“Do you see this woman?” I love that line from Jesus! Of course I see her! She’s right in front of me! You would be a fool to think I can’t see her! Do you think that I’m blind? Give me a break, Jesus. Don’t mistake me as being a dunce, I’m Father Quinn, I’m a pharisee. You see I have all the answers and am in right standing with God! Jesus’ question posed to Simon is a question posed to us, “Do you see this woman, this man, this friend, this family member, this staff member, this expeditioner before you?” I mean do you really see them? Chances are we are not because we can’t see ourselves in light of Christ’s love for us. Our ability to see others as they really are most often comes down to our own inability to see ourselves as God’s precious adopted sons and daughters. What you see is not what you always get. We compare and contrast one another to a standard we personally see ourselves fall short of. I know that I do this this all the time. For the past three weeks, we have been very busy being pharisees, passing our internal judgments upon one another. We have sized one another up in that internal gauge of criteria only known to our own human hearts. We’ve determined what we like and what we don’t like about one another with a clipboard heart checking off what we will accept and not accept. We've concluded by comparison that one is more deserving than another and given them our attention. “Do you see this woman?”
It’s like a collective old western pistol duel of grand proportions. There’s Clint Eastwood and McClintock sizing one another up as they stand as opposing forces ready to destroy one another’s reputation, dignity and in the end their very lives. On this deserted dirt main street , others are hiding behind tainted windows of self-doubt and fear waiting for it to be over. Squinting with a grimace and hand on the trigger we stand shoulder to shoulder facing one another ready to fire the first shots with our tongues of slander ready for the first kill. Why? Because we are disgusted with ourselves. We are unhappy with what we see in our own lives. We are submerged in self-hate. This picture of competing duelers is non-other than our fiery reaction to any transgression upon our autonomy and freedom. It is the duel between the faction of the pharisees and Jesus. We’re in defense mood, standing and bracing ourselves ready and our trigger finger is itching to put one another down. “Do you see this woman?”
On Wednesday of last week, while we were doing lectio, someone mentioned the ease at which it is to exclude ourselves from the pharisees stance in today’s Gospel reading. Spot on! We are the pharisee with our pride of place compensating for our lack of deep heart understanding of God’s love for us. The pharisee was, by the way, the one who made the invitation to Jesus. He was, by the way, offering his house to Jesus. He was, by the way, even putting his reputation at stake by entertaining a blasphemer and rabble-rouser friends. Jesus this man who claims to be the Son of God was with a son of the law and its rigid adhesion to the disbelief of God’s unconditional love. Meanwhile there the humble site of the woman who no one sees let alone no one understands. By all appearances, the pharisee seems to being doing it all right. So too have we the appearance of doing all things right but we are deficient and lacking.
By appearance we may be polished and have an inviting appearance, but inside our disposition of heart is far from true Christian hospitality. We are immobilized from service because we haven’t allowed the service of Christ enter our hearts. It reminds us of Jesus’ words in Matthew 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Our bodies may be doing what we are supposed to be doing by sheer force of a perfunctory obligation, but our minds and hearts are someplace entirely different. And Jesus said, “Do you see this woman? Do you really see her for who she is? Do we truly see one another as the gift we are to one another?
The question of really seeing one another is what the psalmist is driving at when he sings: They have mouths but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see; They have ears but do not hear; nor is there breath in their mouths. (135) Christians, we must take note of one another around us and stop being passing ships in the fog or dueling guns ready to mow one another down. We must invest in one another truly by learning our stories and sharing our stories. We are so often scared to become vulnerable because we know that if we do out there in the cruel world of judgement we will be whittled down and reduced to tears. However, those tears are the remorse of our sin need to wipe the feet of our Lord. To truly see someone for who they are is to know the possibility of what they can become. All of us, ever single one of us has tremendous possibilities and potential to do the remarkable for and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the most insignificant outcast and rejected one is the magnanimous soul that sways the sadducitical mentality of judging.
Yesterday, I pray, was a day we began to see one another as Christ as all here FOR Christ and to see one another through the periscope of Christ. The pharisee did not see CHRIST, but a curiosity. Christ was an enigma to him, a question mark of love rather than an exclamation point of love. Christ did not make sense to him as Christ doesn't make sense us because the love of Christ is so dramatically different than anything we've encountered. Christ challenges our perceptions and pre-conceived notions. The excessive adulation of Christ in the Gospel reading is the overcoming humility of the one who is in touch with her sinfulness. She is not concerned with the appearance of the way things seem to be as she is dialed into the way things really are! The first step in being a Christian is knowing that we are sinners! Do we really know our sin!? The blind cannot lead the blind!
Our souls ability to accept another is our ability to accept our unacceptability before God first and foremost. Today’s office of readying says, “She prayed with faith and obtained what she sought. Scripture makes this clear in the words; She was speaking in her heart; her lips were moving but her voice could not be heard; and the Lord heard her prayer. When we pray, our words should be calm, modest and disciplined. It is characteristic of the vulgar to shout and make noise, not those who are modest. On the contrary, they should employ a quiet tone in their prayer.” This woman was beyond shame and she crossed the city to overcome horrendous back-biting to exalt the one who exalted her beyond the shame of sin.
Our sizing up of one another is nothing less than our comfortableness before the Lord. Like the pharisee, we’ll put on the good show, but we fail to see the reign of Christ’s love within our souls.
David says in our first reading, “I have sinned against the Lord.” This is the spiritual step the Lord simply asks of us. Mea Culpa. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. As our response is today, “Lord, forgive the wrong that I have done.” Before we go our twisted way of sizing up one another, we need to size up to Christ and learn our insignificance before the love that defines our very being. We are sinners, he is the Savior. We are pitiable, he is perfect. We are a mess, he is the Messiah. Let us not nullify the grace of God by determining our own laws of engagement. Let us reconcile ourselves to God and one another. Remember what we see is not always what we get. Let us bring the ointment of healing. Let us stand behind him rather than charging ahead of him. Let us be at his feet rather than pretend to be somewhere we’re not. Let us weep instead of weaseling away from God’s abundant outpouring of love upon us. Let us wipe these feet of our Savior and kiss the place of the future wounds that healed us of our sin. “Do you see this woman?” Yes Lord, we see her because we are beginning to see interiorly that she is us--poor sinners in need of mercy.
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