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.

Jesus goes off on this because their implicit bias is gross. But it is still so common among people of faith today. Remember a few weeks ago, we talked about blessing and learned that blessing is freely given. It isn’t based on merit. Nobody earns it. The same rule applies here. Tragedy is not based on merit. Nobody earns it. The powerful men in Jerusalem aren’t blessed to exercise power and the poor Galileans like Jesus and his disciples are not cursed with sin and poverty. Towers don’t fall on the sinful. They fall on our neighbors, our people.

This is a hard truth for many of our neighbors to hear today. Because bombs don’t fall from nowhere and the children they destroy are not guilty of anything. These questions don’t address the abomination or who is responsible for the desecration. The implicit bias overlooks the powerful and presumes the guilt of the powerless.

Jesus invites them to consider a fig tree in a vineyard that refuses to yield fruit over several years. FIg trees are quite stingy trees in that they have a small window, their fruit grows quickly, ripens for a day, and then, just as quickly, begins to rot. Fig trees are finicky and if you want to work with them, you have to be ready. You have to see the signs and know when you will be picking. Now, they also often produce a lot of fruit that one day, so you better have friends who like figs, because that’s dinner for you and your neighbors.

But a healthy fig tree that refuses to do this — to bear fruit at all for three years — for any reason — is an example of sin. And yet the gardener is willing to give it a fourth chance — not a second, a fourth! Because if he gives the tree attention, maybe he can coax it into doing the right thing.

Friends, Jesus is giving us another chance to get things right. And it always starts with getting our hearts right, doesn’t it? Because that’s where we go wrong. Where we allow ourselves to falsely attribute sin and miss the sin staring us in the face. None of our neighbors deserves to die. None of them. Not one. And it is that retributive desire that so often grinds us down or whispers temptations in our ears when our eyes should be looking at the desecration of the temple and the murderous desires of the powerful to put the poor under their boots.

We are to see this and know that Jesus offers a different path. A path of forgiveness and grace, love and hope, joy and justice. And to follow that path is to find the grace of God.

Eucharistic Practice

In Lent, we’re digging into our sacramental practice of what we call Holy Communion or the Eucharist. Our first Sunday, we talked about why we gather this way and for the second, we talked about the dangers of Christian practice — including our idolatry of the practice itself. This week, I wanted to talk about the practice.

We have an altar and a table in one single instrument. It is the site of sacrifice and feasting, blending theologies born of Hebrew practice and of Jesus’s disciples. This holy Both/And serves to tie our relationship to the practice of breaking bread and pouring wine as both sacrificial and communal. We pray, we bless, we break, and we share these common elements from a common plate and a common cup. We do this intentionally, radically, even somewhat dangerously, because we see this commonness as important.

The development of altar rails and kneeling at them to receive communion grew out of the medieval period as the supposedly unworthy needed to be prevented from accessing the sacrament and also out of a sense of practicality — fences keep animals out and once upon a time, all kinds of things roamed into church. So a ritual, rooted in the gathering of people around a table in someone’s house to eat a common feast became, over a thousand years, a solemn receiving from a rail whose very design is to exclude people, and is now repurposed as a means of receiving from the common plate and cup.

Are we thinking this when we come forward, to share in communion? Probably not. But what are we thinking about? The easy answer is “the grace of God.” But let’s be more specific and apophatic. What should we be thinking about? The most useful answer is Shalom, which is Hebrew for peace, justice, health, wholeness. So who must I make peace with? Who needs justice? Who needs health? Who needs wholeness? How may I be invited from here to be of service to them in these ways?

And what should we not be thinking about? Revenge. How annoying the person in front of us is. How someone’s doing things wrong. These are dismissive and ungracious thoughts.

We come to share and receive the grace of God with and from one another. And when we do, we then have grace in us to share with those not here, maybe at their kitchen table or in a coffee shop or in line at Meijer.

And finally, we receive from hands into our hands. The posture I always encourage is to put one palm inside the other and lift my hands up so that I might receive that little bit of grace with joy and hope. In a posture that shows that I actually want this thing. Please! And when we receive, we say “Amen!”

Then when I stand or kneel before the cup, I feel privileged to receive it with joy and honor, perhaps helping guide the chalice to my lips so my teeth don’t get knocked or if I’m wearing a big-brimmed Sunday hat, they can actually see where my face begins. It is people to people, friends! And we sip from the cup, like a friend offering you a taste of their drink, like something you might want to order yourself next time.

Intinction, the act of dipping the host into the chalice, is tolerated, but is not encouraged. It is easier for some, but it is less hygienic. So, for those who do dip, please remember: a little goes a long way, so don’t drown Jesus. And please keep your fingers away from the rim of the cup and the wine inside it.

Most importantly is that each of us feels welcome to participate and doesn’t feel forced. This is a practice of sharing with one another. So you may come forward and receive a blessing instead. You can best communicate that desire by crossing your arms across your chest. And do the same if you do not wish to receive from the chalice.

This invitation is also for those who don’t come forward or who livestream from home. You are part of this common moment as you are, where you are. Communion is the embodiment of something that already is — you have received the grace of God whether you physically receive the elements or not.

You have been given grace. You are a blessed child of God. And that is enough.