Live
Closer to Home
How
Proximity Shapes Responsibility
Article by Scott Hubbard Editor, desiringGod.org
For most of human history, deciding where to devote
your day’s attention was relatively simple.
Imagine that you are Adam, waking up in Eden. You rise to the
sights and sounds of the garden: a leaning cypress here, a trilling robin
there. You turn to Eve, your wife and helper and fellow image-bearer. You think
ahead to the day’s work of tending the garden, with more regions to discover
and subdue. You breathe gratitude to the God in whom you live and move and have
your being. No phone to check, no news to read, no status to update, no email
to answer.
Now imagine that you are a typically modern, technological man,
waking up in our world of mass communication. Like Adam, you find yourself tied
to a particular time and place, with your own near relations and your own patch
of ground to cultivate. Unlike Adam, however, your world is exponentially more
crowded, with a hundred concerns competing for your attention.
Our anthropology has not changed since Eden — but oh how our
technology has. Of all the options available, then, what will get our
attention?
Proximity and Responsibility
The question of where to devote your attention is not a totally
new one, of course. Even before we could talk across continents and watch
24-hour TV, humans have wrestled with how best to distribute our limited focus.
And repeatedly, Christians have articulated a simple principle, drawn from
Scripture: proximity heightens responsibility.
In his book Reading the Times, Jeffrey Bilbro quotes Augustine:
“All people should be loved equally. But you cannot do good to all people
equally, so you should take particular thought for those who, as if by lot,
happen to be particularly close to you in terms of place, time, or any other
circumstances” (31). Similarly, John Calvin notes that since human ambition
“longs to embrace various things at once,” every person has objective callings
“assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not
heedlessly wander about throughout life” (Institutes 3.10.6).
Before Augustine or Calvin, however,
the apostles distinguished degrees of responsibility in our varying
relationships. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, we are each surrounded by
concentric circles. In the nearest circles live our natural household and
spiritual household (1 Timothy 5:8; Acts 2:45), followed by our neighbors and more remote
Christian family (Galatians 6:10; 2 Corinthians 8–9). Further still dwell
our distant non-Christian neighbors.
The principle admits exceptions, and
we should beware of becoming like the lawyer who sought to redefine neighbor within bounds suitable to the flesh (Luke 10:29). “Proximity heightens responsibility” does
not justify callousness to distant miseries, for example. But it does warn us
against fixing our gaze on faraway vineyards while foxes devour our own (Proverbs 17:24; Song of Solomon 2:15).
Among the world’s billions, a few people are “particularly close
to you.” And more than those farther off, they deserve your “particular
thought.”
Who Needs Your Attention?
One question may help us apply the principle with greater
clarity: Who needs your attention?
Many of the people and concerns to
which we give our attention do not, in fact, need it — as
evidenced by the fact that they will never know they had it. Celebrities and
sports stars do not need our attention. Foreign dictators do not need our
attention. Most high-school friends on social media do not need our attention.
We may still decide sometimes to give them our attention, but whether we do or
not, they likely will neither know nor care.
“Withdrawing our attention from
Twitter will go unnoticed; withdrawing our attention from our kids will not.”
Meanwhile, we can easily pass by
those who do need our attention — those people who would
genuinely be worse off without our focused, warmhearted care: our spouses and
children, church members and neighbors, friends and coworkers. Withdrawing our
attention from Twitter will go unnoticed; withdrawing our attention from our
kids will not. Far more than the far-off, those near us need our attention.
And for the typical busy person,
chances are high that our nearest relationships need not just some of our attention (the day’s leftover
minutes), but all that we can reasonably give. Few wives
flourish under a half-attentive husband. Few children feel cherished by a
distracted dad. Few small groups thrive with kind-of-committed members. And few
jobs succeed under a slack hand. Whatever the relationship, caring well for
those closest to us calls for our concerted focus — and our concerted refusal
to give that focus elsewhere.
Three Practices for Proximity
If we live within our limits, prioritizing the near over the
far, we may need to die some small deaths. But if we prioritize the far over
the near, the people around us will need to. How, then, might we devote our
far-flung focus closer to home? Consider three areas of life where we might
practice the principle of proximity.
Prayer: From Near to Far
If we want to remember our main responsibilities each day, we
may do no better than to remember them before God each morning. Before you turn
on your phone, and fly to circles far away, take hold of your nearest, dearest
concerns, and place them before your Father.
In his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace writes,
If all regenerate church members in
Western Christendom were to intercede daily simply for the most obvious
spiritual concerns visible in their homes, their workplaces, their local
churches and denominations, their nations, and the world and the total mission
of the body of Christ within it, the transformation which would result would be
incalculable. (160)
“Where your prayers are, there your
attention and affection will be also.”
Note that praying in concentric circles doesn’t keep us from
interceding for national or global issues. The practice just ensures that we
begin where we are, that we spend time at home before traveling abroad.
The transformation from such a practice may indeed be
incalculable — not only in the answers that would follow, but in the posture of
heart and mind that would be formed. For where your prayers are, there your
attention and affection will be also.
Time: Budgeting Our Days
Many budget beginners are astonished to discover where their
money actually goes every month. How did they spend $50 on coffee or $150 on
clothes? As they begin reallocating their dollars, they may realize they were
less cash-strapped than they thought: they were just spending their money in
the wrong places.
No doubt, many of us would discover something similar if we paid
more attention to where our time goes. Who or what deserves little of our time
but gets a lot? Who or what deserves a lot of our time but gets a little? As we
begin reallocating our hours, we might also realize that we weren’t as
time-strapped as we thought: we were just spending our moments in the wrong
places.
What if we took some of our time reading the news and used it to
pray for our small group? What if, when we felt an urge to check email, we
texted an accountability partner instead? What if we turned a desire to post
something online into an opportunity to pen a note to a neighbor?
Either way, consider giving your time
the same way God calls you to give your money (Proverbs 3:9): the first and best goes to your nearest
circles; anything remaining becomes discretionary time.
News: History Without Headlines
If he wanted, the apostle Paul surely
could have filled his letters with news from the empire. He could have offered
hot takes on current events or mentioned the latest controversy in Ephesus.
Instead, he spends most of his time speaking into local needs and local
relationships: he wants the church at Colossae to really be the church at Colossae (Colossians 1:2).
And when he does mention news, he focuses on events rarely mentioned in high
places: the gospel’s advance through his missionary labors. As he tells the
Colossians, “Tychicus will tell you all about my activities”
(4:7).
History’s greatest events rarely make
the headlines. For the main thing happening in the world is not the rise and
fall of nations, or the election of presidents, or the changing of the climate,
or man’s exploits into space. The main story in the world is how Jesus is
building his church, and how the gates of hell are falling before it (Matthew 16:18).
We enter this story in our nearby circles, as we bring the grace
and good news of Jesus to our families, friends, neighbors, and workplaces. And
we enter this story in the more distant circles of frontier churches, bound to
us by the same blood. So why not curate our daily news accordingly?
Circles of Life
We no longer live in a world as simple as Eden. Adam had no
choice but to devote himself to his surroundings; we can surround ourselves (at
least digitally) with almost anything we want.
But we still walk through the world as Adam’s children, finite
as our first father. We are limited creatures, bound to a place and time, with
less attention, energy, and emotion than we sometimes want to admit. We cannot
be everywhere always; we can’t even be two places at once. And those who try
often end up being nowhere at all.
The distant life can feel desirable,
an escape from the monotony of the present moment. But in the beginning, God
spoke a benediction over these limited bodies (Genesis 1:28, 31), and in the incarnation he crowned finiteness with
his eternal approval (Colossians 2:9). And so we may also find that the
circles God gives are gateways to life: the happy and human life for which he
made us.
Scott
Hubbard is an editor for Desiring God, a pastor at All
Peoples Church, and a graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife,
Bethany, live with their two sons in Minneapolis.
