“Look here! Today I’ve
set before you life and what’s good versus death and what’s wrong. If you obey
the Lord your God’s commandments that I’m commanding you right now by loving
the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments, his
regulations, and his case laws, then you will live and thrive, and the Lord
your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.”
Deuteronomy 30:15, 16 (Common English Bible)
“Aren’t two sparrows
sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your
Father knowing about it already. Even the hairs of your head are all counted.
Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”
Matthew 10:29-31 (Common English Bible)
Notice, written and performed by country
music artist, Thomas Rhett, speaks to one of the deepest longings of our
present day: that in a time when loneliness presents one of the greatest
challenges affecting the mental and physical well being of adults, people
question if there is anyone who is aware of them, who loves them, and maintains
a watchful care for them. Simply, is there anyone who “notices” us? The opening
canto nails this crippling anxiety, “You say that I don’t hear all the words
you’re saying. And it makes you miss me even when you’re with me. Feels like
something’s broken.” In 2018, Cigna, a
major health insurer in the United States, paid for a national study that found
that loneliness has reached epidemic levels in the U.S. and ranks alongside
smoking and obesity as a major threat to public health. The lyric is absolutely
correct; it feels like something’s broken.
Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks suggests that the very tone and texture of Deuteronomy is
directed not at blind obedience to God, a common impression upon a cursory
reading. Rather, to the contrary, this fifth book in the Old Testament canon is
a sustained attempt to help people understand why God wants them to behave in a
certain manner and make particular life choices. God does notice us and desires
our well being; desires all that is good and necessary for us to thrive. God’s
ways are presented to the people of Israel not for God’s sake, but for theirs.[i]
Jewish law is not the arbitrary will of the Creator but identifies those places
in life where the natural consequences of certain behaviors result in injury or
death. God desires life for God’s people. So as someone who takes watchful
notice of us, God goes before us identifying trouble spots ahead and pointing
us around them.
Jesus’
teaching, located here in Matthew’s Gospel, reminds God’s people of God’s
notice and concern. Thomas Long writes that what God declares here is that
there is nothing that the world can do that is able to destroy God’s loving and
watchful care over the faithful.[ii]
The world may forbid our witness to God’s love and concern for the world. The
world may throw in jail those who ignore the world’s threats. The world can
even kill those who serve the gospel. But, observes Tom Long, murderers are not
to be ultimately feared. “They may have momentary power over bodily life, but
they have no power over the soul.” A God
who counts the hairs on our heads and does not fail to note even the falling of
a single common sparrow can be trusted to treasure those who “are worth more
than many sparrows.” This promise is captured crisply in Thomas Rhett’s lyric, “You
think that I don’t notice, but I do.”
Notice is a joyful and hope-filled song
that honestly acknowledges those moments when each of us feel unnoticed, “You
think that I don’t notice.” What then follows are such small, nuanced
observations that, not only prove to the contrary, but must bring unexpected
delight, “How you brush your hair out of your green eyes. The way you blush
when you drink red wine. The way you smile when you try to bend the truth. You
think I don’t notice all the songs you sing underneath your breath. You still
tear up at a beach sunset. And you dance just like you’re the only one in the
room.” These are not the observations of a causal glance. They come from the
notice of one deeply in love. And that is precisely the message of God’s word
captured in the Bible, particularly in Deuteronomy and Matthew. I hear God’s
voice in the closing lyric: “You think that I don’t notice, but I do. I do,
yeah, I do, yeah.”
Joy,
[i]
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant &
Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the
Jewish Bible (New Milford, CT & Jerusalem, Israel: Maggid Books, 2019),
2.
[ii]
Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Know Press, 1997), 121.
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