GAZE THAT MOVES GUTS

Reflection for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: Exodus 19:2-6a, Romans 5:6-11, & Matthew 9:36-10:8

How do we see people? A politician in an election rally sees his/her audience as a vote bank that can help with his political aspirations; a businessman looks at people as a market of consumers to serve his business interests; a celebrity perceives the public as a fanbase that can help further his or her stardom; a religious preacher treats his listeners as devotees swayed by his ‘charisma’; an influencer sees his or her followers as targets to ‘influence’. The list goes on. Whether we like it or not, we are not only seen as means to an end but we also see others the same way! Seeing people as a means to an end signifies that you value a person not for the sake of his or her inalienable dignity but for how useful he or she could be to your own interests and objectives.

Haven’t we at some point or the other treated a friend, a family member, or a colleague as a means to our purposes? How often have we heard people complain: “You used me!”. Surely, we have crossed paths with people who merely seek to ‘use’ us! German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposes the ‘humanity formula’ as an alternative to the ‘Mere Means Principle’. He insists, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end”. In the competitive consumeristic world that we live in, is it even possible to dream of a world where we see people as ends in themselves and not as ‘mere means’?

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, proposes an interesting alternative. In his interaction with the crowds on one of his missionary itineraries, he demonstrates a counter-cultural method of “seeing” people with “compassion”. Matthew reports, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them” (9:36). The Gospels are rich with evidence of Jesus’ extraordinary ability to “see” people with compassion: be it the poor (Luke 21:4) or the rich (Mark 10:21), individuals (Luke 19:5) or crowds (Matthew 5:1, 9:36). In all these cases, the compassionate gaze of Jesus transcends motives of usefulness and guides to a kind of empathy that could move our guts!

The Greek verb used by Matthew here to indicate compassion is σπλαγχνίζομαι (splag- chnizomai), which literally means “moved in the bowels” (σπλάχνα/splagchna). Ancient civilizations believed that love and emotions are somehow connected to the innermost part of a person (spleen, gut, heart, or bowels). This expression occurs four times in Matthew (Mt 9:36; 14:14; 18:27; 20:34) and evokes Jesus being ‘moved’ with mercy for his people to the point of complete self-offering on the cross.

This Sunday liturgy invites us to turn to Jesus’ school of compassionate gazing, where we learn to heal our “seeing” from the sickness of ‘mere means’ and begin to look at people with 'mercy'. Compassion matures into mercy. The Latin word for mercy ‘Misericordia’ is derived from from two words, miseri meaning ‘misery’ and cordia meaning ‘heart’. Mercy literally means "misery of the heart" or “suffering of the heart”. Being merciful, therefore, implies having a heart for those who suffer or, more precisely, to have a heart willing to suffer for others. Our compassionate gazing leads us inevitably to suffer with and for others in a way that befits a truly Christian ars bene videndi (art of living well).

The experience of the gaze of Jesus during a confession changed the life of young Jorge Bergoglio on the feast of Matthew in 1953. This moment became the pivotal moment when he concretely felt the tender gaze of God’s love, His mercy, and his vocation as priest, bishop and now as Pope. We discern the continued effect of that gaze in the prayer that he recommended to the Church for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy:

Lord Jesus Christ,

you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,

and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.

Show us your face and we will be saved.

Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;

the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;

made Peter weep after his betrayal,

and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.

Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:

“If you knew the gift of God!”

You are the visible face of the invisible Father,

of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:

let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.

You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness

in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:

let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.

In Misericordiae Vultus (Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy), he writes, “… the mercy of God is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality with which he reveals his love as of that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is a “visceral” love” (no6). The compassionate gaze of Jesus sees what we usually fail or deny to see for his model places people and their needs ahead of his interests. Seeing the crowds with compassion, Jesus is ‘moved’ to perceive that they are “troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd”. This is the kind of mercy that is related in the first reading today, the mercy with which “God bore His People up on eagle wings and brought them to Himself”.

Is our manner of “seeing” sensible to the pains and misery of people in our own families, communities, and workplaces? The gaze of Jesus does not stop with observing the misery of the situations and people that he encounters but inspires him to an active engagement in words and deeds. The Kingdom of God, which Jesus declares “is at hand” becomes a reality in his three-fold ministry (preaching, healing, and other miracles) and continues as a missionary mandate that the Lord of the harvest has confided with us, his ‘labourers’. Called to gaze at the contextual realities of our societies with the kind of compassion that moves our guts, we join hands with our Master to engage in continuous and concrete efforts of transformation, liberation, and salvation.