the implicit bias that clouds our judgment
Lent 3C | Luke 13:1-9
“At that very time there were some present…”
We’re starting today in the middle of a conversation, a big teach-in with Jesus. And what we don’t hear as we dive into this moment is what Jesus was teaching when some people ask about their neighbors being murdered by the state and having their blood mixed with the sacrificed livestock in the Temple. To get Jesus’s hot take on current events. Such a thing would be distracting, wouldn’t it? We probably want to know more about that current event but this is literally all we have to go on.
But why did they bring that up and why is it there in the text?
If you’re following along in your Bible, you can flip to chapter twelve and see that Jesus has been talking about hypocrisy, division, and settling with your opponent. But in all of this, he is speaking to the idea of getting our stuff together. Jesus says that he is a source of division because of that. Because everyone wants peace but not everyone wants peace if it means they don’t get to destroy their enemies or force them into it. Some gain or maintain power by refusing peace. And when they realize that peace through strength, through dominance, through conquering is not the way of Jesus, then the truth will divide families.
That’s what he’s talking about when some people ask about their neighbors who were killed and the sacrilege in the Temple. But what they are NOT asking is for his hot take on this crazy thing they heard about. They are asking if the victims are at fault for their own murder. Why are they asking this? Because the implicit bias is that the powerful are virtuous and the poor are sinful so the poor must have deserved it for some reason. There must be sin here. …
The full text may be found here.
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