Why Can't We See?

We all suffer from myopia!

Metaphorically speaking we all suffer from myopia in varying degrees. 

Myopia may be understood as a “lack of imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight.” I would suggest that it also prevents us from seeing the point of view of others who live outside our own life experience or tribe or community or race. 

Its symptoms may be described as having tunnel vision or having blind spots or worse, viewing the world from within a silo. It’s all rather limited vision.

For example, we humans normally see those things that fit neatly within our own frame of reference or life experience and thus excluding what others might see who live outside of our particular context.

For example, white people cannot see or experience what black people see or experience. The reverse is also true. It becomes even more troublesome when one people group is on the bottom of the social ladder while the other is on top.

Whites and blacks have life experiences that are so different from one another and myopia prevents us both from seeing the other’s point of view in any helpful way.

Believe it our not the Apostle Paul dealt with this phenomenon of myopia as he attempted to unite Jews and Gentiles under the umbrella of the fledging Jesus movement. In his letter to the Ephesians he wrote that the incredible accomplishment of Christ’s work could be summarized in the following manner:  

“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (2:14). 

The “us” at the end of this statement represents the Jews and the Gentiles as two distinct people groups (the Gentiles being made up of several different subgroups). The truth that Jesus came to accomplish this remarkable feat is too often lost amidst the hyper individualistic understanding of salvation that seems to characterize so much of Evangelical Christianity.

In other words, it is myopic to think that the main reason Jesus came in the first place was to open the door for me to get my sorry butt into heaven.

Such thinking is myopic.

Jesus came to reverse the tragedy of the Tower of Babel. He came to unite humanity into one global community known as the “Body of Christ.” He came to unite Jew and Gentile (the rest of the world) into one living body of God lovers and Jesus followers.

In Christ we who have trusted in the work of Christ are given a broadened vision—a vision that is not characterized by myopia. We are given a new set of eyes and a new way to think about the world in which we live.

Myopia should never characterize Christian thinking. America may very well continue to have racial problems but for Christians racism died on Christ’s cross. 

African-American football players are trying to tell us something about America but we can’t hear them for all of our white myopia—we can only see what they are doing from our narrow white point of view and their peaceful protests really offends most of white America. Voices of protest always step on the toes of those who see no need for the protest in the first place.

Well the protests of the Old Testament prophets stepped on big toes as they called out Israel for becoming myopic in her understanding of what it meant to be God’s chosen people. Being chosen never meant being uniquely special when compared to the rest of the world. Being chosen did not equate with being on top in the world’s pecking order.

To be God’s chosen people meant that the Jewish people inherited the responsibility to carry out the covenant God made with Abraham to become a blessing to the whole world. Their myopia led them to believe that they were God's only chosen people (similar to our current version of American Exceptionalism). The prophets railed against such myopia (read Amos or Jeremiah for example). 

Yes we have race issues in America and I contend that much of it may be attributed to out own myopia. Think of what progress could be made if we could stop screaming at one another long enough to hear what the other is saying.

Think of what progress could be made were to think outside our own narrow life experience and make an attempt to understand what others are really experiencing in life. 

It’s not a lot to ask but it sure would go a long way in helping heal the long-standing racial tensions and structural racism in this country of ours. Denying that racism exists or casting blame on African-Americans does none of us any good.

In his insightful little book, A Letter To My Anxious Christian Friends, ethicist David P. Gushee perceptively writes: 

“The institutions of American state power at every level were set up by white people and were structured from the beginning in white racism and black subordination.”

Acknowledging this reality alone would go a long way in helping us white folks see and hear what our black and brown fellow Americans are trying to tell us.

Progress will never be made so long as our myopia narrows the way we see the larger world around us. As long as it prevents us from seeing what the other person sees.

“Open our eyes Lord, that we all may see fully the expansiveness of your marvelous grace towards all people—including those different from us.”