Are you still so dull?
Yes, yes I am.
Despite 2000 years of trying, we followers of Jesus still manage to misunderstand Jesus. At least in part because we insist on taking things literally.
This struck me when, for about the millionth time, I was laughing at how clueless the disciples were. Matthew 15 contains a great example. Jesus tells a parable about what goes into a mouth isn’t what makes us unclean, but what comes out of it does. Seems pretty easy to understand, don’t you think?
And yet Peter — the Rock, the man, the big shot — doesn’t get it. He asks for clarification.
That’s when Jesus asks, “Are you still so dull?”
Now we have a different set of cultural norms today so the whole “clean and unclean” thing isn’t a big deal to us. Well, it is when Covid strikes, but you know what I mean.
Or do you?
Because that’s my point. We speak in parables all the time, we just call them something else. Hyperbole. Stories. Exaggeration to make a point. Morality plays. Literary fiction. Metaphors. Public relations? Cable news (okay, had to put that in just for fun).
So sometimes we read something in the bible and and completely misunderstand it. We want to take it literally when it was never meant to be understood that way. History, culture, interpretation, our own experiences … they all conspire to make us one of the dullards like the disciples.
For the most part that’s okay. Struggling with understanding something actually draws us closer to truth.
But sometimes, and increasingly more often in our polarized world, we misunderstand but dig in our heels anyway. We double down on our ignorance.
We insist on taking something literally and then get upset when people challenge us to think more deeply.
So, are we still so dull?
Yes. Yes we are.