Glimpsing God out of the Corner of Your Eye

In tonight's gospel Jesus tells us to catch people.

But what kind of net would we use? What kind of bait?

The disciples had seen what the New Testament calls "signs and wonders." That was bait for them, that was a net for them. They had seen the signs and wonders for themselves and had sensed the presence of the divine in what they saw. That's why Peter said to Jesus, "Depart from me. I'm unholy." He sensed the contrast between who he was and who Jesus is. He was an imperfect, broken human being just like you and me and he knew - or at least sensed - that he was in the presence of the divine, the perfect, the holy. It's not hard to imagine that once you have seen such signs and wonders and sensed the presence of the divine, that actively bringing people to a knowledge of the good news of Jesus Christ - "catching people" as Jesus puts it in the gospel - would be the most natural thing in world.

But what about us? Jesus expects us to catch people, too. But what will we use as a net? Do we have any bait?

I think each of us must answer this for ourselves. And the answer rests, I think, on whether we have had glimpses of the divine. You see, if we have seen God's goodness alive in the world, then nothing could stop us from telling others and we would have plenty of material to hold others' interest, wouldn't we? And I would like to put it to you that whether you know it or not, each of you has, in fact, seen glimpses of God's work in the world.

There are a few prerequisites for seeing God in the world. The first is that you have to believe that God does, in fact, make God's presence known in the world. It requires a belief, or at least an openness - even if a bit skeptical - that our God is a living God who is available and present to us in our daily lives. Put another way, it requires an openness to God's amazing grace - a grace that is the manifestation of God's love for each of us.

Another pre-requisite is to manage our expectations. God does not appear to us as God was revealed to the disciples in the physical, stark reality of a being who is at once God and human. Neither does God appear to us as God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. God is more subtle in our day, but present to us nonetheless.

Then, you have to be attentive and know what to look for. In a way, it's like bird watching in the woods. Birds are often camouflaged pretty well and hard to spot unless you know what to look for. My uncle used to take me bird watching when I was a boy, and I never saw a thing, although he did. I now realize that the reason was that I was bored out of my mind and not paying attention to the sights that he could see because he knew what to look for. Often, seeing God is not to see God head on, directly, but to see God obliquely, almost out of the corner of your eye.

I think that's the best image I can come up with - glimpsing God out of the corner of your eye. It's like driving down a road in your car and catching something interesting, or beautiful out of the corner of your eye. It's just a glimpse, just a flash, a momentary view.

The only way I know how to make this point to you is to give you a few examples of how I have seen glimpses of God. Unfortunately, some of the times I saw God out of the corner of my eye I did not realize it was God until later.

For example, two years ago I was commuting up to New York to the seminary. I had to take the train from Princeton and then take a subway from Penn Station. One day as I was hustling along, self-absorbed, in a hurry, the way all commuters are, I came upon a man in a wheel chair, fumbling with some coins trying to make a phone call. When I saw him, I thought perhaps I could help him. But as I got closer to him I could smell him - a repellent smell of an unwashed homeless man in his own filth. So, without even thinking, I veered away and headed for the turnstile and then to the subway, which came along as soon as I got to the platform. Then the doors closed and I looked back at the man still fumbling with his coins at the telephone, and as the train pulled away and I lost sight of him it hit me all at once that I had just seen Jesus. He needed my help, and I passed him by. I knew for certain that I had just seen God out of the corner of my eye.

Another example: This past September my daughter was in the intensive care unit at Emory Medical Center in Atlanta. She had just been given a diagnosis of Primary Pulmonary Hypertension. This is a rare, devastating, life-style limiting, life-threatening disease that had overnight turned my daughter's life - and the lives of those who love her - upside down. For days all we were getting was bad news. The day before I saw a catheter placed in Christen's neck so that her heart could be monitored while new drugs were given to her intravenously. A wrong movement of the catheter could kill her and she was terrified and uncomfortable and the strange drugs made her feel sicker. She was as low in spirits as I had ever seen anyone, and so was I. All I could think to do was to pray for some hope, something to keep us all going, especially Christen. I prayed for healing, but most of all I just prayed for a little hope.

The next day, a weekly outpatient clinic was being held for patients with the same disease. Christen's doctor sent one of the young women at the clinic up to see her. I was there, and the room was dark and a little dreary, made more so by our worry and fear about what the future held. All of a sudden into the room came an attractive, vibrant young woman, smartly dressed and smiling broadly. She did not look at me or at Christen's mother who was also there, but only at Christen. She introduced herself and said, "Christen, I know what you're going through. I was in that very bed three years ago with the same catheter in my neck. It's really hard now, but you'll get past this, and you can live a normal life on the medicine. I know managing your medicine sounds like a huge rigmarole but it's not so bad once you get used to it. You're going to be okay. Trust me!" She said more reassuring things to Christen, smiling cheerfully the whole time. When I looked over at Christen, she too was smiling from ear to ear. Suddenly the whole room seemed to be lighter and cheerier. And I knew I had just seen God out of the corner of my eye.

And one more example: This past week I was reading the monthly newsletter from Trinity Church here in Princeton. In it there is an article by a young woman, the wife of a Princeton alum, who told about her experiences of the last three years since Olivia, her five year old daughter, had died in her arms after a freak accident at a playground. She told of how family, friends, and clergy had sustained and supported her and her husband, and of what a great comfort he had been to her. She told of her three sons, all younger than Olivia, two of them born after Olivia's death. She told of how special Olivia still is and always will be to her and all her family. And she told how much she loved her sons and was thankful for them. The underlying theme of her article is that Olivia was of irreplaceable value to her and her family and that nothing could ever replace her or fill the void left in their hearts.

As I read this, I realized that she was mirroring God's love for each one of us. To God each one of us is of irreplaceable value. We are each one of us uniquely God's own, just as Olivia is irreplaceable and just as she is her mother's and father's and brothers' own forever. And in that realization, I knew I had just seen God out of the corner of my eye.

So, my brothers and sisters, we can be "catchers of people" for Christ if we have something important about Christ to say to others. We can say that Christ is to be seen in the eyes of a destitute, crippled, foul-smelling homeless man. We can tell others that Christ can be seen in the kindness people do to strangers, and in the kindness strangers do to us, and in the hope and light that kindness can bring into all our lives. We can say that Christ can be seen in the enduring and sharply focused love of a grieving mother whose love and grief reminds us that each one of us is of irreplaceable and inestimable value and that each one of us is uniquely and unconditionally and forever beloved of God just as we are. God's presence in the world is not so hard to see if you have an open heart and once you know what to look for.

And as we have more and more glimpses of God out of the corner of our eyes, nothing will stop us from telling others what we have seen and nothing will stop us from bringing others the good news of the living loving God among us.

Amen.