03. Chapter 3: How Did Jesus Secure Attention?

Chapter 3 How Did Jesus Secure Attention? When one mind approaches another for any reason, the first thing to do is to catch attention. Ordinarily in human intercourse this is done by a word, gesture, or touch. The need of winning attention and of keeping it is felt, not only by the teacher before his class, but by the preacher before his congregation, the lecturer before his audience, the lawyer before his jury, the salesman before his purchaser, and the writer and the advertiser, though only the printed page is before their readers. Anybody who influences anybody else must first have their attention. Did Jesus have the attention of his auditors, even of those who did not hear him, but only heard of him? Who since his day or before has so had the attention of mankind? Stop a few minutes to think your answers to these questions.

Now why was this? How did Jesus so capture the attention of his generation, and, we may add, of all generations? For he is a teacher of the world.

Before answering this question directly, we must approach it by asking another: What kind of attention did people give Jesus?

Attention

Voluntary With effort.

Involuntary.

Without the sense of effort. With interest. This diagram shows us the two main kinds of attention. One is voluntary, given with a sense of effort, because the object attended to is uninteresting in itself, though recognized as important. Or, voluntary attention may be given through fear of the consequences of inattention. Thus a boy may give voluntary attention to the multiplication table.

Involuntary attention is that given without the sense of effort to an object interesting in itself. It may lead one to put forth much endeavor, but without the hard sense of effort. So one may read an interesting story till late at night.

There are refinements upon these two kinds of attention which the psychologists make, into which, however, we do not need to go. For example, some loud, sudden stimulus, as the banging of a door, may make us attend involuntarily. And attention that began by being voluntary may, through the awakening of interest in the subject, pass into the involuntary, as Latin composition may become more interesting as we proceed to master it by effort. It is also to be noted that involuntary attention may lead us to expend considerable energy, but such expenditure is not accompanied by the distasteful sense of effort. Thus an interesting walk may take us farther and with less fatigue than an unwelcome errand.

Psychologists have a way of giving familiar terms somewhat unfamiliar meanings. We may not like this, but it is an aid to definiteness in psychological science. For example, we may ordinarily think of a thing done voluntarily as done willingly and done involuntarily as done unwillingly. Thus, if a boy goes voluntarily to school, he does not have to be sent. But these meanings do not fit voluntary or involuntary attention; rather the opposite. Voluntary attention, with effort, may be attention given unwillingly, while involuntary attention, with interest, Is likely to be given willingly.

Now, in the light of these brief, bare statements about attention, what kind of attention did Jesus receive? What kind did his disciples (learners) give him? What kind did the Pharisees give him? Who that came to scoff remained to pray? With what kind of attention did they begin and end?

These questions you will probably find no trouble in answering yourself. Jesus received both kinds of attention. His willing disciples attended involuntarily. His unwilling auditors and critics, hearing him, not because they wanted to obey, but to entrap him in his talk, gave voluntary attention. Pilate’s wife, but glimpsing him perhaps, gave involuntary attention. Pilate, with no interest in the proceedings instituted by the ecclesiastical Jews, but rather a distaste for the whole business, gave voluntary attention. Those sent to take him, returning without him, but with the reason that “never man so spake as this man,” began with voluntary and ended with involuntary attention, as did those Jews who believed in him secretly, not openly, for fear of the ridicule of their fellows. The multitude gave him involuntary attention, “hearing him gladly.” His fellow-townsmen, with “eyes fastened upon him” in the synagogue, began by giving him involuntary attention, though it passed into attention of the voluntary type as they drew back from the greatness of his claim. Some of these statements may not be just correct.

What kind of attention was that of Nicodemus? of the woman of Samaria? of the men of Sychar? of the Gadarenes? of Herod? of Mary, the sister of Lazarus?

Now, how did Jesus secure attention? It was no great problem to him. “Be could not be hid.” He secured attention because first, there were many things about firm to interest people; second, he knew what to do to get attention.

What are some of the things he did to get attention? He called for it. “Hear” “hearken” “behold,” “give ear” he would say.

He announced his coming to any city by messengers in advance, sending forth the disciples into every city whither he himself was about to come.

He utilized posture—not that he ever posed. “When he was set [the position of the Oriental teacher], his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth, and taught them.” He would sit in a boat on the lake and teach people on the shore.

He spoke in concrete, pictorial, imaginative language, which easily catches and holds the attention, as a moving picture does today. The phrase “fishers of men” may rivet the attention like a fixed idea.

He used the familiar to explain the unfamiliar. Thus, he said men do not put new wine into old bottles to explain why he and his disciples, contrary to the custom of John and his disciples, did not fast. Professor James says: “The new in the old is what excites interest.” Did Jesus exemplify this canon? Can you illustrate your answer? In teaching he did not belabor a point, but passed quickly from one phase to another of his general topic.

Thus, the different brief beatitudes. So, too, parables were spoken successively, one story after another, as The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, The Lost Sob. Here is unity in variety. Professor James also says: ‘‘The subject must change to win attention.”^[1] Does Jesus exemplify this maxim? Can you give other illustrations?

[1] See James, “Talks to Teachers,” Chaps. 10 and 11.

Jesus also won attention because his teaching was so different from that of the scribes. ‘‘He taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.” Why will men listen more readily to one who speaks with authority (the prophet) than to one who speaks for the authorities (the priest)?

We may also say that Jesus received attention because he paid attention. He saw and was interested in what people were doing and saying, and in their needs, and in helpful sympathy he drew his soul out unto them. His works prepared the way for his words. And people gave him attention because he was a peripatetic teacher. He taught as he journeyed from place to place. “We must go also into the next towns,” he would say. Protagoras, the Greek Sophist, and Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, walked with their pupils within enclosures. Jesus walked with his pupils in the open, carrying his good news to all. But mainly Jesus won attention because of that complex thing, covering a number of the preceding points and others besides, which we call personal magnetism. The sum of his qualities made him unique, matchless, winsome. People would say he had not learned letters in the rabbinical school in Jerusalem, that he came from Galilee, not Judea, that he was a Nazarene, that he was more than a match for the scribes, that he was followed by crowds, and that he was always doing and saying wonderful things. In short, it was the personality of Jesus that attracted the attention of men. Not that Jesus was, and did, and said, all these things consciously and intentionally to get the attention of men. Winning and keeping attention was probably no conscious problem to him at all. He simply and naturally did those attention-winning things which poorer teachers must do with set purpose. Thus we must consciously imitate him as our unconscious model. Can you now think of still other ways in which Jesus won attention? The point that it was mainly through personal magnetism that Jesus secured attention, just as any good painting of him today arrests our attention, leads us naturally to ask: What in Jesus interested people?

Suppose you had the privilege of preferring one request to Jesus face to face, what would it be? Or, of asking him one question, what would it be? What question would you like to ask Socrates? Think the answers to these questions. They will disclose to you the deeper sources of your own interest in Jesus. The personality of Jesus was so striking that men, with their expectation of a Messiah to come, would say of him, “Can this be Messiah?” “When Messiah cometh, will he do more wonderful things than this man?” But others would say, “He is a Samaritan and hath a devil.” So the people of Palestine were interested to place Jesus correctly, in their view of life. It was the habit of Jesus to let the people freely see in him the Messiah for whom they looked, rather than publicly to proclaim it, though he did the latter also, by implication, in the Nazareth synagogue. So his Messiahship interested the people,

Along with this went his claim to be able to forgive sins on earth. He even taught his disciples to bind and to loosen on earth. This is an arresting claim which would naturally concern the people in a practical way and their rulers in a theological way.

Then, too, the exalted content of his message interested the people. Accustomed to legalism as they were, here was a teaching of love that fulfilled all law, of mercy that was more than animal sacrifice, of a loving Father who saved and did not condemn the world.

Also they were attracted by the wonderful signs he wrought, which he did in loving and helpful sympathy, not at all to convince people of his Messiahship. In fact, the crowds would so follow him because of his wonderful works and to get the loaves and fishes and be filled, that it was his custom often to forbid the miraculously healed people to tell any man. This, however, only caused some to publish it yet the more. So the fame of him would spread as a wonder-worker, but he knew the people and would not trust himself to those who had no better basis for belief in him. So Herod in his palace had heard of him and had desired in kingly curiosity to see some magical work by him. This, together with Herod’s evil treatment of John, so filled Jesus with indignation and contempt that “he answered him never a word.” It was one of the times when even the silence of Jesus spoke with flaming tongue. But unquestionably the people were interested in Jesus as a wonder-worker, though he did not care for such regard. A thing which always characterized Jesus, and which never failed to interest high and low alike, was his social freedom. He mingled with publicans and sinners, ate with them, received them, was known as their “friend” and so scandalized the leaders. But he was equally at home in the house of Simon the Pharisee at Bethany, and while there permitted gracious social attention from a forgiven sinful woman. Besides, though keeping both letter and spirit of the law of Moses, he paid no attention to the traditions of the elders about ceremonial cleansings of pots and vessels, and eating with washed hands, and not husking grain on the Sabbath day, and the like. He was above the established good usage, both religious and social, of his day. This social freedom which he exemplified interested everybody.

What additional things about Jesus would naturally interest people? The fact that to some he extended a definite call to be with him? His moral earnestness? How would you explain the fact that the young fishermen accepted his invitation at once? How that the young ruler declined? What do you suppose would have happened if Jesus and Saul of Tarsus had met face to face in the flesh? What do you think would happen now if Jesus should visit in the flesh one of our towns or cities, as he visited Capernaum or Jerusalem? Would he have our attention? In what about him would modern Americans be interested? How much has human nature changed in nineteen centuries?

We have now seen in a measure how the problem of attention and interest was solved in the teaching of Jesus. Make a list of the points he exemplified which we may imitate more or less in our work as teachers. Do you find that it brings Jesus too near or makes him too real in flesh and blood to study him in this way? If so, be patient till you are through, and then see what happens.

What was the effect on the lives of Peter, Andrew, James, John, and the other disciples, of their interest in Jesus? Did following out this interest soften and weaken their lives? Is it only by doing hard, disagreeable tasks that our lives are disciplined? Is there a discipline of higher interest as well as of effort? Did Jesus assign weary tasks as such to discipline his pupils? Think out these answers, and recall present-day discussions about the “soft pedagogy” of interest and the “hard pedagogy” of effort and discipline.

What do you think of this conclusion: The interest of his learners in Jesus led them to make the supreme effort of their lives? As fishermen they would never have expended nervous and muscular energy to the same extent that they did as followers of Jesus. The pedagogy of Jesus was not the soft pedagogy of interest alone, nor the hard pedagogy of discipline and effort alone, but the combined pedagogy of effort through interest. For a discussion of Attention, see one of several monographs on the subject, as those by Titchener or Pillsbury, or any standard psychology, as those by James, Ladd, or Angell, or any educational psychology, as those by Thorndike, Starch, or Horne.