Average ignorance
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Fourth Week of Lent
 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031613.cfm
John 7:45-48
The guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
It’s only this crowd, which does not know the law, that has been taken in by him!”
Herbert Spencer wrote that juries are “composed of twelve men of average ignorance.” These twelve “ignorances” contradict each other, and when they are locked in a room together, require the balancing which makes the jury system so effective.
The council of priests condemning Jesus needed to hear from a few men of “average ignorance,” but each time they have this opportunity they reject their testimony. Those who have been healed, the foolish crowd, and even their own guards can’t get a word in edgewise.
Leaders everywhere at all times tend to forget their roots. The crowd crowns them with their authority, and then they forget to listen to the crowd. They come from the crowd, but they have forgotten.
Leaders also see the same problems over and over, and thus become jaded, prejudiced, and thoughtless. The Pharisees suffered from this disease. G. K. Chesterton served on a jury and wrote of his experience (http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/selected-works/the-essayist/twelve-men/). His words explain some of the Pharisee’s problem:
One of the paradoxes which should be taught to every infant prattling at his mother’s knee is the following: That the more a man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns a thing the less he knows it.
… It is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid (several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got used to it.
… Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men … When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round.
Jesus never claimed to be an expert, and he was the smartest man who ever lived. He saw things every day with fresh eyes, fresh eyes given to him as he spent time with his Abba, his Father, with God. In this space created by his prayer, Jesus could be endlessly creative every day. All things new.
In the beginning, God, you created the heavens and the earth. And you don’t stop there. You make all things new. You show us how to open our eyes everyday. Like you, we can behold all things new, kairos time after kairos time.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1169
