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November 6, 2005
Seeing and Being Seen
I John 3: 1-3
We're children of God. Now. " . . . it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (I John 3:2b,c). What'll become of us is according to what we see. That's the way the writer of I John sees it.
"Role models" shape our lives, give us visions of how to be. TV and sports project and promote powerful "role models." Every adult should know, if you don't already, that you are always being observed by children. They are intense in their observation, exacting in what they remember, sometimes cruel in their perceptions. You and I are under review, being sized up. Like the child in "The Emperor's New Clothes," children are expert at telling the difference between a put-up job and the real thing. We are being seen. Some child may want to be like what they see in you. Is Christ making an appearance in your life?
How do you want to be seen? I wonder if that's what we spend most of our time on? Partly it's a matter of showing others how we would have them see us. The clothes we wear, the way we do our hair, the gestures and facial expressions we use, even the way we walk and our posture when we're standing or sitting—-they're all part of what we're showing. How we'd like to be seen is also partly a matter of hiding what we don't want others to see. One-time heavy weight boxing champion Floyd Patterson hated losing, and more, he hated facing people after he did. That is why he carried an attaché case filled with disguises into his dressing room before each fight. Each year he spent thousands on make-up experts to help him get some privacy in public. We show some of ourselves, and hide some, and that's the way we want to be seen. We're called to be like Christ.
When others look at you, what do they see? It's wonderful to be recognized—most of the time—but what do others really see? It may not always be what they tell you when you're together. It's more likely what's said when you're not there: during on breaks in the teachers' lounge, or in the corner over a drink, or in the car on the way to Iowa City, or on the telephone. No one's exempt. Whoever gossips to you, says a Spanish proverb, will gossip about you. Whenever you are a topic for others' gossip: that's what people have seen when they look at you. Gossip is our way of painting pictures of other's lives. It's partly what we see, and partly what we imagine. If we knew that others said of us, thought Blaise Pascal, there likely wouldn't be four friends in the world. Truth to tell, others see many things that we never will; know us in ways we will never know ourselves. Is what others see the way you really are? Are you willing to settle for that? Are you willing to have others settle for that? We're called to be like Christ.
When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? You see the hair and the eyes and the skin and the blemishes. You also see some things that other's don't—things that are behind the eyes, beneath the skin; blemishes of a different sort. What you see is probably not what you tell others when you meet them at the office, or in the market, or at the barber shop.
The Nobel Prizes were announced recently. It all began one morning when Alfred Nobel awoke to read his own obituary. His brother had died; a reporter had been careless. In that moment Nobel saw himself as others did: as "the dynamite King," the great industrialist who had made his fortune from explosives, a merchant of death. It was not the way he wanted to see himself: as a person trying to break down barriers that separated people. He made his last will and testament the expression of his life's ideals. It's the way he came to see himself.
What do we see? There are, of course, things that we see about ourselves that others see, too. That's a lot of what we think it's safe to talk to one another about in polite conversation. Some things others see that we don't see of ourselves. There are things we see about ourselves that no one else sees. There are yet other things that neither we nor others see about us—things hidden completely from view; things beyond speaking; things, perhaps, beyond knowing, like the better part of an iceberg. No matter how long or how well we know someone, still there is a kind of mystery about them, something unknown, unknowable. It's not just that we try to keep ourselves from others, to preserve some secret part of us. We're separated from one another by a kind of opaque screen. Try as we may, finally we really don't know each other, not even those we are closest to emotionally and spiritually. Do we know ourselves any better?
Our lives are not just hidden from others, observes John Calvin, but from ourselves, too. [Commentaries, XXI, p. 207] Just as there is no way from one person to another, there is no way from me to myself. Even as there is no pathway from soul to soul, there is no way from me to myself. We are mysteries. To ourselves. To others. No matter how much of ourselves we are able to see, the main part will always elude us. We never solve the mystery; we live it. "And we do that," says Fred Buechner, "not by fully knowing yourself but by fully being yourself." (Wishful Thinking, p. 64)
To be ourselves, we need someone who can see through the disguises. We need someone who can see us for what we fully are, and not run away screaming, if with nothing worse, with laughter. In the presence of that one we are seen fully for what we are. Our trust in that One leads us to step into being a new person. A child of God, is what the writer of I John calls that new person. It's not something we discover, any more than we discover who our parents are. We are told, and we believe. When Jesus saw a paralyzed man he said, "Your sins are forgiven," and then "Rise," and the paralytic picked up his bed and went home. The paralytic didn't discover he was forgiven; he believed it. He became a new person. A child of God.
Christ stands between us, my neighbor and me, and we can only get in touch with our neighbors through Christ. In a similar way Christ stands with me, between me and myself. Through Christ I can finally get in touch with myself. I am hidden from myself. Christ and only Christ can show me to myself. [cf. D. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 109f.] Our lives are hid with Christ in God. " . . . it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (I John 3:2b,c)
When will Christ appear? If we don't know, we can remember what we're supposed to be looking for. When we share the bread at communion, is it not the body of Christ? When we pass the cup, is it not the blood of Christ? Is not that the way Christ appears to us now? God wants us to glimpse our lives in that. And what sort of life is it we may see? Is it not the life of one who has given up life for others? Is it not the life of one who has words of eternal life? Is it not the life shared among those who were here before us, whose memory nourishes us, whose lives made it possible for us to see and be seen here? And when we look at one another what should we see but children of God? God sees what is to become of us.
Is it seeing and being seen that makes us what we are? Christ is the one we are to become like. The reason we do not see others or ourselves as they and we really are is that we are to become like Christ. If we saw others as they are we would become like what we see. If we saw ourselves as we are, we would become like ourselves. We are not intended to become like other people; we are not even intended to become like ourselves. We are to be like Christ. We will see Christ as he really is. And we will see others and ourselves as we really are.
In Richard Nash's The Rainmaker Starbuck is a dreamer of dreams that never come true. Lizzie, who has come to love him anyway, takes time to see the world for real. Starbuck says, angrily tapping his head: "There ain't no world near as good as the world I got up here." "Why?" he wonders, bewildered. "I don't know," concedes Lizzie. "Maybe it's because you don't take time to see it. Always on the go—here, there, nowhere. Running away . . . keeping your own company. Maybe if you'd keep company with the world . . . ." Starbuck interjects: "I'd learn to love it?" "You might," Lizzie keeps on, "if you saw it real. Some nights I'm in the kitchen washing dishes. And Pop's playing poker with the boys. Well, I'll watch him real close. And at first I'll just see an ordinary middle-aged man—not very interesting to look at. And then, minute by minute, I'll see little things I never saw in him before. Good things and bad things—queer little habits I never noticed he had—and ways of talking I never paid any mind to. And suddenly I know who he is—and I love him so much I could cry! And I want to thank God I took the time to see him real. (Quoted in Robert Raines, Creative Brooding, p. 105)
When you love somebody, it is no longer you who is at the center of your vision. The one you love is the center. You forget yourself. You give of yourself. By our logic when we give of yourself there ought to be less of you. Curiously, there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself. Giving up your self-seeking for someone you love, you become yourself at last. It is a gift, not an achievement. We can make ourselves moral. We can make ourselves religious. You can't make yourself love. "We love," wrote I John, "because [God] first loved us." [4:19] That is how we become children of God. God knows what we're meant to see.
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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