Jay’s Blog – Do You See?
One of the stories of Jesus that haunts me the most is recorded in Luke 7. Simon the Pharisee asks Jesus to eat at his home. A woman in the city, probably a prostitute (the text just calls her “a sinner”), finds out and brings a flask of ointment to Simon’s home. In an act of mournful contrition, she breaks the flask, pours it on Jesus’s feet, and weeps, wetting his dirty feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair.
Simon, deeply offended in his mind by this woman’s intrusion and repelled by her act, thinks that if Jesus were a legitimate prophet, he would know this woman was a “sinner” and would also be repelled.
Jesus, knowing Simon’s thoughts, asks him a deeply compelling question, “Do you see this woman?” We know he’s not asking Simon whether his eyes are functioning, but whether he perceives her. Does he value her? Does he bother to know her story or even consider that she might have one? Does he recognize her value and worth as a person, and does Simon understand the magnitude of what she’s doing in this moment, worshiping and repenting before the Son of God?
The answer to all of these questions is “no,” and Simon condemns himself by his blindness.
One of the recurring themes I hear from our alumni at Grace is that what they cherished most about their time at our school was being seen, known, and loved. Not until they left here and moved into the world beyond our four walls did they realize what a rare and precious thing that was. They were seen. To love as Jesus loves, we have to see.
In our school community, we claim to be and serve Christians, Jesus-lovers. The term “Christian” literally means “little Christ.” We are not perfect, but sinners saved by faith in Jesus Christ. This faith isn’t just the “believe in Jesus and go live any kind of life you want” faith, which isn’t saving faith. As James 2:26 tells us, “faith without works is dead.” James clarifies that true, living faith produces right belief and action, not as a way to earn salvation, but as a response to God’s grace. If saving faith is absent, one should not assume they are saved; instead, they should question it in a way that leads to repentance and restoration.
Having saving faith means being a disciple of Jesus, literally a follower. It means doing what He does, saying what He says, thinking as He thinks, and feeling as He feels. Jesus’s ways find themselves routinely at odds with the ways of the world. Isaiah 55:8 reminds us that “my (God’s) thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways.”
The Greatest Commandment is one of Jesus’ ways that isn’t worldly. Jesus summarized the whole law of God as “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt. 22:36-40. These commandments are intertwined, making it impossible to fulfill one without fulfilling the other. We can’t love God without loving our neighbor.
And, when asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The hero of that story, the one who loved well, was the one who was most despised among the hearers of the story- a Samaritan, one that their Jewish racism led them to believe was inferior. Jesus drove home a point He would reinforce this in His Sermon on the Mount, instructing, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matt. 5:44. As followers of Jesus, we are commanded to love. As the old song we all learned at VBS says, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
One alarming thing we’ve seen frequently in our culture lately is the objectification and dehumanization of people, which is the opposite of love. According to the National Institutes of Health, objectifying people is treating or perceiving a person or group as a thing or tool rather than as a person with thoughts, feelings, and agency. Objectification is a sin for a “little Christ” because to view a person as an object or tool robs them of their humanity and rejects what God says is true about them by making them in His image—that they have unique value, dignity, and worth that is transcendent.
In Luke 7, Simon objectified and dehumanized the woman who came to see Jesus. He failed to “see” her and condemned himself.
The temptation to stop seeing people is not limited to Simon, nor is it confined to one moment in history. Every culture and generation wrestles with the same tendency to reduce people to labels rather than recognizing their full humanity. If we’re honest, we are all vulnerable to this blindness in ways we may not immediately recognize.
Totalitarian regimes through the ages have used objectification and dehumanization as tools to cause others great harm. In Nazi Germany, leaders there referred to Jews as “vermin,” making their extermination seem a practicality, a matter of public health. In the Rwandan Genocide of the 1990s, Hutu extremists labeled Tutsis “cockroaches” and “snakes,” justifying violence against them. The Russian Revolution viewed the bourgeoisie as the root of all systemic problems, thereby justifying their execution. Later, under Stalin, Russia consistently purged officials, treating them as fungible and dispensable, and simultaneously rendering every citizen an accomplice to the state’s crimes. Even now, in North Korea, citizens are “scored,” reduced to data points to measure their worth and access to society.
Unfortunately, it’s not just a tool of totalitarian regimes. We objectify and dehumanize people; we fail to see them anytime we lump them together in a fungible, unified mass that we stereotype and use as a vehicle for our frustration and anger. And while, as Americans and Christians (the two are NOT the same thing, by the way), we have been fighting these regimes and their objectifying, dehumanizing ways as an affront to human decency and dignity for over a century, we’re often guilty of our failure to see.
In our current cultural climate, it has unfortunately become increasingly common for people across the political spectrum to reduce those who disagree with them to caricatures or stereotypes. When that happens, we stop talking and start hating. As followers of Jesus, we have to resist the temptation to see people as faceless archetypes of a particular ideology and start seeing them as image bearers of the living God.
This discourse poses a significant risk for everyone, as it portrays our fellow citizens as symbols of national threats that need to be eradicated, rather than focusing on individuals like Bob in the yellow house, my neighbor, who may not share my political views but is still a genuinely good man once you get to know him. This approach jeopardizes the principles of our Republic. More importantly, however, it’s a sin for “little Christs” who, when they do so, give voice to a creed entirely at odds with God’s view of his people. It’s a failure to love.
What’s worse is that many of the people we objectify are the body of Christ, sons and daughters of God. As my pastor said last Sunday when preaching on Galatians 6, our job as church members is not to fight with each other but for each other—for goodness and truth in each other’s lives, to see and to love well.
We may fail to see immigrants clearly in our current culture more than in any other area. This sort of objectifying treatment isn’t unique to our era; it’s been a recurring American ailment throughout the centuries. If you’re of Irish, Italian, or Serbian descent, or Catholic, or almost anything else that isn’t English (and maybe even that), at one point or another, your ancestors were probably dehumanized and objectified in our nation’s history.
Scripture contains numerous instructions on how to treat the “sojourner” (foreigner or immigrant), focusing on empathy, justice, and active care. “Treat them as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were sojourners in Egypt.” Lev. 19:33-34; “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner,” Ex. 22:21; “The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you… You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord.” Num. 15:15-16: “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner or the widow.” Deut. 27:19; “Do not forget to show hospitality to foreigners.” Heb. 13:2. Jesus says to those who are saved as evidence of their compassion, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Matt. 25:35.
Good, sound immigration policy is necessary in our country and, probably, in any country. This principle is derivative of the rule of law in Romans 13. An open border is a threat to that security. However, as followers of Jesus, we are called to ensure that these laws are enforced in kind and respectful ways that recognize people’s dignity and worth, seeing them rather than treating them as less than human, or as a means to achieve political or economic goals.
My daughter, who lives in Dallas, has friends named Charles and Jennifer. The couple, who are Nigerian, fled their home country with their four children in 2022, seeking asylum in the U.S. after 8 years of terrible persecution for their Christian faith. They have lived in Dallas for years, where Charles has a full-time job in the software industry and is admired by his coworkers for his work ethic, kindness, and humility. Charles and his family regularly attend Eastside Community Church in Dallas. He is a model citizen, with no prior interactions with the law. He has a valid work permit and a social security number.
On January 21, Charles was detained by immigration officials upon arrival for his regular immigration check-in. He is now detained and separated from his family, while his wife tries to navigate a system she doesn’t understand, alone.
Charles and Jennifer’s situation isn’t the only type of immigration situation, but that’s the whole point. Seeing means understanding, knowing people as people and trying to get at their story, rather than as labels or homogenous groups. It means viewing them with the eyes of the Lord, attaching the human dignity, value, and worth God affords all of us. The problem really isn’t a political issue but a love issue. This is what love requires, and as followers of Jesus, we have to embrace a better way.
Jay Ferguson, Ph.D., Head of School at Grace Community School, writes regularly on his blog, JaysBlog.org.