The Ministry of Sight
Photo by Jose A.Thompson on Unsplash
I’ve watched people look over her my whole life. I’ve walked behind my mother, disabled as a child from polio, and stood amazed at the number of people who simply didn’t see her. With eyes glazed over, or those intentionally darting away, people would look past her as she worked hard to walk with steel braces wrapped stiffly around her legs, and long sharp crutches under each arm. Whether with three young children in tow, or with grocery bags balanced in her hands as she gripped the handle of her crutches, as she struggled to open a door or as she slowly walked by, person after person would push past her.
Just a few months ago, I stood at the edge of the Pool of Bethesda, located perfectly in the heart of Jerusalem. As I studied stone after stone of ancient bathing pools, I heard in my mind the story of the disabled man and his healing (John 5:6). Jesus asked the man, “Would you like to get well?” Eventually, the man, disabled from birth, would pick up his mat and walk away whole. As I stood on that ancient site marveling at the thought of this man’s healing, I imagined the crowds of people that walked past him each day. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people overlooked him, ignoring his pain. As I stood in the old city that day, I marveled at Jesus’ compassionate action to heal the man. But it took my breath away when I realized that Christ’s most significant miracle here was simply to see.
The text says, “When Jesus saw him...” (v 6). Jesus was most known for the miracle of healing, but Jesus’ most vital ministry may have been the ministry of sight. Jesus saw the value and worth of those others overlooked. He saw the orphan, the slave, the sinner, the woman, the outcast, and unclean. He saw them. And in seeing them, he was able to offer compassion in their pain even before he stepped in to heal what was broken.
I will never forget the words that came from my little boy’s mouth from the backseat of our car one afternoon. On our way home from school, I heard his sweet voice quietly say, “People don’t see me, Mom.” As his words echoed through the car, my heart swiftly broke. He continued to say that because he was small, other kids looked over him. They literally talked over him when standing in line for lunch, forgetting to include him in the conversation. He saw that they didn’t see him. Those small moments of invisibility to others caused this precious boy to question his place, his worth in the world.
Our lack of sight cuts deeply and personally. It causes those made invisible by others to question their value. People made in the image of God are deeply harmed in the simple act of not being seen.
On May 25th, I saw something with new eyes. Suddenly, I realized that I had been looking away as so many people had done to my mother. In an instant, I was convicted. As George Floyd took his last breath, and the pain of a hurting community cried out, my eyes were opened to see that I had been looking past people desperate to be seen.
As a good, midwestern girl I was taught to be colorblind. I learned it was best to not see color. Entire generations of white Americans have learned the same. In doing so, we’ve looked over thousands of hurting people, dying to be seen for who they are. The disabled man at the Pool of Bethesda couldn’t be healed until someone saw him in his circumstance, acknowledged the struggle in it, and reached in to help. Someone had to look in on his life for a moment, to see the whole of it, to understand his need. From the outside looking in on racism, we often say we want to help, that we want to bring an end to the pain of discrimination, but we’re not willing to look closely at people right in front of us. We wring our hands at the struggles of the world around us, stepping over the mats of those desperate for help.
Extending the ministry of sight to others, the way Jesus did, will require two things of us. First, to look in on ourselves, through examination and confession, to acknowledge our blindness. And secondly, to identify our limited vision as we open our eyes to the needs of others. In order to see, we have to identify our short-sightedness. Only then can we correct it.
Over 400 years ago, St. Ignatius developed a prayerful practice called the Examen. This underutilized practice calls believers to a daily examination of the heart, reflection on the day’s events, and the discovery of God’s presence in them. This daily examination asks believers to unearth embedded motives, to look upon our sin, to identify bias and ignorance. The process is intended to point the Christian to spiritual growth and maturity, understanding our imperfection is ever before us; recognizing our mission is Christ-likeness in every part. Without the daily examination of our failure and imperfection, we become blind to our internal sin and we come to believe the simple deception: that we are good.
This examination, practiced regularly by John Wesley, forces us to look at both spirit and habit. With focus and intensity we look at the state of our heart. As we open ourselves to the examination of the Spirit, we will see ugliness, bitterness, bias, mistrust, fear, and pride. Submitting to God, we will recognize our sin. Only then can we yield in repentance to the correction that leads to reconciliation. Uprooting sin and pursuing righteousness is the longstanding task of sanctification. Beginning to see will require an internal examination of the heart, regularly and thoroughly, and finding God’s grace in it. Too often we skip over this practice of prayer because it requires something of us that is deeply uncomfortable. Too easily we pass the blame of sin to others in the process. Without this essential practice of internal sight, we miss experiencing the fullness of God’s grace available in total forgiveness and entire sanctification.
With internal examination, we are then able to shift our attention to a new external vision in the compassionate consideration of others. Compassion is a gift from God. It is the ability to see what God sees, to care for the experiences of others as much as we care about ourselves. It is love for neighbor as we walk in another’s shoes and give value to their story. The world seems to have lost sight of compassion, as many people spend more time defending their position instead of validating another’s perspective. Our colorblindness puts up walls of defense at the use of the phrase “white supremacy” because we’ve never worn a white robe. It’s shouting “all lives matter” instead of joining others in fighting for the equal treatment of people of color. Compassion is necessary for seeing another person’s story while simultaneously recognizing that we will never fully understand it. It’s looking on my mother’s struggle and coming alongside her need, while simultaneously understanding that we will never know the way it feels to walk in her steps.
This kind of looking in on someone’s life gives value to their experience and recognition of the obstacles in their way. Through acts of mercy, the ancient traditions of the church to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, and care for the sick, we can begin to experience perspectives that widen our worldview to see the struggle that people experience everyday that we easily ignore when cloistered in our segregated neighborhoods and affluent communities. We can only work to bring wholeness and healing to others when we value the joy and struggle of another’s journey. Compassion will come as we winnow away our pride and take on humility through prayer and action. The more we practice the internal examen, through confession and repentance, the more compassion will fill pride’s place. That kind of prayer will begin the internal change necessary truly to see others, but acts of compassion will solidify its place in us.
In the story of the healing at the Pool of Bethesda, before Jesus healed the man he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” (v. 6). Jesus stopped to see the man. With compassion he imagined his need, but he didn’t assume the man’s desire. Jesus didn’t impose himself on the man, assuming what he wanted. Instead, he trusted the man to tell his story and reveal his desire to be healed. To truly see, we must strike the balance of the compassionate consideration of another’s need without trampling over them in our desire to help.
People endlessly walked by the crippled man along the pool’s edge and assumed he didn’t have a story worth knowing. They couldn’t see potential in his circumstance, let alone the need for his restoration. When Jesus saw the man, he saw the deep pain of the man’s displacement from community. He saw the man's potential to contribute to others with his life, and the opportunity for him to experience the joy of reconciled relationship that would come with his healing.
The deeply broken relationship with one another is a long-standing pain ready for healing. Creation is calling for the restoration of community and relationship with people who have long been walked past, isolated, overlooked, and abused. To be Christlike requires rejecting the systems of class today that Paul challenged in the early church not just in the offenses committed by others, but in the conviction of our own, personal oversight to the reality of unseen racism in us.
If we, like Jesus, want to bring healing to the hurting, to restore what’s broken, we have to see inside ourselves, and outside of our circumstance, through self-examination, prayer, and repentance. We must open our eyes to see the beauty of diversity. We must take action to witness the struggle those overlooked have faced alone, to begin to behold with our own eyes the pain we have caused in our oversight; to people of color, to the disabled, to the homeless, the mentally ill, the outcast, and abandoned.
What those people didn’t know as they blindly walked past my mother every day, was the strength she carried as she raised her children, owned a business, and earned a graduate degree - how she mustered more effort in a single task than most people needed in a day. They didn’t see the grace she extended as she forgave the hurt other people put on her with their ignorance. They missed witnessing the faith that fueled her to trust the Lord with every toilsome step. They missed incredible beauty because they were too busy looking away.
We will never know the strength, beauty, and grace represented by the people around us until we see them….
Until we, like Ignatius and John Wesley, examen our hearts for our sin against them….
Until we look in on their experiences with compassion…. Until we see the truth of their stories of struggle….
Until we recognize the value and potential right in front of our faces.
Healing begins with sight. I'm committing to see.
Sarah Wanck is an Elder in the United Methodist Church, serving in the Illinois Great Rivers Conference. She is currently appointed as the Associate Pastor at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Washington, Illinois.