MAY32025

In the play, My Fair Lady, Freddy is wooing Eliza when she bursts into song (it is a Broadway musical, after all), “Don’t talk of Spring, don’t talk of Fall, don’t talk at all. Show me.” Elizae knows that talk is cheap, she wants to see evidence of his love. The apostle Philip says something similar to Jesus. “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus’ responds with incredulity — you haven’t gotten it yet? Don’t you understand what I have been showing you the whole time? Philip imagined that seeing the Father would be something exotic, unusual, spectacular. Jesus teaches us that we see the face of God in kindness, compassion, forgiveness, generosity. In particular, Jesus emphasized in another place, we see the face of God in caring for the poor, the hungry, the sick, the naked. Or, as another Broadway play, Les Miz, put it: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”