Bias

 Imagine the scene.

Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem, the big cathedral in that day,

            and what does he find there, what does he see, 

                        where does his attention go?

Not to the Holy of Holies, 

            not to the altars of incense and of sacrifice necessary for prayers to God,

            not to the clergy in procession or the Psalms being sung by the choir, 

but to the animals for sale there, animals doomed for sacrifice,

            and to the money changing tables 

                        where filthy Roman coins were exchanged for righteous shekels.

And what happens next is dramatic, disruptive and attention getting.

 

Sometimes the spiritual master has to go to drastic measures 

            to get our attention.

 

What was the purpose Jesus wanted to get across?

More than one thing, several actually, 

            in fact we could spend a lot of time plumbing the depths of this passage

                        and still have more to discover.

 

Put it this way.

Jesus was shifting the attention of the disciples that were with him,

            and of the people there at the Temple that day,

            and most especially the attention of the clergy and Jewish leaders.

 

Shifting their attention and their perspective.

How each would respond to his outrageous actions

            would reveal where they were coming from in their own thinking.

Their bias would clearly be revealed in how they reacted.

 

His disciples linked his actions to the Psalms and the Prophets.

            Jesus was a new prophet calling the people to an energized zeal 

                        for the purity that was called for within the Temple courts.

His actions affirmed their hopes for a Messiah 

            who would lead with boldness and strength.

 

The Jewish leaders wanted more signs to spell out clearly who he was.

            They had to think about the fragile balance that needed maintaining                                     between themselves and the Romans

            so that, at least in name, they could maintain their positions of ruling

                        without bringing a heavy military response down upon them all.

So it was important that they had more signs to confirm that Jesus was legit,

            or so that they would have grounds to outlaw this wild man

                        and shut down his growing but suspect influence on the people.

 

You see, each were looking at Jesus from their own perspective,

            from their own mindset, from their own bias.

 

Monday of this last week I read the daily devotional 

            from the Center for Action and Contemplation, as I do every morning.

I have found these particular daily devotions to speak more deeply to me

                        at this particular time in my life.

Usually it is Richard Rohr, the Catholic Franciscan priest,

            writer of so many highly acclaimed books,

                        who is the author of the day’s devotion.

But this Monday, Richard Rohr was highlighting the work of Brian McLaren,

            another very good writer and spiritual voice.

 

He quoted from McLaren’s book, Why Don’t They Get It? 

            Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself).

McLaren wrote:

We all have filters, [such as] What do I already believe? 

Does this new idea or piece of information confirm what I already think? Does it fit in the frame I’ve already constructed?

…My brain (without my conscious awareness, 

and certainly without my permission) makes incredibly quick decisions 

as it evaluates incoming information or ideas. 

Ideas that fit in are easy and convenient to accept,

and they give me pleasure because they confirm what I already think.

But ideas that don’t fit easily will require me to think, and think twice, 

and maybe even rethink some of my long-held assumptions. 

That kind of thinking is hard work. It requires a lot of time and energy.

… Wanting to save me from that extra reframing work, 

my brain presses a “reject” or “delete” button 

when a new idea presents itself. 

“I’ll stick with my current frame, thank you very much,” it says. 

And it gives me a little jolt of pleasure to reward me for my efficiency

… People can't see what they can’t see. Their biases get in the way, surrounding them like a high wall, 

trapping them in ignorance, deception, and illusion. 

No amount of reasoning and argument will get through to them, 

unless we first learn how to break down the walls of bias …

 

Then McLaren continues with a list of 13 different types of biases that are very subtle to awareness, but also very pervasive.

 

These are not the kinds of bias you would expect,

            those biases that have to do with race, gender identity, politics.

 

I will spare you the whole list of 13 hidden biases 

                                                            (this is not a 13 point sermon!)

            but I will share some

because when I read the list 

            I immediately saw a mirror held up in front of me.

And I also know that you too may recognize yourself in this list.

 

Confirmation Bias: We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm the only standard we have: 

            [which are] old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities. 

As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes             whatever doesn’t fit.

 

Community Bias: It’s almost impossible to see what our community             doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see. [This is cultural bias.]

 

Competency Bias: We don’t know how much (or how little) we know 

            because we don’t know how much (or little) others know. 

[We assume our own knowledge level to be adequate 

            for whatever we are judging.]

 

Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can’t be seen from where I am right now. But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, 

someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me.

 

Catastrophe or Normalcy Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes 

            but don’t notice gradual decline (or improvement).

[In other words, we will recall negative events in our history,

            and tend to overlook the long, slow progress or decline 

            that had a more lasting effect upon us.]

 

Contact Bias: When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged.

 

Cash Bias: It’s hard for me to see something 

            when my way of making a living requires me not to see it.

[ The pandemic certainly has shown us this.

When my way of making a living is threatened,

            it is harder for me to see the danger of the pandemic.]

 

So here we are with a mirror for examining biases we didn’t even know we had!

            We now have some freedom to look deeper

                        and ponder how these discoveries of bias

                              have impacted our own decision making and our relationships.

 

The mirror that is held up before us here 

            plays the same role as Jesus purging the Temple.

His actions, as I said earlier, get the attention of everyone around them,

            and their reactions all reveal their biases,

and the reader of the Gospel would get this too.

            Am I shocked by what Jesus did?  Why am I shocked?

            What do I now see about myself?

            What can I repent of?            What can I let go of?

 

Now back to the Gospel story.

Everyone had their back story and incipient bias about what Jesus was doing,

            but what does Jesus say next?

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

 

But at that time nobody got what he meant until after the Resurrection.

 

In the action of clearing the temple 

of the sacrificial animals necessary for the practice of the religion, 

Jesus is making a radical shift, 

a radical shift away from the Temple and the whole religious enterprise 

to himself, his own body, 

as the Temple, the Holy of Holies, the House of God.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, would become both Temple, the House of God, 

                                    and the sacrifice.

 

There was only one sacrifice in that Temple, 

offered once and for all, 

full, perfect and sufficient, 

            as it says in the word of Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer

and we all eat of the flesh of that sacrifice in the Holy Communion.  

 

Now, is that a shock to our sensibilities?

            What bias is uncovered now?