What Do You See?

Scriptures:       I Kings 21: 1-21, Psalm 32  

Galatians 2:15-21, Luke 7:36-8:3

A year or so ago, there was a photo of a dress circulating around the Internet.  The coloration of the dress was unusual:  some people saw a white and gold dress shown in dim lighting, while others saw a blue and black dress, while a very few people could see the dress both ways.  Apparently because the dress was shown without much surrounding background, different peoples’ eyes made different interpretations of the level of lighting, which led them to see either a blue and black dress or a white and gold dress, seen somewhat in shadow.  I’ve read that the dress in question was actually blue and black, but my eyes saw white and gold, and not even by blinking and squinting and trying to see the dress differently could I see the dress as blue and black. 

In our Gospel and Old Testament readings, a way of reading that may help us to a deeper understanding of these texts is to ask, in our minds, of each of the characters, “What do you see?” What do you see?  Do you see?

In our Gospel reading, Jesus was invited to dinner by a Pharisee named Simon.  We’re told that Jesus had sat down at the table – actually, in that culture, he would have been reclining at the table, stretching his feet out on a cushion. As he and Simon – and likely other dinner guests – were eating, a woman invited herself to the occasion.  She brought a present of sorts, a jar of ointment.  She didn’t come for the food.  Rather, we’re told that she stood behind Jesus, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair.  Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.  We’re told this woman was a sinner – clearly she had a reputation, and not a good one – and Simon, the Pharisee who hosted Jesus, was aware of the rumors.  “If this man were a prophet, he’d have known who and what kind of woman this is who’s touching him – that she’s a sinner.”  What Simon didn’t know was that Jesus knew all about the woman, but also knew all about what Simon thought of her….perhaps Simon’s face revealed his disgust at Jesus’ acceptance of the woman’s presence.  It would seem Jesus was more disturbed by Simon’s feelings of disgust toward the woman than toward the woman herself.

So Jesus speaks up:  “Simon, I have something to say to you.”  Uh oh.  Even today, when people begin a conversation with the line “I have something to say to you”, what they have to say is rarely pleasant or easy to hear.  So Simon said, “Teacher, speak.”  OK, Jesus, say what you have to say….get it off your chest.  And Jesus begins with a parable; one lender, two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii while the other owed fifty.  The lender forgave both.  Which one felt more love and gratitude toward the lender.  And Simon rightly surmised, the one who was forgiven more.

And so Jesus speaks, telling Simon that he had shown Jesus little love – he hadn’t given Jesus any water to wash his feet, hadn’t given Jesus a kiss, hadn’t anointed his head – all actions that would have been part of the hospitality of the day.  In short, even with the dinner invitation, once Jesus got there, Simon didn’t show Jesus much hospitality.  He was a lousy host.  By contrast, the woman in her own way provided all the hospitality that Simon had lacked, even though it wasn’t her home or her dinner party in the first place.  Simon through his actions displayed little love for Jesus; the woman through hers showed great love.  And so Jesus said that the woman’s loving actions came from her knowledge that her sins were forgiven – just as Simon’s seeming coldness was evidence that he felt no great need for forgiveness.

“Do you see this woman?”  On the surface, it’s a silly question:  Of course Simon saw the woman, and was disgusted by her presence.  Simon saw the woman touching Jesus, and the sight turned his stomach.  Yeah, Simon saw her all right.  But did Simon really see the woman, or did he just see her past sins and the reputation that had resulted from them?  Jesus invited Simon to take a second look, to see the woman as a human being, and not just her reputation; to see the sinner, and not just the sin.  For Simon, the woman was a walking, talking catalog of sins, and nothing more.  For Jesus, she was a human being created in God’s image.  We don’t know how the woman learned about Jesus, and we don’t know how she came to see a need for her life to change. 

And so, for me, I’m both comforted and challenged by this passage.  I’m comforted – and we can all be comforted – because Jesus sees us as human beings created in God’s image, and not just our sins, not just our mistakes, not just our brokenness.  Every one of us – including me – has things in their past that aren’t pretty, and maybe things in our present that aren’t pretty.  Every one of us has parts of our lives that, if our lives were turned into a video, we’d ask God, “Can we fast-forward past that part?”.   And yes, Jesus is well aware of our sins.  But Jesus also sees us and knows us as human beings created in God’s image.  We are more than our shortcomings, and we can’t be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.  Jesus came for our salvation, and the word salvation comes from the same root as the word salvage, as in to reclaim something that's broken and either repurpose it or restore it to what it had been.  And so Jesus is involved in a salvage operation, reclaiming us, as broken as we are, and restoring us, making us strong in the broken places.  We can come to Jesus, as the hymn says, just as I am, just as we are, and receive forgiveness.  If you haven’t invited Jesus into your life, let this moment be the moment…don’t let another day, another hour, another moment pass without turning your life over to Jesus.

The same is true for our neighbors, and that’s the challenge in the passage.  Jesus’ question is for us as well:  “Do you see this woman?  Do you see this man?”   Do we see the people around us as men and women and children created in God’s image, or do we only look at the worst thing they’ve done in their lives, and label them based on that?  Do we look at those around us as drunks and thieves, or as people who drink and people steal – there’s a difference.  There’s an old saying that we can’t understand someone until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes.  We often can’t really understand the choices others make until we’ve faced the same situation they’ve faced.  This is not to minimize the fact that some people make really bad choices, choices that damage or even end the lives of others, and there may be a need to intervene to contain and stop the damage…but people who make bad choices are still human beings nonetheless.

Or, to take the question in a slightly different direction, do we see the people around us as people, or as objects?  God calls us to love people and use things, and when we do the opposite – love things and use people – we get into trouble.

When we love things and use people, we get into trouble as Ahab and Jezebel got into trouble.  Ahab was obsessing over a vineyard owned by his neighbor Naboth.  Naboth owned it – the land had been his ancestral heritage, in his family for generations beyond memory – but Ahab wanted it for a vegetable garden.  Ahab offered to buy Naboth’s property – he could name his price – or trade for better land elsewhere.  But Naboth felt it would be a betrayal to let go of his ancestral land – his father had worked that land, and his father before him, and so forth, and Naboth felt that to sell or trade it would have betrayed their memory.  So Ahab threw himself on his bed, pouted, won’t eat.  Basically Ahab, King of Israel, acted like a big baby…..or as someone once described a politician, as a man-baby.  His wife, Jezebel, who basically runs the royal household, promises Ahab that he’ll get the vineyard for Ahab – and then Jezebel arranges for Naboth to be killed.  For Ahab and Jezebel, Naboth was one of the little people.  When Ahab and particularly Jezebel looked at Naboth, they saw little more than an inconvenient speed bump that Jezebel ran over on the way to getting the vineyard her husband wanted.  But God saw Naboth much differently, as a child of God, however humble, and God sent Elijah to call Ahab and Jezebel to account.  We can see modern-day versions of this story play out today as those with extreme wealth in their gated communities obliviously make choices to benefit themselves, and at the same time leave the rest of us without homes, without schools, without jobs, without access to health care, without clean air and water.  They want what they want, and the rest of us are just speed bumps in their path.  And God will hold these modern-day Ahabs and Jezebels to account; unless they repent, they will face a day of reckoning.  But repentance and forgiveness can come, even for them, if they want it.

Jesus asked his self-righteous host, “Do you see this woman?”  May we be comforted in knowing that Jesus looks on us offering love and forgiveness, and may we bring comfort to others by sharing the love of Jesus with others. Amen.