Things Seen
10-03
"With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: `You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.' But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear." -- Jesus (Matthew 13: 14-16)
Some things are easy to see. Looking out the window of the office of Sausalito Presbyterian Church across the shimmering waters of the Bay, gazing at Angel Island -- this doesn't strain my eyes or tax my mind! I plan on doing a lot of church work up there, so I can soak up that pleasing view while I talk on the phone.
Seeing other parts of the kingdom of heaven on earth can take more effort. Last evening it was time for a bite to eat before I went to some meetings It was my third day on the job as your minister. So I took the short but steep walk to town, and I found a cluster of Hispanic people sitting on the last few steps before the sidewalk at the bottom. Earlier I had seen some of them walking down the hill from their jobs at the Alta Mira Hotel across the street from the church. The #20 pulled up and they got aboard for the bus ride home to San Francisco. One economic class goes to work in San Francisco in the morning, another economic class goes home to San Francisco in the evening. The people who clean our clothes and make our beds and cook our food and wash our dishes are sometimes hard for people in my circumstances to see. It takes some effort for me to remember that I am one with them in the wider and deeper realm of heaven that Jesus invited us to perceive. What am I called to do in response to the sight of them sitting on the steps below the church, waiting for the bus to take them from work in a mostly white segregated community back home to a mostly hispanic segregated community?
Jesus invites us to see it all -- the play of golden orange light on the trees at the top of the island across the water, and the experience of being an imperfectly welcomed immigrant to this country and this town. I am more aware of my privileged life than ever, feeling completely comfortable at SPC and in Marin County despite my newness to it all. So many others, some sitting on the steps last night by Bridgeway Avenue, have been coming to Sausalito daily for years and still feel like strangers. I wish everyone could experience the kind of effusive and warm welcome that Roberta and I have so much appreciated as we have arrived among you!
Jesus asks us to see it all -- the sight of a sail billowing white, whisking a boat across the inlet, and the perception of the difficult consequences of life in an ethnically and economically divided society. Blessed are we when we can see! I hope you will show me what I might otherwise miss, help me to employ the inner eye of perception to find the kingdom in what does not get past my outer eye of sensation, as I begin in a place and among a people new to me. Thank you and God bless!
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