judging by appearances

Joseph’s Son

Posted on by Betsy

I am the daughter of Fred. Fred was a hard working cost-control accountant for Owens Corning Fiberglass. He was an excellent bean-counting number-cruncher. I am also the daughter of Nancy. Nancy began a career as a front office clerk in a high school and eventually became the school’s chief financial officer, managing a multi-million dollar budget and overseeing contracts, building projects, and the like. The daughter of Fred and Nancy should have an affinity for math, yes? No. I recently saw a meme that explains exactly who I am. It was two monkeys having a thoughtful conversation. The first one said, ”Name a book that made you cry.” The second one responded, ”Algebra.” Yep. The daughter of Fred and Nancy is the second monkey.

Jesus had the same problem. People tried to judge him as the son of Joseph and Mary. Unfortunately, their preconceived notions of who he should be did not match up to the reality of being the Son of God, and their disappointment was tangible … and violent.

Luke 4 (Common English Bible)

21 He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.”

22 Everyone was raving about Jesus, so impressed were they by the gracious words flowing from his lips. They said, “This is Joseph’s son, isn’t it?”

How often do we put each other in a box? How often do we think we know someone by simply observing very tangential bits of information? Do we continue to make assessments based on gender, color, age, appearance, and socio-economic circumstances? You betcha.

Jesus went on to do exactly what Jesus was meant to do. He schooled them.

23 Then Jesus said to them, “Undoubtedly, you will quote this saying to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we’ve heard you did in Capernaum.’” 24 He said, “I assure you that no prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown. 25 And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it didn’t rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land. 26 Yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 There were also many persons with skin diseases in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha, but none of them were cleansed. Instead, Naaman the Syrian was cleansed.”

Jesus points out that their rejection of him was more about them than it was about him. Their unspoken ”demand for a sign” was met with his reminder that prophets, healers, and even the Son of God don’t respond to that. In referencing Naaman, Jesus reminds them of the humility of the gentile Naaman, who approached Elisha in faith and did exactly as Elisha instructed, setting aside pride and cultural divisions as he put himself completely under the prophet’s authority. Obviously there was none of that in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, where Jesus’ ability of speak with grace was immediately suspect.

28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with anger. 29 They rose up and ran him out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the crowd and went on his way.

This is a great reminder to us today to look beyond labels. The challenge is to reconsider someone whom you dislike. Are your feelings based on true experience, or prejudice? Have you made assumptions? Have you given them a fair chance? Do your preconceived notions of their heritage prevent you from seeing them as they truly are?

Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamt of time when people would assess each other by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. We still have a long way to go.

God calls us to accept our brothers and sisters without judgement or bias. I bet you know someone who deserves a second look. Go, and make amends.

Recycled Trees by Michelle Robertson

Keeping Up Appearances

Posted on by Betsy

I am obsessed with a writer named Malcolm Gladwell. His recent book “Blink” is a fantastic study on how people make assessments based on first impressions, and how unconscious impressions can guide our thinking. The book is about “the power of thinking without thinking.”

In his book, he describes a time when the classical music world realized their system for auditioning musicians by having them play live before a judging panel was biased. While they thought that their assessment of the musician seated before them was fair, their first impression of that person was deeply informed by his or her appearance. As a result, most of the acclaimed symphony orchestras were made up of white men, which, by the way, was also the demographic of the judging panels.

So thirty years ago they started a practice of doing live auditions behind a screen, and something remarkable happened…the number of women in the top U.S. orchestras has increased fivefold. When factors like outward appearance and unconscious prejudice were removed, only pure ability was considered. Gladwell tells this story of one female French horn player: 

When Julie Landsman auditioned for the role of principal French horn at the Met, the screens had just gone up in the practice hall. At the time, there were no women in the brass section of the orchestra, because everyone “knew” that women could not play the horn as well as men. But Landsman came and sat down and played—and she played well. “I knew in my last round that I had won before they told me,” she says. “It was because of the way I performed the last piece. I held on to the last high C for a very long time, just to leave no doubt in their minds. And they started to laugh, because it was above and beyond the call of duty.” But when they declared her the winner and she stepped out from behind the screen, there was a gasp. It wasn’t just that she was a woman…. And it wasn’t just the bold high C, which was the kind of macho sound that they expected from a man only. It was because they knew her. Landsman had played for the Met as a substitute. Until they listened to her with just their ears, however, they had no idea she was so good.

The power of thinking without thinking is a natural and human thing. We all make instant assessments based on first impressions that inform how we will respond to someone. But that can be unfair.

Ever wonder if this is the way God sees us? I think not. God doesn’t take into account our outward facades, but instead looks directly into our hearts:

1 Samuel 16 (The Message)

7 But God told Samuel, “Looks aren’t everything. Don’t be impressed with his looks and stature. I’ve already eliminated him. God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart.”

I think part of our spiritual journey is to try to become more like the Lord and less like ourselves every day. To see people as God sees people takes a lot of intentional focus. No longer should we see the dirty homeless person, the office drunk, the struggling transgender teenager, the adulterer, the bully, but rather we should try to see them the way God sees them. We look at the outside: God looks into the heart. What HE sees there is his business. What we should see are the many children of God on every spectrum of life, worthy of God’s love…and ours.

So when you see someone today who is different, marginalized, angry, distant, etc. try to imagine what God sees, and treat them accordingly. After all, the face we put on every morning may not reflect who we are, either. Yet God loves us still.

So should we love one another.

Mirrored Sky by Wende Pritchard