Every Sunday I read the funny pages of the newspaper, like lots of other people. The past few years I’ve noticed that other things have been added to the funnies that aren’t comics. I guess they can be described as “interesting stuff.”
There is one thing in particular that I always look at, it involves a visual illusion. You look at a jumbled up picture and cross your eyes until suddenly this 3 dimensional elephant, or some other object, comes floating up off the page.
There is something there that we can’t see, until we look at it just right, and it takes practice.
What do we see and what don’t we see?
How do we get our eyes to see what is really there?
There is an old saying that we can tell a great deal about a person by the company that they keep. The company that we keep tells us who we take notice of, they tell us who we can see, who we want to see.
When we begin to keep company with Jesus he forces us to ask the question: “What am I not seeing”.
The disciples had a massive corrective lens put before their eyes in today’s Gospel lesson, their sight was adjusted. There was something they weren’t seeing.
And it was a child.
We miss the shock value of what he did because our culture is so different from theirs. The disciples wanted to know who was the greatest, what it meant to be great, and Jesus pulled out this child.
In the first century, children were pretty much invisible, they were unnoticed, unseen. They weren’t considered human yet, that didn’t happen until adolescence. They had few legal rights, they barely existed.
We sentimentalize children now, whole legal industries surround children now, but then, they had nothing so they were not seen.
Jesus might as well of held up a dog as far as the disciples were considered, because they held about the same status.
They probably stood around for awhile looking at Jesus with this child before it sank in, if it sank in at all.
The point is not that Children are people too.
It is more than that.
It is about who we see and don’t see, who we welcome and don’t welcome, who we keep company with and who we don’t keep company with.
Jesus’ point is that God is especially interested in all those who are left out, who have no power or influence, who are unnoticed, forgotten, exploited, children or otherwise.
Jesus is saying something really important about who God is and about what really counts.
God doesn’t leave anyone behind, God sees us all, none of us are invisible or forgotten.
To be truly great is to be a servant to those who are forgotten and unseen, whose weaknesses are exploited by the powerful. That is what God is like, and to be a servant of God we must serve those who are left behind.
The life and teachings of Jesus proclaim this.
The Cross of Jesus was because of this.
The resurrection of Jesus is proof of what true greatness is, of what true power is, a life for others.
So that leaves us with two questions. Who are we not seeing? And how do we have our perception corrected? What is the corrective lens that will let us see truly?
It is not politics, or social engineering. It is not therapy or economics.
It is thanksgiving.
Being thankful is the gateway to perception, to true sight.
Only a thankful heart can see what is unseen.
The journey to a thankful heart is the destination of life’s pilgrimage.
That is where true seeing, true welcoming, true hospitality, true generosity comes from, a heart thankful to God for the Life of Jesus.
The more we give thanks, the more we see, the more we welcome those who are forgotten, the more we welcome Jesus, the more we welcome the one who sent Jesus.
At some point the Great Thanksgiving breaks in, and we see.
The important thing is to begin by living a life that says thank-you, then just follow where that little stream begins until it becomes a torrent, until it becomes the Ocean, until it becomes all of creation singing Holy, Holy, Holy.
God doesn’t leave anyone behind.
Thank-you Jesus!
How can we do less?