The Unexpected Face

The Unexpected Face--October 2, 2018

But wanting to justify himself, [the expert in the law] asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took are of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." [Luke 10:29-37]

Jesus challenges us to see faces. Everywhere.

Even including the faces of those we have sworn off as our enemies. Even including the people we have privately given ourselves permission to hate.  Even including people who see the world dramatically differently from the way you see it, or the way I see it.  

Jesus challenges us--he compels us--to see that even these people have faces. And once we see their faces--that is to say, once we realize that for all the disagreements and differences, they are human beings made in the image of God--we can never reduce them to being all evil in our minds.  After all, if Jesus' Jewish listener could be made to recognize that the one who truly understood loving his neighbor was his sworn enemy, a Samaritan, well then, God can work through anybody, anywhere, at any time, with or without our permission.

This is really important to say, because we like to think, we modern folks, that we have gotten beyond the prejudice and hatred that separated Judeans from Samaritans in Jesus' day. We like to think that we know better, and that we have outgrown such blatant hostility and discrimination.  But really, it's just the names of the groups that keep changing--we are still just as hell-bent on finding someone else to make into our faceless enemy, someone we can cast as the boogeyman who is unadulterated, undiluted evil.

Like here's one I have been struck by lately.  I have seen floating around the internet and social media sites a meme that just baldly declares, "The upcoming 2018 elections are not about one party versus another party--they are about good versus evil!"  That's it.  No other text. No nuance.  Just a naked, unsubstantiated claim that one side in our current political mess is pure good, and the other is unqualified evil.  And perhaps most ironic of all, I have seen this sentiment shared by people on both sides of the political spectrum lately--each 100% sure that the other party is entirely evil, and each 100% certain that they themselves are wholly good.

And I get the temptation.  I do.  I know the pull, the temptation, to see everything the "other side" does as morally evil, maliciously motivated, and pure cruelty and thirst for power.  I know the temptation--I wrestle with it every day--to just assume the worst possible motivations for those with whom I disagree, and to give the benefit of the doubt to the people I am already predisposed to like.  Most of all, I know the temptation not to see "the other" as someone with a face... someone with a reason for thinking the way they do... someone with a family and friends and heartaches and joys, some of which will be very much like my own, and some of which will be quite different.  But if I dare to see the "other" as someone with a face, then no matter how much I may think they are wrong about X, Y, and Z, I am called--challenged by Jesus, no less--to recognize the image of God in them.  

To see the face of another person does not mean I must all of a sudden agree with them, or give up on the importance of what I think, or how I see the world, or that the issues we have between us are trivial.  But it does mean I don't get to demonize the other.  If I make "the other" into a demon, then I am allowed to hate them.  Demons don't get faces.  Demons don't get a hearing.  Demons, I can tell myself, are wrong and wicked no matter what they say or do, and I have no obligation whatsoever to inquire whether they have a point I couldn't see, or an insight I didn't want to recognize.  But the moment I see a human face on the person I have deemed an "enemy" or "the other," I have to consider that they are beloved of God... maybe even have been sent by God across my path.

This is part of the power of the story Jesus tells, the story we now call "the Good Samaritan."  The scandal is often lost on us, because we don't have the same gut hatred and bitter animosity toward "Samaritans," and we struggle to find some other modern equivalent for these groups.  And while there are certainly ethnic and cultural overtones between Jesus' Jewish listeners and the people from Samaria like the one in Jesus' story, by sheer physical appearance you wouldn't have been able to tell whether someone was born in Judea or Samaria--they were both groups who could trace their ancestry back to the old twelve tribes of Israel, after all.  But maybe the vitriolic gut reactions we tend to feel these days across political lines gets close to the scandal.  Imagine a report on MSNBC with the shocking headline that a "Good Trump supporter had saved a Bernie Sanders voter from a burning building," or that Fox News was blaring the breaking news that a "Good Hillary voter had just stepped in front of a moving bus in order to spare the life of a man in a red MAGA hat crossing the street."  Did you wince at either (or both) of those scenarios?  Good--that's the kind of punch Jesus has in mind with his story.  And that's the point.  When the people we want to hate the most, the people we want to demonize the most, the people we cannot see anything in common with and whose views are deeply in conflict with our own, when it turns out that we see these people have faces, too, the situation changes.  We are compelled to see that even someone we had written off as "all bad" is capable of a compassion and a love greater than we wanted to admit.  We come to see that there is no one on God's green earth who doesn't have a face... and therefore, that there are none who do not bear the image of God, either.

The really sneaky thing about this story in the end is the twist in how Jesus reframes the original question. When the expert in the law asks, "Who is my neighbor?" at the beginning of all this, he means to ask, "Where is the line between people I am liable for caring about, and who are the people outside the boundary that I am free to disregard, ignore, or hate?"  And yet when Jesus comes to the end of his story, he has inverted the original question: "Which of these three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"  And  the lawyer's answer gets to the heart of the matter: the one who showed mercy.  Loving your neighbor does not just mean that there is a list of people I have to treat as my personal charity cases that I do occasional good deeds FOR in order to check off requirements to get to heaven.  Loving your neighbor also means recognizing that there are people I have written off as faceless, or wicked, or evil, who are yet able to show me mercy when I need it.  And to accept it from them, when you or I find ourselves in the ditch by the side of the road, is to see them as neighbors with faces, not evil enemies who must be destroyed at all costs.  Jesus has pulled a fast one on us--he doesn't just tell us to be nice to people (like we often tame this story to mean); he challenges us to see that the people we least want to see goodness in are yet capable of doing good for us, even if we don't want to admit it. The lawyer is challenged, not just to go and show mercy to other people in his own life, but to see the people he had previously categorized as "evil" and "enemy" were able to do genuine good he could not deny.  The lawyer is challenged, in other words, to see faces.

Maybe one of the reasons we are having such a hard time with this in our day, especially in formats like social media, is that we are increasingly faceless to one another by spending our time with screens and text messages and internet memes, rather than actually talking with people and listening, and thinking critically together.  When all I have before my eyes is a screen with shouted ALL-CAPS messages, but no face to go along with them, it is easy to resort to the most abusive, cruel, and bitter language--because somehow I don't really believe the other person "counts" as a person.  It is easy in those moments to demonize them, and to assume they have no redeeming traits, no possible insights to learn from, and no good intentions.  It is easy to forget that even the people with whom I disagree the most are made in the image of God... and that they may be having just as hard a time as I am in seeing the image of God in me.  

So today, let us take up Jesus' challenge and actually see people with faces.  Let us dare to see the faces, not just of people we know and love, but the faces and stories and thoughts of the people we don't know, don't like, and can't stand.  Let us dare to see that sometimes we are the ones laying at the side of the road, and sometimes God sends us the people we most want to hate as the ones who rescue us.  

It is hard enough in this life to work up the nerve to show kindness to someone you don't like.  It is harder still in this life to let someone whom you hate show kindness to you... and to accept it.  But let us not shy away from a challenge.  Let us dare to see a face where we had before only seen animosity.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to take up your challenge to see people--even those with whom we disagree--as people whom you have made and loved.