How is Everyone Not Seeing The Truth of Who They Are, and How Can You See?

Do any of y’all remember the cartoon Mr. Magoo?   If you don’t, that opening theme I've given you a clip of here gives you a good idea.   Mr. Magoo, the cartoon’s only character cannot see anything.   But unlike everyone else, who can clearly and often terrifyingly see how blind Magoo is, he can’t see it at all.   And so, crazy things happen. 

But what if Mr. Magoo wasn’t only a cartoon.  What if Mr. Magoo, in some deeper way, pointed to how everyone is living their lives.   What if everyone was walking around like that, and yet no one was willing to admit it.   That wouldn’t be so funny.  That would be tragic.

And yet Jesus again and again said, people are like Mr. Magoo.  And their blindness results in broken relationships, in broken lives, in a broken world.   How is this true?  How are you like Magoo?   More crucially, if you are, how can you finally see?   In these words, Jesus points the way.  Let’s hear what Jesus has to say.

Luke 6:39-49

In these words, Jesus is telling you that at the core of every person the same big problem exists.  But here’s the twist.   Jesus warns you.  This problem as big as it is, isn’t really the problem.  Your problem is you can’t see the problem.   It’s not the problem that messes you up so much as your blindness to it.  Jesus says.  Only when you face the problem, will you discover the answer.

Now before, we get to the problem, we need to figure out why we can’t see it.  And a word that Jesus uses right at the center of this passage points you in the right direction.  Jesus calls the people to whom he is speaking hypocrites.   And do you know what this word literally means?  It means, actor, as in a play.  But Jesus knew.  What entertains on the stage devastates in life.

Just a few days ago, I was talking to someone about the whole Bill Cosby sentencing.  I shared how it shocked me that the loving dad of the Cosby Show had been doing these awful things.   And my friend said with a bit of an ironic smile. “I guess he was a good actor.”

Her painfully true comment gets to the heart of what Jesus is saying.   Human beings are wearing masks.   They are frauds. They are hiding who they really are.   And it’s not just the Bill Cosby’s doing the hiding.  Everyone is.

In the very beginning of the Bible, when God creates human beings, you find this curious sentence.  And the man and the woman were both naked and were not ashamed.   God isn’t telling you that Adam and Eve looked buff, had six pack abs, looking good, Adam!  No, God is saying that these two people had nothing to hide from each other, no reason to hide.   But when they fail to trust God and eat from that tree in the garden, what happens?  Nakedness ain’t so good.  So, they make clothes out of fig leaves.  Why?  They’re hiding from each other.   And then they run and hide from God.   And when God calls them out and asks what happened, Adam says, “The woman whom you gave me made me eat.”   Adam throws both God and Eve under the bus in one sentence.   Then Eve blames the snake.   But do you see what they’re doing.  They’re hiding.  That’s all that blaming is.  It’s hiding. 

It’s what Jesus means by talking about noticing the speck in your friend’s eye, when you can’t see the log in your own.  Jesus is exaggerating to make a very unexaggerated point.  Every person has this massive head injury so to speak, and they don’t see it.    But they sure see the speck in their friend’s eyes.   Jesus is pointing out a technique everyone uses to avoid facing up to how bad the problem is.   They blame.  They judge.  

If you’ve ever been married or in a serious relationship, you know what I’m talking about.  Don’t you find it easier to see your spouse or significant other’s issues than your own?  In fact, if they bring up something they don’t like about you, you can respond by saying.  Well, what about you?  You do this!   Even if you acknowledge your problem, you may not say it out loud, but inside haven’t you ever thought?   “Yeah, I’ve got that problem, but your problem. It’s a lot worse.  Or I wouldn’t even have this problem if you didn’t do this.”  Everyone finds a way to minimize, to avoid, to hide, to deny.  Everyone’s acting.  And Jesus is saying.  You don’t even realize it.  You are not just fooling others.  You are fooling yourself too.

But if we don’t realize it, why does Jesus get so upset?  If the heart of the problem is that we don’t see the problem, why does Jesus call us out?   It’s because Jesus knows.  You see it, and yet you don’t see it.

At the end of World War II, an American general, Walton Walker, came to the town of Ohrdruf, Germany.  He asked the citizens what they knew of the labor camp outside their town.  They said.  They knew nothing.  So, the General took them there to see it for themselves.   And after the visit, the Mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife went home and killed themselves.   

Now if the mayor and his wife had known, then likely it wouldn’t have devastated them enough to commit suicide. They knew already.  And if they hadn’t known, then they would have been shocked but probably not suicidal.  But you see.  They didn’t know, and yet they knew.  The horror of that led them to end their lives.  

Inside, every human being knows, they have a problem.  You may not know exactly what it is, but you know something is not right.    Otherwise, why would you hide?  And everyone is hiding, even if they don’t know what from.

If you’re super religious, obey all the rules and judge those who don’t, you’re hiding.   And if you’re super anti-religious, and think religious people are idiots, you’re hiding.   If you avoid intimate relationships, you’re hiding.  If you jump super quickly into intimate relationships, you are hiding.   The list goes on.   So, what are you hiding from? 

You are hiding from the fact that this problem you have is one you can never solve.  It is beyond you.  But rather than admit that powerlessness, you find all sorts of way to avoid facing that.  You blame others.  You blame yourself.  You work too hard.  You get too wrapped up in your relationships.   You over-indulge in food or sex or drugs or whatever, anything to dull your mind.  The list goes on.

And what can’t you solve?  You cannot solve the painful reality that everything you do is always about you.   Even if you do something good for someone, what motivates you is how good it makes you feel.  And what is that feeling?  You feel good about yourself.  That’s why you hide, why you blame others, because if you’re really honest.  You know, deep down, you don’t feel all that good about yourself.   But here’s your delusion.  You think you can solve it.   I just need to try harder or do more or get more religious or get more power or wealth or whatever.  Then I will feel good about me.   But you can’t solve this.   And whatever you are using to shore up who you are, a storm will eventually come and bring your delusion down.  

But you don’t have to solve the problem.  In Jesus, God did it for you.  What did Jesus do with that beam going through your eye?   Jesus got nailed to it.  That’s what Jesus did.  In Jesus, God came, and God gave everything to set you free of your deluded self-obsession.  And how did God do it?   God did it by loving you, loving you at your worst, loving you even when you were killing God.  In that love, that love that led God even to death, God was showing you.  Don’t you get it?  Your value comes from me, from my love.  And nothing that you can do can earn the love.   But you don’t need to do anything.  You simply need to let go and let me love you, to let go and let me love you.    And when you let go and experience that love, God’s infinite, fierce, incredibly infinite love for you, it frees you.  And you can admit your faults, because you know, your faults don’t define you.  God’s love defines you, a love that went to death and beyond for you.   And in that love, you become free to see and be seen as you are, broken yet beloved, flawed yet accepted, someone whom by God’s grace and love is being made whole.