THROUGH UNTRUE
Atherosclerosis is a grave health problem that causes at least 30 percent of all deaths worldwide. Physicians describe it as the hardening of the arteries. Its counterpart in the moral realm is prejudice — the hardening of our categories.
We usually classify people based on appearance, age, race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We become prejudiced when these categories become so arbitrary, rigid and inflexible that they lead to discrimination, exclusion, and even violence. We put people inside a box and label them as if we know everything there is to know about them.
Prejudice minimizes what is unique about a person. By doing so, we thus deprive him of his inherent worth and dignity. People who engage in bullying, harassment and marginalization, and those who perpetuate systemic inequalities and injustices are usually motivated by prejudice.
Prejudice also blinds us of our own biases and shortcomings, making it difficult for us to acknowledge our limitations and our tendency to make hasty judgments. This is clearly illustrated in the gospel reading today (John 9:1-41).
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath day, they discredited Jesus by accusing Him of breaking the Sabbath law (John 9:16). They also aroused the public's prejudice against the blind man by declaring that his blindness was a punishment for his sins or those of his parents, a belief that was common at that time (John 9:34).
Despite this, the man who was healed stood firm in his testimony that what happened to him was miraculous, and that Jesus was a prophet sent by God. This only enraged the Pharisees further, and they insulted the man and threw him out of the synagogue. They even tried to force his parents to reveal incriminating information about him (John 9:18-23).
The story reveals how deep-seated prejudice can blind us to the truth. Despite the overwhelming evidence of his divinity and the miraculous healing of the blind man, the Pharisees refused to believe in Jesus. They saw Him as a potential source of unrest and a threat to their authority over the Jewish community.
It is ironic that the Pharisees had very good eyesight, but they refused to see the obvious. They personified what Helen Keller once said: “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Their prejudices did not allow them to look beyond the labels and categories that they imposed on others.
Prejudice creates insurmountable boundaries that can lead to a sense of “us” versus “them.” We see this happening now. We have become a factionalized society divided by categories like race, gender, economic status, political affiliation, religion, as well as abilities and disabilities.
The poet Edwin Arlington Robinson once said that God’s vocabulary contains no adjectives. By this, he meant that unlike human knowledge which is prone to labeling and categorizing, divine knowledge is a total and penetrating grasp of the uniqueness of each individual. Robinson’s advice is to resist the temptation of using labels to pin down people and minimize their strangeness or otherness.
One might object: if we do away with labels, there is nothing left to say. On the contrary, what is left is all that matters.