Questions of Perception

These questions expose not the failure of intelligence but the failure of attention. The disciples walked with Jesus for three years and regularly failed to see what was directly in front of them. They saw categories rather than people. They saw logistics rather than provision. They attended to what the storm was doing rather than to who was in the boat with them. Jesus asked them to slow down and actually look at what was there.

"Do you see this woman?" is the question that unlocks the whole category. Simon the Pharisee had not seen the woman who anointed Jesus's feet. He had categorized her — sinner, intruder, irrelevant to the theology at hand — and was watching Jesus to see whether He knew what kind of woman she was. Jesus turned to him and asked whether he had seen her. Not her category. Her.

1. Do you see this woman?

Luke 7:44

Context: A Pharisee named Simon had invited Jesus to dinner. A woman with a public reputation as a sinner came in and wept at His feet, drying them with her hair, anointing them with expensive perfume. Simon watched and thought that if Jesus were a prophet He would have known what kind of woman she was. Jesus named Simon's thought, told a parable about debt and forgiveness, and then turned to the woman and asked Simon the question. He then described what she had done in contrast to what Simon had not done for his own guest. Simon had seen a category. Jesus asked him to see a person.

2. Which of these three do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

Luke 10:36

Context: The lawyer had asked who his neighbor was — a definitional question designed to limit the obligation. Jesus answered with a story and then reversed the question: not who is your neighbor by definition, but who became one by action. The good Samaritan did not assess the wounded man's category before helping. The question at the end of the parable asks the lawyer to say what he had just seen.

3. Do you understand what I have done for you?

John 13:12

Context: After washing the disciples' feet. He put His robe back on, returned to His place, and asked the question. The act was complete. He wanted to know whether they had understood what they had just watched the Lord of the universe do.

4. Don't you understand this parable? How will you understand any of the parables?

Mark 4:13

Context: After the parable of the sower. The disciples had asked privately what it meant. He responded with a question before the explanation. The parable of the sower is the interpretive key for all the others. Not understanding it means lacking the categories for what parables do. He asked the question as someone who wanted them to have those categories, not as someone cataloguing their failure.

5. Though they have eyes, don't they see? Though they have ears, don't they hear? And don't they remember?

Mark 8:18

Context: In the boat after the feeding of the four thousand. The disciples were worried about having no bread. He asked what they were seeing and what they were remembering. They were in a boat with the One who had twice fed thousands with almost nothing — and they were worried about bread. He asked them what they had been looking at.

6. Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own eye?

Matthew 7:3

The anatomy of self-deception: precision vision for other people's problems, categorical blindness for your own. The question is not about the speck. It is about what the beam is doing to your vision while you are focused on someone else's fault.

7. You know how to evaluate the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how can you not know how to evaluate the present time?

Luke 12:56

Context: Religious leaders were asking for a sign while standing in front of the One who was the sign. He pointed out that they could read the weather from the look of the sky. He then asked why they could not read what was in front of them. The inability was not a lack of intelligence. It was a refusal to see what the seeing would require.

The question that gets underneath everything: "Do you see this woman?" We see categories. He asks us to see people.