Marginal Theology: Inattentiveness

By Chadwick Walenga


There’s this line from Brennan Manning that has just... lived in my head for decades.

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

I remember the first time I heard that. Man, I'm showing my age... it was on the DC Talk Jesus Freak album. And back then, it felt like this... this fist-in-the-air-anthem. You know? A moment of clarity, like, 'Yeah! It's us! We're the problem! We have to be better!'

We were aware that we were in the way of people seeing Jesus.

But now... it just feels different. The frustration is still there, but it’s heavier. You look around and... it seems like people don’t really care what you are saying.

Which brings me to this whole idea. This… spiritual inattention.

It’s this pattern you see, right? All through the Gospel story. It’s not about people being unintelligent. It’s not about IQ scores. It’s this… this active, and you can just feel the frustration... this failure to see what is right there. In front of their faces.

And it’s everyone. The religious insiders, the leaders. The general crowds. And Jesus’s own inner circle. His best friends.

It’s this deep, almost ingrained blindness.

So the question isn't just what did they miss. The real question, the one that gets under your skin, is why. What was actually causing that blindness?

You start with the religious authorities. The teachers, the experts, the ones who had it all figured out. And for them, the core issue was willful blindness. They were stuck on the external.


Jesus, he just... he doesn't mince words. He calls them "Frauds!" "Hypocrites!"

Because their entire lives were focused on appearing righteous, on being perceived as important people in public.

They'd do things specifically to be seen. Making their prayer boxes—their phylacteries—wider, their tassels longer. Loving the best seats at the dinner party. Loving that public respect.

They essentially swapped out a genuine, breathing, alive spiritual life for things you could measure. For performance. For status.

And they even used the law itself to maintain that status. Jesus says they "tie up these heavy, cumbersome loads," these crushing burdens, and put them on everyone else… but they "were not willing to lift a finger to move them."

They became roadblocks. Literally stopping people who were genuinely trying to find their way into the kingdom.

And on top of all that, they're demanding proof. A "sign from heaven."

You can just feel Jesus's frustration. The text says he "sighed deeply." Groaned. He calls them a "wicked generation." He says, "You guys can look at the sky and predict the weather... 'red sky at night,' all that. But you cannot interpret the signs of the times?"

All this... all this life, all this restoration happening right in front of you... and you just don't see it.

He uses that image, right? Cleaning the outside of the cup. Making it all shiny. While the inside is still caked with greed and filth. It doesn't matter how shiny you make the outside if the inside is corrupt.

That’s the core of their inattention.

Okay. So that’s the leadership, blinded by status and hypocrisy. But what about the people closest to Jesus? The disciples?
If the leaders were blinded by pride, the disciples… their issues feel different. It was persistent confusion. They were just... slow on the uptake.

These guys were with him 24/7. They saw the miracles. They heard the teaching firsthand. So why were they still missing the point, so often?

That story about the bread. It’s just baffling.

They have just seen Jesus feed thousands of people. With a few loaves and fish. Twice. And moments later, they’re in a boat, wringing their hands, worried... because they forgot to pack a lunch.

Seriously.

Jesus has to spell it out: "Do you still not understand? You still don't get it?"

And Mark, he gives this editorial comment, right? He says it's because "their hearts were hardened." They "had not understood about the loaves." They just couldn't let the extraordinary sink in.

Like when he warns them about the "leaven of the Pharisees." He’s talking about their teaching, their corrupting influence. And what do the disciples think?

They think he's annoyed about the bread again.

They just couldn't seem to lift their gaze from the immediate, physical problem to grasp the strategic, symbolic point.

But it’s deeper than just bread. They fundamentally missed the mission.

Think about Peter. He has this flash of insight, this... download from heaven. "You are the Christ." It’s the A+ answer.

And then, seconds later... Jesus starts teaching plainly... that he "must suffer many things... and be killed and after three days rise again."

And what does Peter do? He rebukes Jesus.

They just didn't get it. The text says they were "afraid to ask." Suffering and death... that just... it wasn't part of their game plan for a Messiah.

Which is why, even as he's pointing toward the cross, they're stuck in this petty, upside-down thinking... the constant arguments about "who was the greatest."

It goes all the way to the end. Even after the resurrection, Jesus has to scold them for their "lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him."

They were with him 24/7. And they were still missing the point.

So. You have the institutional blindness. You have the inner-circle blindness.
And then... then there's the crowds. The general public.

And here, the blindness comes from a few things. First, Jesus was intentionally... cryptic.

His message... it was dynamite. It was "politically incorrect." If he'd just said it plainly, Herod or Rome would have shut him down. It would have been mislabeled as just another political revolution.

So he taught in parables. In code. Precisely so that those "outside," those "looking and looking but never seeing," wouldn't get it. It was a filter.

He was sowing seed, and he knew the outcome depended entirely on the soil.

So what was wrong with the soil?

Just... the daily grind. Worldly worry. Materialism.

As he explained the parable, some seed gets "choked by the worries of the present age, and the deceit of riches."

This is the anxiety he tackles head-on. The "do not worry" teaching. "Don't worry about what you'll eat, or drink, or wear."

And he redirects their attention. He says, "Look. Look around you. Consider the ravens. Consider the lilies."

He’s trying to shift their focus. To shift it off their own anxieties—their "little-faiths," he calls them—and onto God's character.

The antidote to worry… is a deliberate shift in attention.

Instead of chasing after material security, he says: "Seek first his kingdom."

Because this focus on stuff, it's not just a distraction. It’s idolatry. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

And then that stark conclusion: You cannot faithfully serve both God and Money.

It’s a choice.

And for many in the crowd, their faith was just... superficial.

It's why, after another feeding miracle, Jesus has to call them out. He says, "You're not seeking me because you understood the signs. You're seeking me because you ate the loaves and had your fill."

They came for the free lunch, not the spiritual transformation.

So, all of this... it brings us to this final, huge idea.
People weren't just distracted. Many were actively looking for the wrong thing entirely.

There was this widespread expectation that the kingdom would be... well, dramatic. Visible. A big political upheaval.

The kind of kingdom they were used to.

And Jesus's vision... it was completely different.

It was subtle. Internal. Often hidden.

And trying to fit this new reality into the old ways of thinking? It just wouldn't work.

That's the power of that image Jesus uses. The new wine... in old wineskins.

You can't.

The old structures, the old ways of thinking, the rigid traditions... they simply cannot contain the dynamic, new, expanding reality of what Jesus is bringing.

The old skins... they burst.

He was inaugurating something fundamentally new.

But if you were determined to cling to the old wineskins, to your expectation that God must work the way you think he should…

You'd miss it.

Entirely.

So when you look back... this spiritual inattention... it consistently came down to getting stuck.


Stuck on outward appearances and religious status, like the Pharisees.

Stuck on internal status games and a bad "game plan," like the disciples.

Stuck in the mud of everyday material worries, like the crowds.

Stuck on clinging to the past, like the old wineskins.

The common thread is a failure to shift attention.

Jesus was constantly trying to redirect them. Away from the visible, the temporary, the self-focused... and toward the invisible, the eternal, the transformative reality of God's kingdom.

Which makes that final command, the one that echoes through the letters, so important.

"Stop drifting."

Be alert.

"Pay the most careful attention... to what we have heard."

And this is where it lands for us. Because if they could be that blind, that close to the source... we have to take this warning with deadly seriousness.

It brings that Brennan Manning quote right back into focus, doesn't it? That "unbelievable" gap between what we say we believe, and what the world sees.

And maybe this... maybe this analysis helps answer that question that's so frustrating. That question of…

 'Why aren't people responding to the Jesus I'm posting about on my socials? Why isn't it landing?'

You wonder, 'Is it because they're offended by Jesus? Are they just hard-hearted?'

Please... just... in love... consider this.

What if it's not that they're offended by Jesus?

What if... 

what if they subscribe to a different Jesus than the one we're transmitting?

What if they've read the story, and they see the Jesus who always stands with the oppressed? The marginalized. The 'least of these'?

And they're the ones looking at us... and they're asking, with that same deep, groaning frustration that Jesus had... 

'How can you not see it?'

'How can you not see what's happening in the world right now... and see that this is where Jesus is?'

'...And you don't even seem to be aware that any oppression is happening at all.'

What if... what if our attention is stuck?

Stuck on our own status, like the disciples?

Stuck on our own traditions and external righteousness, like the Pharisees?

Stuck on our own material comfort and security, like the crowds?

Stuck... in our own old wineskins?

And in all that... are we the ones missing the subtle, quiet, unexpected ways that the real kingdom... is actually showing up?

Right now.

Right in front of us.


​

---