Go: Seeing

I can be pretty socially awkward. I struggle to remember people's names. I can feel insecure about saying the wrong thing or even saying the right thing at the wrong time. Often, I'd rather be reading a book.

But one benefit of this weakness is that I think about how to make a good connection with others. And I try to learn from people who are truly gifted at this skill.

So let's consider: how did Jesus make a connection with us? It's a tough challenge. The setup is, we have a perfectly holy God encountering his rebellious, selfish subjects. If I was to guess, it would be a crazy lightning storm, everyone's dead, and then Jesus raises his hands in victory. I guess I sometimes imagine that God is like Zeus!

But instead, Jesus makes the connection with us by coming as an infant to a poor peasant woman.

Do you see what that communicates? It says, "I'm one of you. I get you. I'm with you." No matter who you are, you can identify with Jesus' incarnation, because he came in a way that connected with us.

That doesn't mean that everyone received him with joy. On the contrary. But Jesus started by making a positive connection with us, so that we might give him a hearing. Only then did he challenge us by announcing that we needed to repent, and follow him.

In his book *Speak Out*, Mike Breen explains the importance of our 'stance,' or attitude, toward our audience:

"What the best communicators in the Bible do in terms of stance is seek to gain an audience and then move that audience toward Jesus through discipleship. How do they do this? By developing a positive stance toward text, linguistic codes, audience, and other voices... the best communicators find ways to create a general attitude of positivity that allows your audience to be awakened in the way that you're looking for. We never develop a negative stance toward an audience to start, nor should we take an overly negative stance in other places."

Think about how Jesus connected with Zacchaeus. This chief tax collector was despised—he was a traitor and a cheat! But when Jesus sees him in a sycamore tree, we read, "he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.'" It is necessary.

Wow. Jesus started the relationship with an emphatic declaration that Zacchaeus mattered to him.

As we pray for those around us, we consider what we can honestly and specifically affirm about their identity, their cultural context, their authorities, and their own perspective. After we've successfully identified with them, then we can challenge them by announcing the gospel. They may or may not respond, but we've been faithful to love them with wisdom.