I’ve always felt uncomfortable about some of the things that Jesus is reported to have said. When he says that he has come to bring a sword rather than peace, to turn members of a household against one another, or that those who love their family members more than they love him are not worthy of him,* these words do not sound like the Jesus who heals broken bodies and broken hearts, who invites himself to dinner with someone who takes more than what is due when collecting taxes, or who offers eternally living water to a person with questionable morality.
And yet, when I reflect on the many ways that humans find to hurt one another, to live as though nothing matters but their material comfort, to insist that only their way is right and everybody else is wrong, I realize that Jesus is merely describing what will inevitably happen when those who follow him start to share whatever they have with strangers, to forgive those who hurt them instead of fighting back, or to let go of the need to tell others what to do. The inevitable result, of course, is that this kind of behavior scares a lot of people, as it threatens their selfish, self-centered way of life.
Even though it kind of sounds like it, Jesus is not telling his followers to worship him, but to live like him. Jesus tells us that if we want to follow him, we must be generous in a world that is tightfisted; honest in a world that is filled with people who lie to themselves as well as to others; and willing to let go of power in a world that knows nothing but violence and hierarchy. All we have to do is love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, to see everyone with soft eyes. When I’m honest, I realize that I’m not very good at it. Are you? How do you love both God and your neighbors? Can you practice seeing other people with soft eyes? Can you see yourself that way, too?
- Deborah Sokolove Yakushiji, Seekers Church
For More...
For more on the difficulty of seeing one another as Jesus sees, see Parker Palmer’s substack “Living the Questions.” While he doesn’t mention Jesus much, a lot of what Palmer says is informed by his deep faith as a Quaker. Here is a link to a recent piece called “Looking at Life with Soft Eyes: The way we look at the world matters: what we see is what we get…” which begins with a poem by Lisa Mueller called “Monet Refuses the Operation.”
