tractor-drivers themselves, because their concentration on the task in hand was intense!

The ploughman has to fix his eye on a point ahead of him if he wants to keep his furrow straight. And so Jesus’ words, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back...” A disciple of Jesus has to be truly fixed and focused on the goal, not to be distracted, but to live the kind of life that Jesus has called all of us to live. In other words, to make Him the very centre of our lives.

So it’s good for us to be focused, as individuals and as a Church family, especially in an anniversary year; to really ask ourselves, not just where have we come from, but perhaps more importantly, where are we going! Jesus is to be our focus. Get that right and everything else falls into place. Even in credit crunch days, when we see only doom and gloom, our Christian commitment is more important than ever, for our own sake, and especially, for the sake of the thousands who already live in abject poverty.

For those who do not know, Glencraig Church sits at the mouth of a lively community here in Seahill, Craigavad. We have two wonderful schools just down the road, Rockport School and Glencraig Integrated Primary School. Hundreds of people pass by this Church everyday (perhaps twice a day) and I hope by simply being here, Glencraig Church provides a focal point for people’s lives, and simply, by its very presence, it constantly reminds us that we all need a focal point which takes ultimate precedence over all our lives and the busy schedules that we all lead. What an influence we can be to the community and to the world around us.

It’s very interesting that today’s New Testament Gospel is about paying taxes to Caesar. It’s a trick question! But Jesus makes the distinction very clear; you let Caesar look after Caesar, but you concentrate on the God who made you and loves you!

How grateful we are to a God whose Church still survives not because of us, but in spite of us. How patient He must be. We lead complicated lives because we stuff them with things that often don’t really matter in the end; when all he wants is our simple love and devotion. We have too many distractions, and we exclaim, ‘I’ve too much to do. I don’t need God. I couldn’t possible fit God in around all I have to do! I’m just too busy!’ (Or, as the hymn goes,

‘Take my wife and let me be!’)

I love the story of the great Professor of Theology who was fluent in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. In fact, he was so intellectual that his students wondered if he said his prayers in one of those languages. And so one night some of his students crept from their dormitory to the Professor’s room. And through the keyhole, they could see this humble, humble man praying; kneeling by his bed with his hands clasped, and this was his prayer:

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child;

Pity my simplicity,

Suffer me to come to thee.”

As a church here in Glencraig, we can have an influence on our community, far beyond and greater than the number of people who attend here. Just a little yeast makes an amazing difference to the dough with which it is mixed.

We have to ‘seize the day’ and focus our attention on simply proclaiming God’s love to a distracted and often bewildered world.