Seeing into Being Seen

 

Here ya go. This one will (should?) kick your butt: Luke 6:12-26

Marni George* had us all wrapped around her beautifully manicured finger. Her mom let her get a perm. She wore bright white K-Swiss tennis shoes. She was the first to get a Hypercolor T-shirt and the first to double up her neon socks. She knew all the jumprope chants, even the ones with the naughty lines about judges and babies and k-i-s-s-i-n-g. She knew how to shave her legs and wear eye shadow. And every day at recess, she would decide who was allowed to follow her around, and who wasn’t. 

We fifth grade girls did all kinds of nasty things to get on her good side. We’d snitch that Beth told Megan that she didn’t like Carol’s hair, and then Carol would whisper to Katie that Beth still didn’t wear a bra, and then Katie would tell Marni that both Beth and Carol like sausage on their pizza and still watched Disney movies on their VCRs. 

And then, Marni would choose. 

“Tie my shoe!” She shouted to Beth, and if Beth accepted, if she bent down and tied Marni’s shoe, she’d get to follow her around the parking lot, cluster in a tight circle, and then menacingly giggle at all the girls who weren’t allowed to join Marni's group. 

If we got to tie her shoes long enough, if we could convince our parents to get us a caboodles, and if we could somehow keep from getting run over by the gossip truck, then maybe, just maybe, we’d get invited to Marni’s house to swim in her backyard. And her pool had a slide. 

If you were lucky enough to escape random and superficial critiques long enough, you just might get seen by Marni George. And being seen by Marni George meant everything. It meant you might get a note passed to you in Social Studies. It meant you’d have someone to sit with at lunch. It meant that your self-deprecating jokes were funny and not embarrassing. It meant that you were cool. It meant that you belonged. It meant that you were someone.

No matter that Marni could remove her blessing just as quickly as she bestowed it. This was the social structure that we accepted. This was the culture we chose. The contract we signed. This was the game we decided to play. But to choose otherwise meant being ostracized, social suicide, no slumber parties, no trips to hang out at the mall, a fate worse than death for any eleven year old girl. So we played her game. 

We did everything we could to attract the Marni George gaze. Even if that meant that we lost sight of ourselves. 

Everyone talks about how awful these preteen years are. Middle school just sucks, there’s no doubt about it. But, I wonder, as I grew older, as I stopped worrying about hiding my secret preference for mushrooms on my pizza, as I finally stopped stooping down to tie Marni’s shoes, did the culture ever really change? Are things really any different now than on that playground back in 1990? We were just living in to a culture that was already existing all around us. We were just acting out a contract that we’d seen our siblings and our parents and our grandparents sign. We were playing the game that everyone else was playing, and we still play it even now, even today. 

Maybe now I’m just a little bit better at disguising my need to belong. Maybe now I’m a little bit better at hiding my embarrassment when I don’t fit in. Maybe the only difference now is that, with a little practice, I’m better at playing the game.

Well, you’ve heard me preach long enough to not be surprised when I tell you that Jesus comes to disrupt the game.

And in Luke, it’s a real, concrete, high stakes game. Matthew’s "Sermon on the Mount" lifts us up into the ethereal a little bit. We can all find ways to be blessed and  to belong up here on the mountain where things get a little more spiritual, a little more qualified. 

I mean, we can all find ways that we are poor in spirit. We can all find ways that we are hungry for righteousness. In Matthew’s sermon, it only takes a little bending, a little twisting, in order for us to find ourselves among the blessed. But in Luke’s gospel, we’re on the plain, we’re down on the ground, we’ve descended from the mountaintops and here we are among the weak and fevered and coughing and desperate. Here, on the plain, we can’t hide our full bellies or our soft, white collar hands. Here, we can’t deny our two car households and our full refrigerators. Here, on the plain, we don’t want to admit that we’ve been able to staunch our weeping with therapy or golf or cable tv. Here on the plain, though, where Jesus is, the game doesn’t work. Here on the plain, Jesus doesn’t care if you’ve ever tied Marni’s shoes. 

Woe to you who’ve been invited to the slumber parties, you’ve had your taste of belonging. Woe to you who remember your last meal, hunger is coming. Woe to you who are laughing at Sara because she cut her knee shaving and still wears her hair in braids and believes in Santa. Your turn for shame and estrangement and unbelonging will come. 

Jesus comes down from the mountain with his chosen group of disciples, the ones who’ve been told they belong, who’ve been handpicked to be part of Jesus’s in-crowd, who would bow down and tie his shoe if only he’d ask, and he rewrites the narrative, he tears up the social contract, and turns the values of a culture completely upside-down. 

What’s up is down now. What’s cursed is now blessed.

But he doesn’t just do this with his words. He doesn’t just do this with a lecture or some pithy slogans. He does this by completely rewiring the human gaze. 

Read closely. Look for where Jesus looks. And then listen for whom Jesus is speaking. It’s two different places. Jesus looks up to his disciples, but he speaks of the crowd all around him. Jesus is down with the crowd, but he’s speaking up to his chosen ones. Jesus is saying that this group of broken, desperate, lonely, hungry and weeping people are blessed, even as stands below with them, even as he knows that soon he will be one of them. He will be poor, and hungry and weeping and hated himself. By looking up at the disciples, but by naming the crowd below them as blessed, he gives the disciples new eyes to see, new ears to hear, new hearts to understand. Jesus looks at the disciples, really looks at them, and tells them to look, to really look, at who is blessed. 

We are peopled by our gaze. We listen each other into being,

How someone looks at us determines how we look at ourselves.

And how we look at ourselves determines how we look at others. 

We meet one another by looking at one another. Not just with our eyes of course, but with the deep or shallow looking of our hearts. It’s only in the seeing of each other that we exist for one another. And if we see each other as a pawn in the game, then that is who they will be for us. Buber calls these “I/It” relationships. They’re relationships of convenience, relationships where we possess one another, but where we don’t truly become alive for each other. In I/It relationships, one of us is the subject, the other the object. I only see you insofar as I can get something from you. You are a part of the game. One of us is the shoe-tie-er, the other is the one with the fancy shoes tied. One of us is blessed. Woe to the other. But no true seeing, no true hearing, is really happening in an I/It relationship. You can't really see someone, truly see them, when they're busy bent down tying your shoe.

In I/It relationships, we aren’t experiencing each other; instead, we’re sizing each other up and trying to figure out how to use each other so that we can get further in the game. And well, if you think you’re somehow exempt from the game, if you think you’ve somehow found a way to be innocent of treating others as an it, then I gotta ask you, who made the clothes you’re wearing, who changed your oil, who picked those tomatoes from the field that you’ll enjoy on your salad for lunch? We can’t help it. The game is rigged. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have. 

But Jesus calls us to a different way of seeing, and he does this by first seeing us. He looks up at us, wherever we stand, and he shows us the humanity of those whom he’s blessed - all those folks down there, hanging out with the Son of Man, "The Human One."

Jesus looks at the disciples, really looks at them, and sees them into being, and he does this by describing what he’s heard from the moaning, desperate, anxious, noxious crowd around him. He has listened the crowd into being, and as he looks up, he is gazing his disciples into a new way of being. He is, what Buber calls, enacting an I/Thou relationship. He is seeing himself as fully himself, and seeing the disciples as fully themselves. He’s telling them that they don’t have to play the I/It game anymore. They too, can see this crowd as a bunch of thous, full, human, blessed beloveds, just like he does. He humanizes the disciples by showing them the humanness of the crowd. 

Through relating to others, through really seeing them, not as an it, but as a real, live, full thou, in their fullest, completest, most whole, thou-ness, we can come to realize who we are, we can come to see ourselves, not as an it, but as a real, live, full thou. We don’t become fully human by possessing each other. We become fully human through experiencing one another. 

Woe to us still up on that mountain, still trying to play the game, still trying to find acceptance and belonging from what we can get from each other, not from who we truly are.

And if I've lost you in all that, maybe we should just remember: not much grows on the mountain. The plains are where we’re fed.

Fast forward thirty years from that little girl on the playground, and I’m visiting a very dear professor from college. To say he was my poetry professor is to both perfectly and inadequately describe who this man is for me. He has me questioning the value of words like “best” and “hope,” and finding life in words like “presence,” “still,” and “with.” Everything I strive to be as a pastor was first given to me by Jack. And I’m trembling a little as I knock on his door for a visit after so much time has passed, so much has happened. He invites me in, offers me a drink, even though it’s hardly noon. He is smiling. He’s lived too much life for pretense or posturing, so I really believe him when he says how good it is to see me. He invites me to sit in a rocking chair with afghans and pillows in a bright sunroom. 

He lets me warm up with some small talk, but he knows that’s not why I’m there. I’m there to tell him what has happened. I am the penitent. He is my confessor. I take a deep breath and I tell him the whole story, all of it. The despair and the impulsivity, the defiance and the professional misconduct. I tell him about the shame and the lack of resources, the terrible choices, the victims left behind, the heartbreak of it all. I’m crying by this time, of course, because this whole time, he’s sat there with me, he’s relived it, with me, he’s been present for it all. And then, I get to the very worst part. And I tell him what I’ve done. I can't even look at him. And he says, without hesitation, “Of course you did.” 

“Of course you did.” 

Which didn’t mean absolution. 

It didn’t mean easy forgiveness or a sweeping under the rug.

It simply meant, “oh yes, I see you. Here you are. You. Fully you. With all your brokenness and failures and mistakes and flawed attempts to play the game. I am looking at you. I have listened you into being.” 

It meant, “Woe to you. And how blessed.”

Thanks be to God.

Who has seen you into being? Tell me your story.

*not her real name. bonus points if you guess where the name inspiration came from...

The Gospel According to the Deep Sea Anglerfish

 

Luke 5:1-11

According to my unskilled and unscientific eye, the deep sea anglerfish has got to be the creepiest looking fish in existence. Most of them don’t get very big, but a closer look at them reveals this giant head, made mostly of a huge, gaping mouth filled with fangs. They have these almost iridescent fins that wave back and forth to make it look like it’s just hovering in the water, and they have a stomach that can distend itself so large that this fish can consume prey over two times the size of their bodies. But the weirdest thing about these fish is how they get their name: they have these poles or rods coming out of their foreheads, and at the very tip of these rods is a bioluminescent bulb that glows in the dark. 

It’s an important adaptation, because these particular anglerfish, the deep sea anglerfish, live up to a mile below sea level, way down deep, where there is only darkness, current, and well, not much else. They need these luminescent “esca” - Latin for “bait” - to lure and attract their prey. They carry their own light, and that light is used to bring in other fish, to attract a mate, essentially, to maintain their own survival. These fish are odd, strange, a little terrifying and almost otherworldly. And they’re ancient. Fossils of these fish have been discovered from  as long ago as the beginning of the Eocene period - more than 55 million years ago. They call these the “fishing fish” - fish whose entire evolution has evolved around the catching of fish. 

These are the kinds of Wikipedia and National Geographic rabbit holes your pastor gets lost in when she encounters the Gospel stories. I like to think that there’s more mystery and awe and wonder and strangeness to our stories than I think we let ourselves really encounter. 

According to my unskilled and unscientific eye, we Christians have found a pretty convenient way to dull down the Gospel, make it taste of microwaved chicken nuggets and canned corn. We want palatable. Inoffensive. Or. Worse, we want to serve the Gospel on a plate of either/ors, rigid definitions, and inflexible and unyielding propositions that we either accept or reject, and then face the consequences. But guys, we simply can't just phone it in anymore. Just listen to Nadia: coffee mug faith just won't cut it anymore. We are missing the terrifying, awe-inspiring, light-bearing Gospel of the deep sea anglerfish. 

Instead, we keep serving up the same bland meal, thinking that this time will be different, this time we will defy the definition of insanity by doing the same thing and actually getting different results. Maybe this time the kids will eat the chicken nuggets and the GMO corn and get excited, will find life there, will want to join in our "feast." Just keep serving up the same thing and maybe our church will be filled again, and our endowment replenished, and we’ll have enough resources to keep serving those nuggets for generations to come. 

But wait. Isn’t this what Jesus is asking Peter to do in our story today? 

Jesus tells Peter that he needs to try again, he needs to do again what he has been doing all night long with no success. 

Peter, the professional fisherman, the guy who owns his own boat and provides for his family and makes a living as an expert catching fish, is directed by Jesus to keep doing what hasn’t been working. Peter knows it’s not a good time to fish. He’s given up for the day. He’s putting his tools away, cleaning his nets, and looking forward to a nice midmorning nap before he has to go back out and try it all over again later tonight. Jesus wants Peter to do it again, to double down, to do what hasn’t worked so far, keep digging his heels in and keep banging his head against the wall until something different happens. Jesus tells Peter to do what seems insane. And Peter responds with common sense - “Uh, Jesus, we’ve been doing that all night long, and it hasn’t worked. But, ya know, if you say so, I guess I’ll entertain your request. 

But, I mean, what do you know about fishing anyway? Wasn’t your dad a carpenter?”

Jesus tells him to try again, but this time, go further. Go deeper. 

Ok. Whatever. We’ll entertain the requests of this strange guy and his strange light. We will appease his request just for the opportunity to tell him “see. I told you so.” We will try again. I mean, you can hear Peter’s sigh audibly through the pages of Luke’s gospel. 

So Peter goes out further. He goes out deeper. He bangs his head against the wall one more time, he reenacts insanity again, and he throws his nets over the side of the boat. 

And maybe he is going insane, because he starts to feel the tug of the nets, he starts to feel the weight and resistance of something in those nets, and he draws them up, heaving and ho-ing, until the nets are about to break. He’s so insane that he has to call out to his buddies for help. He’s so nuts that he starts worrying about the buoyancy of his boat because of all the flopping, flipping, writhing fish collected on deck. He’s so crazy that this encounter with abundance forces him to see what is lacking in himself. He falls down on his knees in front of Jesus, with all those fish flipping and flopping all around him and says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” It’s kind of a humorous, wild, weird, scene, really. 

But this response comes from a place of amazement, of awe, of wonder, maybe even a place of strangeness, oddity; it’s certainly something that Peter, in all of his days of fishing, in his whole life of showing up to the sea of Galilee, day in and day out, doing the same thing over and over and over again until it has the excitement of a plate of microwaved chicken nuggets, has never, ever seen before. And this encounter with the unknown, even in the context of the mundane, gives him a partial vision of who he is. Partial. But still true. The abundance of God reveals in him the lack in himself, and he is completely undone. 

But see, here’s the thing, here’s the kicker: It’s not really about the fish at all. Jesus tells him to calm down, chill out, now you’re gonna fish for people! As if upping the ante, as if intensifying the previous experience by telling him that now he’s going experience what has happened with these fish but with real, live, important people, is somehow going to comfort him. "Hey, don’t be afraid, Peter! You think this is a big deal, just wait until you start fishing for people!" 

Oh. Phew. Thanks Jesus. I needed something to help bring me back down to reality. Fishing for fish has me totally undone, but fishing for people is going to be a piece of cake! I’m going to stop banging my head against the wall in order to catch fish, and I’m going to start banging my head against the wall for people instead!

But something happens. Something changes. Because Peter gets up off his knees, joins the rest in bringing their boats to shore, and then he leaves everything to follow Jesus. And the other guys do, too. They leave it all. Even the fish. Even the thing that reveals the abundance of God and the lack in Peter gets left behind. 

I like to think of this as a catch-and-release exercise. It was an encounter. An experience. It's not about the end result at all. 

This passage is all about the fish, and  also not about the fish. The fish get left behind. They, hopefully,  will get returned to the lake, or handed out to the crowds, or used for a downpayment for a bigger boat. Once Peter has this encounter, this encounter with God’s abundance and with his own lack, he doesn’t need the fish anymore. Even though it was the fish that brought him to this place in the first place.

So often this passage is used to point out our failures in evangelism. And maybe that's what it's about. But this passage isn’t about hog-tying people, roping them in to accepting the Gospel or coming to church, or joining a committee. It's about how when you go deep, you see weird things. It’s about the radical, awe-inspiring, wondrous encounter with this strange abundance, abundance that sometimes feels like it’s coming from a place of insanity, that encourages us into a cycle of going further, going deeper, encountering abundance, and then leaving it behind, so that we can go deeper and further still. It’s about people. About the radical, awe-inspiring wondrous encounter with these weird and creepy creatures called humans, that when we go deeper with each other, reveals a gospel to us more clearly than we’ve ever seen before. 

Eventually, our boat is going to wear out. Eventually, maybe soon, in our case, the church is going to close, and our nets are going to break, and we’re going to run out of resources to keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep serving what we’ve been serving. But until then, we’re going to go deeper. We’re going to go further. We’re going to listen for when Jesus is telling us to do something that seems a little crazy, and we’re going to take the risk and do it. Even if it means that we just keep on keeping on, stubbornly serving our brand of chicken nuggets in the hopes that Jesus comes and turns them in to something else. We are going to keep fishing. Because we know that it’s not about catching fish at all. It’s about the encounter. And in the encounter, some weird, but wonderful, shit is bound to happen.

It’s about how when we do what Jesus asks us to do, we experience a kind of abundance, we see a part of ourselves for who we truly are, and then we are sent out to go even further, even deeper, to experience even more encounters, and then, to even more leaving everything behind to go do it all over again. 

Following Jesus is catch and release, and release and release and release. It’s going into deep waters, having strange encounters, and being brought to your knees. But do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people. You will fish for people. Not so that we can tie them to our pews or get them to agree with us or open their wallets, but so that we can have an encounter with something other, something strange, something wondrous, maybe even something a little bit weird. You'll have an encounter with their weird distended bellies or their odd luminescent bulbs. And then maybe, if you're lucky, you'll see your own.

And then we can let it go and search for more - not so we can control or manipulate, but so that we can be astonished by the encounter. We are the fishers. And we are also the fish. This is the way of Jesus. We are the people. And we are also the people-ers. We take the light of Christ and we share it to reveal our humanity to each other, and then we go deeper, we go further, until we all have been fully and completely peopled, drawn in to the body of Christ with the freedom to be and to know exactly who God has made us to be, fangs and all.

Oh. And back to those Anglerfish. They’re so creepy. But they’re also so cool. Remember those light-bulb things that hang from fishing poles from their foreheads? That glow comes from a symbiotic relationship with a special kind of bacteria. 

In some of these fish, the bacteria has evolved in such a way as to only glow, or provide light, if it is in relationship with that certain kind of fish. The glowing can’t happen until the chemicals in the bacteria mix with the chemicals in that creepy-looking fish’s forehead-fishing-pole. These deep sea anglerfish are the “fishing fish,” the fish who swim around fishing for other fish, but they can’t do it without the cooperation and interaction with that bacteria. They’ve gone down so far and they live so deep that they can’t do any of it without the light. These fish carry their own light, but maybe, deep down, they know that this light doesn’t come just from themselves. 

Thanks be to God.