HOW WELL DO YOU SEE?

Dr. Richard J. Henderson June 13, 2010

click for printable version

Psalm 5 (responsively)
Luke 7:36 - 8:3

Introduction

Several years ago we used to have a church road rally every fall. We were in charge of planning it one year and we decided to add a little something extra to the usual solve-the-clue-and-find-the-place. On the way to one of the first clues everybody had to drive by a parking lot. In that lot, by the side of the road, we had a friend standing with the hood of her car up. She was very pregnant, and she walked back and forth in front of her car looking like she was in desperate need. (This was before cell phones).

If anybody stopped to help her, they automatically got the answer to the next clue. No one from the road rally stopped.

At the dinner that followed the road rally that night we told everybody what we had done and then introduced our pregnant friend. Some people had seen her but didn't stop because they wanted to win the road rally; others never even saw her.

The Dean of the Chapel at Duke University tells of some people who came to him asking to have children's bulletins for their services, with information geared to the little ones. He said, "Really, this is a university chapel; there aren't very many kids in church." They answered, "There might be more than you think." So he humored them and decided to make a lot more than ever would be needed. He had 50 children's bulletins printed.

Those were gone in the first 10 minutes. The next week they printed more, and that wasn't enough. Now they regularly print 100 children's bulletins for the services. He wonders, "How could I not have seen all those kids?"

I

Who do we not see? Often it's not that we don't see, but that we overlook or ignore what we do see. Walking down the street you see a man coming toward you. He is on crutches because his legs don't seem to work; he is swinging them in order to move. You don't want to appear to be staring, so you look the other way. He passes by. What color baseball cap did he have on? He was wearing a baseball cap?

Several years ago a study was done in the subways of New York City. First a man dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase stood by the turnstile and said he didn't have enough money for the subway. Could people help him out? A lot of people gave him money.

Later the same man dressed in tattered jeans and a dirty shirt stood in the same place and said the same thing - he didn't have enough money for the subway. Very few people helped him. They saw him and made assumptions about him - which is a way of not seeing him at all. They ignored him.

Did you ever notice that the root word for ignorance is ignore. Whether it is ignoring what we know to be true - the world is not flat and the sun doesn't rotate around the Earth - or whether it is ignoring the people who come into our lives, Ignoring can lead to ignorance.

II

In our scripture this morning Jesus is in a unique and maybe scandalous situation. A Pharisee invites Jesus to his house for dinner. A woman from the city who has lived a sinful life enters and begins to wash Jesus' feet with her hair.

Some explanation may be necessary here to help understand what's going on. We think of this as sitting around the dining room table - how would a prostitute get into the house and how could she get under the table to clean his feet?

The setting at the Pharisee's house would be much more public than we imagine. When the Pharisee invites Jesus, some gawkers apparently come along to see what is going to happen. They would gather around the walls inside or the courtyard outside to see what's going on. The prostitute is one of the onlookers. It's more a public than a private home setting.

The Pharisee defines the woman as "a woman in the city who is a sinner," which almost certainly translates prostitute. She is crying at Jesus' feet and, as she cries, she lets down her hair and wipes her tears with her hair. Letting down her hair - then, as today, may have some sexual overtones. A woman would never let her hair down in public. The same is true of touching or caressing Jesus' feet.

She does this without being terribly obvious because Jesus and the Pharisee are not sitting at a dining room table. They lie down on their left side and eat with their right hands Their feet are away from the cloth where the food is spread out on the floor. The woman is crying and wiping Jesus' feet, kissing them and anointing them with oil.

III

The Pharisee is shocked. He thinks surely this guy is no prophet or he would know what kind of woman was doing this! He has a hooker doing suggestive things and he doesn't even get it. The Pharisee's honor is also at stake - he can't allow a prostitute to carry on like this in his house.

But Jesus not only knows who the prostitute is, he knows who the Pharisee is, and what the Pharisee is thinking. Jesus is a prophet and more than a prophet.

Jesus says to the Pharisee, "Do you see this woman?" Oh yes, he sees her - a common hooker embarrassing and humiliating him. He knows who she is!

But then Jesus points out that since he entered the Pharisee's house, the Pharisee hasn't given him a welcoming kiss, water to clean his dusty feet, or oil with which to anoint himself. (These were not required, but they were a sign of a warm welcome and generous hospitality. It is hard to overemphasize the importance of hospitality in the Middle East).

IV

Jesus says to the Pharisee, "Do you see this woman?" He sees her but he doesn't. He sees her just long enough to judge her. She's a prostitute; she's unclean; she's a sinner; she's condemned. He doesn't see the woman who is so thrilled to be forgiven that she is crying and lavishing care on the one who has forgiven her.

If we don't see some of ourselves in the Pharisee, we miss a lot of what Jesus is telling us. You and I see the people we need; those who can help us get ahead. We see authorities - our boss or teacher, the police, or an expert in our field. But do we see the student having a tough time, the quiet woman who works in the mail room, the prisoner, the insecure salesman, the beggar at the corner?

Jesus' words about seeing are related to his words about making judgments: "Judge not that you be not judged." We see and make an instant judgment about whether to acknowledge or ignore. Sometimes we don't even know we've done it.

To those of you who are graduating, I hope one of the things you have learned at Faith Community is that it's not easy being a Christian. To be committed to Christ is a lot more difficult than to follow popular religion.

Try to pay attention to who you see and who you don't see. Who do you pay attention to? Who do you ignore? Do you see people who you don't need? Do you see people who are sinful and disgusting? (That's how the Pharisee saw the prostitute). Do you notice the unnecessary people?

Who you see will shape who you are.

God will not decide about us based on how well we succeeded economically, but by how we lived our lives. God will not decide about us based on how much we accumulated, but by how well we gave. God will not decide about us based on how ambitious our personal vision was, but by how well we were able to see.

Last week we talked about Jesus' disturbing words in Matthew 25. That's the passage where Jesus judges the nations based on how they responded to the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned. He says, "I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me a drink..." In each instance he says, "Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me."

When they hear this the disciples respond, "When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink, or naked and clothe you?" When did we see you hungry? When did we see you? When did we see...?

Conclusion

A woman who was active in her church told about a man in tattered clothes who stood begging at the corner near her work. She saw him every day when she first started her job. She passed by him uncomfortably.

After a while he wasn't there anymore. One day the people in her office were talking about this beggar. The woman said, "He used to be there, but he's not there anymore. I know; I walk by that corner every morning." Her co-workers insisted that he was still there.

The next morning she walked by that corner watching to see if the beggar was there. She was shocked to see the same man in the same place, asking for help.

The next day she left home early and stopped and talked to the beggar on her way to work. She learned that he was down on his luck, that he once worked in an office no far from that corner, and that he had faced some awful experiences.

At the end of their conversation she opened her wallet and pulled out a $10 bill. The man refused to take it. He said, "It was just good to talk to you this morning. That's the best thing you could give me."

Amen

© Richard J. Henderson 2010