Parable 26 - I Don't Believe You

Gail pulled up to her house in the pouring rain. She hurried out of her car and opened the trunk. As she grabbed a couple of bags of groceries, she heard a voice.

“Would you like some help?”

Gail looked up to see Natalie, a neighbor, standing next to her holding an umbrella. Gail said, “Sure, thanks.” She handed Natalie the two bags she was holding, reached in, and got the remaining bags.

And the two of them hurried up to the porch.

Gail thanked Natalie again as she put the bags on the porch table.

“No problem,” Natalie said, and she walked down the porch steps heading back to her house.

That night Gail told her husband, Bud, what had happened.

Bud and Natalie were not on speaking terms. Several years ago Natalie had parked her car—in the space that Bud had shoveled after an eighteen-inch snowfall. On that day Bud had gone out to get some groceries, and when he got back his space was taken by Natalie, who refused to move her car.

They hadn’t spoken a kind word to each other since then.

Bud said, “I can’t believe Natalie helped you get the groceries out of the car. She’s not a nice person.”

“I didn’t tell you that she’s a nice person. I just told you that she helped me out. I didn’t have an umbrella, and she did.”

“I doubt this person who helped you get the groceries out of the pouring rain was Natalie. It might have looked like her, but it obviously wasn’t her. You must have had rainwater in your eyes. So what really happened?”

“I told you already, and you didn’t believe me.” Gail shrugged her shoulders. “Why do you want to hear the story again?”

Meditation

In today’s scripture we hear the story of the man born blind who receives the gift of sight from Jesus. The Pharisees don’t believe him. They don’t believe that he was really blind and had been given the gift of sight. And when they begin to consider that maybe he did receive his sight, they claim it must have been through the work of the devil, because the miracle happened on the Sabbath. They even say that they know where Moses got his power, but they don’t know where Jesus got his power.

We are tempted to scoff at the misguided and hard-hearted Pharisees. Unfortunately, often enough most of us act just like them.

In our grocery-bag story, Bud refuses to believe that his neighbor Natalie would ever do anything nice. Bud has experienced Natalie “stealing” his shoveled-out parking spot. Probably for years Bud has noticed other things about Natalie that he doesn’t like.

Confirmation bias is one explanation. This is when we form an opinion and then look for examples that support our viewpoint. Psychologists believe that we all do this to some extent. Part of the phenomenon is that we ignore or downplay contradictory evidence that doesn’t match our beliefs.

It is hard to open ourselves to new things that God is doing in our lives. We get stuck in our established ways of thinking.

Lent is the perfect time to let go of things that are holding us back from experiencing God in a fuller way. When God’s grace rains, it is likely to pour, so be ready to accept and believe the help that comes to you when you have your hands full.

Water the seed and ask yourself...

What new ways do I think God is working in my life?