Eyes to See

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ~ Luke 6:20-21

I should have known better. Instead, it took an email from an eBird reviewer for me to correct my identification...based on the very photos that I posted. I admit that I wanted the hawk perched on the wire outside my window to be a Sharp-shinned rather than a Cooper’s since I had seen a Cooper’s already this year. Despite having seen that Coop’s only a block away, I allowed myself to jump to the conclusion that this was the Sharpie that had been regular at my house last year. To be fair, the photo of the bird in flight didn’t give a good view of the nape and the tail did look square. Still, the same bird in the next photo clearly has a cap not a hood, and those outer tail feathers are definitely shorter than the rest. It wasn’t that I didn’t know these field marks, I simply saw what I wanted to see.

Unfortunately, I exposed my mistake publicly on a social media post by pointing out field marks. Once I realized my error, I could have scrubbed the evidence and gas-lighted anyone who called me out. It was tempting, but I chose to admit that I had been wrong, hoping that maybe my contrition could serve as a model.

We are in a cultural moment where pointing to the mistakes of the other side while spinning our side’s errors has become an Olympic event. With today’s social media, anyone can speak to everyone at once, without the need to repeat. Consider the fact that we likely wouldn’t know anything that Jesus said if he didn’t repeat his teachings again and again. So when we see Matthew and Luke record the Beatitudes differently it raises questions. Matthew says he spoke on a mount, Luke says it was a level place. Matthew seems to recall Jesus speaking spiritually, Luke more practically. Luke tells us that Jesus said the poor were blessed, Matthew adds “in spirit.” Luke makes sure we get the point that Jesus was concerned about poverty by adding “woe to you rich.” Is one of them wrong or can both of them be correct? Like my seeing what I expected, I can accept that two writers heard the same thing and yet recorded what they expected to hear.

If you aren’t prepared for the hard truth that wealth is not a spiritual blessing, you can choose team Matthew I suppose. That doesn’t change the truth, just your willingness to face it.

Prayer: Divine Truth-Teller, thank you for the eyes to see and the ears to hear the truth you speak. Forgive us for not using them. Amen.