Do You See This Woman?

Then Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” - Luke 7:44

Jesus is at a fancy dinner in the home of Simon the Pharisee. This woman has made a spectacle of herself by washing Jesus’s feet with her tears, so of course Simon has seen her… and yet he most clearly has not seen her. Jesus goes on to point out her faithfulness and belovedness because he has truly seen her.

On Sunday we reflected on this line from one of the early leaders in the Evangelical movement to deny gay marriage. What made her particularly powerful is that she was gay herself. But after a while she felt used by all the pastors who were trying to make her do their dirty work of telling gay people not to be attracted to people of the same sex. She wrote:

I felt invisible and unknown, and you can’t be loved when you aren’t known.

- Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

Are you someone that others have a hard time seeing? If so, spend some time with the God who was named by Hagar as “The God Who Sees Me” (Gen 16:13).

Who do you have a hard time really seeing? Talk with Jesus about having his eyes for ‘those’ people today