What do you see?

Response to April 22nd Sermon - (Reading from John 21:1-14)

How often do I look and not see? How many times have I shook a hand, or hugged someone close and not really seen them? How often have I avoided Christ in the eyes of others? During the sermon S asked us to look into each other's eyes at the Peace. She encouraged us to see Christ in each other.

I imagine many of my fellow parishioners felt just a little silly as they passed the peace. Maybe they avoided the eyes of the person whose hand they shook or shoulders they squeezed in a hug. We're Anglicans! We're Midwesterners! What was our priest thinking? We don't stare deeply into each others eyes. We give a little nod and look sideways shyly and comment on the weather.

I think she was trying to remind us that we are also children of God. A God who calls us to see one another, and the world around us in a new way. We are called to look, with a penetrating gaze that sees through the surface and to the truth beneath it. Humor me. Grab a loved one; your son, your daughter, your wife or husband. Now really look. Not the way the world looks. Not at the mascara on her lashes or at the glasses he wears. Look into her eyes and see a human being. See a fellow child of God. Up for a bigger challenge? Do that with someone you have argued with. Someone who you have hurt, or who has hurt you.

If you are really looking you can see Him there. Our resurrected Lord within those we love, and those we find hard to love. And he calls us to care for them. To tend them, feed them, love them. And when we do that we love Him. We cannot do one without the other. We do not truly love Jesus if we cannot love those around us. (All of them!) And we cannot fail to love Him as we love and care for them.

So, I did it. I stepped outside of my Midwestern comfort zone and I looked. Some people were easy to see. There was my surrogate Grandmother; a mentor; a friend; and people I have known (at least on Sunday) all my life. But there was also someone with whom I had argued just a few days before. Someone who had said things that hurt my sense of justice and fair play. It would have been easier not to look. It would have been easier to smile and wear a safe, polite mask. Instead we looked. I could not tell you now what color their eyes are. It doesn't matter. But I saw a fellow child of God. I saw someone who believed. Someone I was called to love. And I knew I had perhaps perplexed and upset them as much as they had me.

If we are truly looking we will see more in those eyes. We will see ourselves reflected back. What do we see in our reflection? Do we look out on the world with Christ's eyes? Is that what others seen in us? Or do they reflect back only our fallen nature? Our quarrels and arguments; our cheap barbs. Do they see the remnants of the joke we just cracked with our friends at their expense? Do they see our judgment or contempt? Do they see our pity, our impatience, or our dishonesty? Perhaps they see only our disinterest. Do we dare hope they see the love of Christ for them?

Perhaps that's why we are so reluctant to see. Perhaps we are not half so afraid of seeing Christ in the person we greet as we fear what our own reflection will show us about ourselves.