Catching the gaze

This is the latter part of a homily I gave at a Christmas service for the Brotherhood of St Laurence last week.

Here you can see the hipster nativity that has been doing the rounds lately. My pondering of this has gone from the initial shock of wise men bearing Amazon boxes on their segways and the shepherd with his iPad, to gradually realising what's going on at the centre of the picture. See Mary and Joseph posing for a photo around the manger. See their radiant look. It reminds me of nothing more than a photo of a friend of mine, a moment of meeting with the newborn baby of another friend: adoration, wonder, awe. This from eyes that are sometimes a bit world-weary, but in this photo those eyes are full of life and radiant gentleness. And the look from the baby to my friend: adoration, trust, wonder. That look is full of pure gift, flowing grace.

Looking at Mary and Joseph in this modern imagining of the nativity, a question comes to me. What is it like to look towards God? Is it like taking a selfie? There’s plenty of smug talk about how the selfie is just the latest indulgence of our basic narcissism, yet more evidence of our need to be the stars of our own long-running media show. I've seen people driving cars while taking pouting photos of themselves -- truly a scary spectacle! Some people seem so driven to seek the camera’s gaze that they cannot sit down to a meal without photographing their food. Surely you've seen it happen. But perhaps behind the camera there is a deeper hunger to be looked on and loved. Even when we are staring down the camera barrel we need someone to return our gaze and look back in love.

How does God's look towards us?

Have you ever sat in a busy cafe next to a baby in a high chair? Have you noticed how the baby will scan the room, looking for someone to return their gaze? Think of how they respond when their eyes meet yours: they smile back, or frown back, or give you that unmistakable quizzical look. A baby searches with unflagging zeal and ingenuity for someone to meet and return their gaze.

This is what God’s looking towards us is like. In Jesus, God with us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, God is looking at us because he cannot take his eyes off us. In the infant Jesus, God comes and looks towards us out of absolute vulnerability and helplessness. And those infant eyes are full of endless engrossing adoration, trust, wonder.

Can we hold the gaze and return with a look filled with adoration, wonder, and awe?