Embracing the Left and the Right and Everything Else

Indulge me for a moment. You (whoever you are) are walking down a street and you encounter a group of men and women who seem to be connected with each other – arguing, laughing, talking thoughtful, playing a bit. And somewhat towards the front is a man who for all appearances looks about like any local walking that street.

Except for his eyes when he looks at you. In the movies, when they portray Jesus, his eyes tend to have this ghostly, other-worldly appearance as if an alien creature had possessed that Jewish body. Which is not at all how I picture Jesus. What I think of when I encounter him walking that dusty street is someone who, with very human eyes, has the ability to peer right inside you in a way that is both full of love and acceptance and full of anticipation that you will rise above whatever you are not now rising above, if only as he enables you to do so.

I heard it again somewhere today: "Hate the sin and love the sinner" – and in that order. Not what I read of Jesus in the Gospels. Can't even proof text that one. What I see in Jesus' eyes is just "love you, son" (I happen to be male). And as I experience that amazing and unprecedented love, I so much want to shed all that is not right and become as much like him as I humanly can. And when I find I can't, I beg him to help, heal, forgive, transform me, whatever it takes. And he does, bit by careful bit, while all along he hugs me like there is no letting go.

Indulge me a little more. Watch Jesus walk past you now. See how he encounters others on that street – a bent-over elderly woman, a rough-looking Roman soldier, a lonely prostitute, a conniving businessman, a crying child. Does he change each time he meets someone new and different? Or do those piercing eyes convey the same message every time?

Having read through those gospels so many times I cannot even make a guess, I am confident his message is as consistent as the most predictable thing you can conceive of in our present human reality. Even more so.

Not everyone responds to Jesus the same way. Some avert their eyes. Some lock eyes for a moment and then forcibly look away or down, out of fear or shame or disdain. Some respond like a long lost puppy. But his gaze and its message doesn't change.

So why do my eyes change, dependent as they are on who they see? Why do I avoid eye contact with some, fear this one or write off that one? Why do I look for the ones I think deserve my attention or who will be most receptive or who are most like me? Or who will most like
me? Why do I preface loving the sinner with "hating the sin" as if it were a clarifying clause?

Because I want to make sure everyone understands that God hates sin? Of course God does. But is that what defines God? Nope. Otherwise we'd all be charcoal briquettes. So, is "hate the sin" even a close second clause to "love the sinner"? Nope, again (with apologies to Miss Miller, my ninth grade English teacher).

What I see in Jesus' eyes is simply "Follow me". That is not a command as in "you're in trouble now." That is an invitation as in "follow me and wait and see how you change and how you will transform others around you!"

So I am sitting at a table in China with a Communist official, a businessman, a teacher and a car driver. (Not a joke) And I'm thinking, how is Jesus looking at them?

So I am sitting at a table in the USA with a Democrat/government official, a Tea Party businessman, a teacher and a truck driver. (Again, not a joke) And I'm thinking, how is Jesus looking at them?

I think about my friend who pastored a church in Central America where pro-government loyalists and revolutionary Communists attended side by side. And I wonder if that is possible here in Portland? Can they do it if they avoid talk of politics? Or is politics included along with everything else in what Jesus wants them to discuss and grow together in?

I wonder about all that. Can a church survive with Communists and Tea Partiers sitting side by side in the worship service? Oh sure, as long as one of them goes to the altar – you pick which one J Or maybe they've already been (to the altar, that is) and in fact they remain a Communist and a Tea Partier even as they've met Jesus and are trying to follow him. Only they're each still working out their salvation with fear and trembling, and so haven't quite wound up seeing eye to eye on everything.

I think about all this and wonder and hope that next time I go to a worship service or encounter someone on the street, it is the eyes of Jesus which embrace me and not another. For I know another upon seeing me – despicable as I am – is inclined to shudder and chant, "I hate your sin, though of course I love you nonetheless." And somehow it would feel like anything but love gazing out at me from such eyes.

And I pray, May I have the eyes of Jesus next time I look at another.