Do You See People?

Nathan Clarkson opens his book Different with these words:

I've always known I was different. It wasn't something I chose or an identity I one day decided to wear. Being different is woven into the very fabric of who I am. I know I'm different because when other children were content with walking on the sidewalk, I felt the need to climb the rails. Because when others' questions would stop, mine seemed to go on without end, often frustrating those who ran out of answers. I know I'm different because when I was fifteen I began taking six showers a day and washing my hands until they bled. I know I'm different because my mind seems to change channels at will, making it nearly impossible to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes. I know I'm different because no matter how hard I looked at the math problem or how many times my tutor explained it, my mind simply couldn't grasp the simple numerical basics that seemed to come so easy to my friends and siblings. I know I'm different because while I long for affection, I am often scared to touch the ones I love for fear of contaminating them. I know I'm different because even now as a twenty-seven-year-old adult, there are times when the weight of the world seems so heavy I don't feel able to leave my apartment. I know I'm different because I've been told so by every important person in my life.

Nathan, like many others, has been diagnosed with neurological realities that will not be changed. They are simply part of who he is. Autism, with its mysterious spectrum of capacities. OCD, where the brain locks you up until a task is completed or a thing is just so. ADHD, where your mind keeps changing the channel on you.

Jesus is walking down the road, and John drops in what almost sounds like a throwaway line: "As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth" (John 9:1).

Jesus saw him.

People who know me make fun of me because I always see things others don't. We'll be driving, and I'll call out a bird on a fencepost, or a nest, or four deer in a tree line. On a hike, I'll notice something a quarter mile off. Now that I've been fishing enough, I can see fish in the water. It took a while, but I got there.

A few years ago, I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, speaking on refugees and migrants. Afterward, the pastor told me he loved the message but didn't know what to do with it — there were no migrant-led churches in the area. I told him there were four or five migrant churches on the road between his church and my hotel. He drove past them every day. He didn't see them.

We do this when we read the Bible. The book of Ruth is a story about a migrant. I had an Old Testament professor tell me he hadn't realized that until about eight years into teaching at a graduate level.

And we do this to people. We don't typically see certain kinds of people. Many adults, looking back on their childhoods, are stunned at how oblivious they were to family dynamics or how people were treating one another. Our eyesight is remarkably limited.

Look at verse 1 again. It is not the disciples who see the man. It is not the disciples who start the story. It is Jesus. The disciples only engage because Jesus has already seen.

So ask yourself: do you see people?

On one hand, our eyes tell us our values. No one in a room would miss certain kinds of people walking through the door. Newspapers are committed to seeing certain kinds of people — did you hear that so-and-so ate at this restaurant? We build entire ministries around people who matter, people who influence, people our eyes naturally go to. And it bleeds into the church. Did you hear where so-and-so goes to church?

Then there are the people we see but recoil from. Jesus tells a story about religious leaders who walk around a man bleeding on the side of the road. They see him. But they do not see him the way Jesus sees the blind man in John 9.

You may remember the line from Avatar: "I see you." It's meant to signal more than visual recognition. It means knowing you. Caring about you. Setting affection on you. That is what is happening in John 9.

A couple of years ago, I heard John MacArthur say, "There's no such thing as PTSD. There's no such thing as OCD. There's no such thing as ADHD." Brother MacArthur has done good work over the years, but this is terrible pastoral counsel. Therapeutic culture may well be out of control, but the answer is not to deny that these conditions exist. Some of these struggles can be addressed through repentance, diet, or medication. Many cannot. And a pastor who tells a congregant their diagnosis is not real has, in that moment, refused to see them.

So — do you see the people around you who live with autism, OCD, ADHD, or any number of cognitive differences? Not see and dismiss. Not see and recoil. Not see and step out of the way.

See them the way Jesus sees them.