You Are What You See

January 31, 2010
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
the Rev. George D. Smith

Jeremiah 1:4-10
1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
Luke 4:21-30

You are what you see.

How many fingers am I holding up? If your eyesight is pretty good, and it needs to be especially for those in the back pews, you can see two fingers. Now if your eyesight is poor, you might guess but likely have no idea. I started wearing glasses when I was in third grade for near-sightedness. Then as now, without glasses or contact lenses, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many fingers someone is holding up let alone whether a hand was in the air, a trombone or a carburetor. Without glasses, for me the world is a big blur. Without contact lenses, I couldn’t function very well in this society – I couldn’t drive, read signs in the grocery store or work at a computer without my face practically touching the screen. If we were an agrarian society, I’d probably be able to dig potatoes and herd cattle. But thanks to vision correction, I haven’t had to worry or even think about my poor natural vision. Then over the last year or so, I started having trouble reading small print, newspapers, and books. I tried to tough it out for a while but then realized what others who are in their mid-40s have experienced – that I needed reading glasses. It is almost inevitable for everyone –a condition called presbyopia (sounds like Presbyterian), where there is a loss in elasticity of the eye’s crystalline lens and weakening of certain muscles that bend the lens. Putting on reading glasses for the first time, I realized how much trouble I had been having. Reading became effortless again – I could even read the small print on medicine labels. I am still adjusting to needing to carry around a pair of glasses. I leave them at home or in my jacket pocket. I’ve already been through three pairs. My desk seems to eat them and I can’t find them anywhere.

In his letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes “For now we see in a mirror, dimly.” That certainly describes me - I do see dimly, and over time, it seems to be getting worse. Of course, Paul is talking about sight in both ways – physical sight and sight metaphorically. Even with 20/20 vision, our eyesight is limited – in its breadth and distance. Our mental capacity simply can’t take in all of the detail and information that is in front of us. That’s why you can’t see the car keys when they are in plain sight on the counter. You can’t remember what the color of the coat or sweater the person next to you is wearing. Some of you may have heard of or seen the video of people bouncing basketballs. When people are asked to watch the video and keep track of the number of balls in the game, they can’t see that a black gorilla walks across the floor. The mind is too focused on one thing to take in even such an obvious intrusion as an out of place gorilla.

We also deliberately choose to see certain things and not see others. Many people are shredding their bank and brokerage statements these days without even opening the envelope. It is simply too scary and depressing to see how much money you don’t have any more. You can choose not to read the stories in the newspaper about global warming, AIDS, wars and grinding poverty. Glen Ellyn is a community that seems to want to shake off its homeless population – and one way to do that is pretend that they are not here, or that they are not “our” problem because they are not from here.

In general, we like information, facts and feedback that support our views – of ourselves, our children, community and the ways of the world. This week the President gave his first State of the Union Address. Many statistics were woven into his remarks. Take the unemployment rate – which is now over 10% - is this a as a failure of our government because it is so high, or as a success because it isn’t way higher? Everybody does this – see what they want to see. When someone comes along and tries to point out all of the things that are being missed, they are generally reviled.

Such persons we know well – such as contemporaries Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. and those of our faith tradition, including Jesus and the prophet Jeremiah. Let’s look first at Jeremiah. He was a prophet in Israel about six hundred years before Jesus. Today’s reading from Jeremiah tells how God has equipped the prophet for the unpopular work of calling attention to unpleasant realities – those things that people want to ignore. Jeremiah warms the leaders and people in his country of impending disaster. Amidst a time of prosperity and abundance, there is corruption, false worship, injustice and complacency among the leaders who place their hopes on God who will save them. Jeremiah’s reward for proclaiming this message will be persecution, rejection and being thrown in a ditch. After the Babylonian army destroys the Temple and deports every key leader of the society, Jeremiah shifts his message to one of hope, that in the end, God will be faithful to his people. For this, Jeremiah is finally silenced by being sent to prison in Egypt.

In the reading from Luke, we hear that Jesus preaches a short sermon in the synagogue. Jesus says something that turns the situation from a pleasant homecoming to a murderous stampede. What could he possibly have said to cause such a reaction? Jesus says that he tells them the truth – and pulls stories from their own Scriptures about the prophets Elijah and his successor Elisha. It isn’t that the people in the synagogue haven’t heard these stories about the widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. But the fact that Jesus uses those examples to inaugurate a Jubilee year – a time of God’s favor and blessing, is simply outrageous and hateful to their ears. Jesus is ripping open their pinhole view of the world, making them see a much bigger picture – he is seeing and claiming God’s wide view that includes all people, yes, even religious and political enemies. The people in Nazareth are oppressed and poor. They rightly think of themselves as deserving and needing God’s help. How can Jesus preach that like the lepers and widows in a previous generation, they may be intentionally overlooked or bypassed by God? They think they are first in line. Jesus is a traitor and liar for telling them to go to the back. He must be silenced.

It is hard to imagine what Jesus might say to us here today that would cause us to want to throw him under the wheels of an express Metra train. Perhaps he would be holding a stack of full scholarships to a prestigious university like Princeton – and tell us that not one of our accomplished children will be getting one. Instead, these keys to education and opportunity will be given to under-performing students at Fenger High School on Chicago’s south side. Perhaps he would tell us that there is more joy and love in the rubble of Haiti and in Afghan villages under Taliban rule than in the safe prosperity of Glen Ellyn with its outward religiosity and twenty-five churches. Beneath the good looks, new cars, beautiful homes and gardens, beyond the shiny pages of the Glancer magazine, there is a world of fear and desperation that doesn’t know the first thing about Jesus or God. How can a community spend $11 million on brand new athletic center while every Sunday night, 60 people, including women and children line up to sleep in a church basement, on two-inch thick foam pads?

Now I really don’t think if Jesus said these things we would try to kill him. Like modern-day Christians, we would simply find another church to belong to and write nasty blog reports about this so-called prophet Jesus and the church that would invite him.

The Gospel of Jesus is about seeing beyond our comfort zone, beyond the assumptions and choices that keep things in balance in a world that is actually out of balance. If and when Jesus widens our horizons, rips open the pin hole perspective, how are we to respond?

We return to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. The guiding principle is love – the self-giving love that originates with God and is the same love that resides at the core of every person, in our dignity, our souls, and our true image. As Paul reminds us, love rejoices in the truth – the truth that God feeds and heals others, often our enemies, first, before we are taken care of. This is the truth that sees things that we are blind to or have ignored - the poor, the homeless, the waste, and the injustices of our society. Unlike the other spiritual gifts of tongues, prophecies, teaching and so forth – love is the one spiritual gift that is available to everyone. Love grows as you see more, widen your vision and look beyond yourself.

Many icons of Jesus show that he is holding up two fingers, just as I did a few moments ago. The two fingers represent Jesus’ humanity and his divinity – that he is both human and divine. The fingers are not only about Jesus himself – but contain his message to us, that we are human and created in the image of God. Can you see the image of God around you? Can you see it in your neighbor? Can you see it in your parents? Can you see it in our politicians, homeless, bus drivers and religious leaders? Can you see the image of God in yourself? At the yoga class held at St. Mark’s last Thursday, we were asked to pull our gaze inward, bringing our eyes back into our minds, and then with those eyes to look down, down into our own hearts and souls. What do you see there? Can you see the light of the divine image within you? There is an old saying that you are what you eat. It is also true that you are what you see. The more love you see around you, the more love you will be. And this type of vision doesn’t need reading glasses – it actually improves with age – and with use. Love never ends – it is all around. Take a look.

Amen.