Seeing and Being Seen

There's a healing story in the Bible that doesn't get enough attention.

In fact, it happens over and over and over again.

It's not as flashy as the paralytic who picked up his mat and walked, or the woman healed after twelve years of hemorrhaging, or the man born blind having his sight restored.

But I'm convinced that it was just as transformative.

It's the miracle of being seen.

It's the miracle that was given to Levi, the tax collector: "As he was walking along, Jesus saw Levi son of Alphas sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, 'Follow me.'" (Mark 2:14)

It's the miracle received by the woman known only by her past ("what kind of woman this is who is touching him--that she is a sinner"), until Jesus turned to toward her. "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment." While the others saw only her past wrongdoings, Jesus commended her for her great love. (Luke 7: 36-50)

It's the miracle received by a Samaritan woman who found herself alone at the well at noon, avoiding the contempt-filled gazes of her peers who had long since come and gone from that place, avoiding the full heat of the midday sun--who would soon run back home from her encounter with Jesus shouting, "Come see a man who told me everything I have ever done!" (John 4:29)

And so many others.

I'd noticed how many times Jesus restored sight to the blind in his earthly ministry, but not how many times he'd given people the gift of being really and truly seen, until recently.

After ten years of fighting for legitimacy, for recognition, for a place at the table, I made the decision to move on from the church body that had become home for me. The decision wasn't one that I made lightly, and it's taken me some time to be ready to think about what might come next, especially when the closing of the particular ministry I was working for brought grief upon grief.

But then one day, something miraculous happened. As I started to talk with a few folks about what my next steps might be, and tentatively took a few steps in that direction, I found that people were taking me seriously. Really listening to my story, all of it--the grief and the struggle, but also the things that give me deep joy and delight. They gave me the gift of reflecting my strengths back to me. They invited me to consider finding a place among them.

They saw gifts in me, and reflected those gifts back to me so that I might see them too.

And I realized the power of being seen, really and truly seen, for the first time in a very long time.

It has made all the difference.

And now I find myself wondering how it was that I had somehow come to believe that the only way to find my place in the church was to avoid being seen, to hide behind other (mostly male) leaders, in order to find a place at the table.

And I grieve for all those who are seen first of all by the church as issues to be discussed, whether because of gender or sexuality or ability or age or any of a number of other categories that fail to see the beautiful, beloved child of God underlying all of it.

And I pray that we might do better--that I might do better. I pray that God will give me the eyes to see, and the ability to convey to others that they are seen, that they are beloved, that they too are children of God, created in God's image, just as they are.