Do you see what Jesus sees?

In the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus doing a lot of eating. He basically goes from meal to meal. I think he would like Woodland, with all of its great restaurants. Jesus loved a good meal and a good party. IN the gospel of Luke, he dines out a lot. Sometimes he is dining with the politically powerful, those with religious power, those who are considered outcast, and those who are considered unclean. When he is invited in, he accepts the invite and dines with those who invite him in.

At one of these occasions, Jesus is dining in the home of someone with great religious power and authority. This would have been a dinner of the in-crowd, of those with wealth, and of those with great power. Power to do harm and power to make changes in the world. At this dinner a woman barges in. The text says that she was know to be a sinner. We really don’t know why they called her a sinner, but needless to say she had a reputation. This person, deemed a sinner, barges in and anoints the feet of Jesus. Her pain and hurt come pouring out in this wonderful act of love expressed to Jesus.

Of course, the religious and powerful dinner host gets all up in arms over this, but Jesus doesn’t. Jesus confronts the host and asks, “Do you see this woman?” DO YOU SEE THIS WOMAN? NO! The host had not! He only sees what he wants. He only sees whatever it is that people say about her or whatever her actions or others’ actions have caused in her life. He only sees her tragedy. He only sees her violation of his home, of his cleanliness, of the space of his religion. He only sees himself. He doesn’t see her! He doesn’t really see her.

Jesus on the other hand really sees her. He sees her pain, her hurt, and her love. He sees her humanity, he sees that she is a child of God who is in pain and who needs love. He sees her. He really sees her. All the religious could see was what they wanted to see, a sinner. Someone unclean and unworthy of their care and respect. In many ways, they were not really seeing. Jesus saw her, his eyes were open to the realit0y of who she was and what she had been through.

The challenge this leaves us all with is a challenge to see. Whether you are a person of faith or not is irrelevant to this discussion. All of us struggle with really and truly seeing people. We see what we want to see. We see the sinner, we see the reputation. As we drive through Woodland and we come across homeless people, we often only see what we want to see. We don’t see people with real hurts, with real pains, and with real struggles. We don’t see that they are people, that they are moms, dads, kids, grandkids, and people that are in a difficult place.

In politics, we see Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, but we don’t see people. What if we began to really see people? To look beyond the labels and see them. What if when people cried out for help, we really saw them? Instead of feeling like the problems that people have are just an intrusion into our world, as the religious of Jesus’ day did, maybe we could look deeper and choose to see them.

This week maybe stop seeing people through the eyes of politics, of religion, of tradition, of social media, of reputation and really see them. Look, see, and then act. Therein lies the challenge. Once our eyes are open to the reality of someone we are often forced to act. Life is easier when we only see the outside, the reputation, and what we want to see. Seeing beyond that might cost us and it might complicate things, but seeing is the way of love and the way of grace. Seeing is the way of Jesus and it is one of the ways to truly move our society beyond so much of the pain that we see around us. Go out this week, open your eyes, and see people.