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He changed his mind and went…
Some weeks ago, I mentioned that I had started to read
a book by Brian McLaren on learning how to see.
I mentioned that he summarized 13 different biases
that we have all starting with the letter C and
then systematically went through them.
Then I went through two of them.
Today I would like to go to another two
because they relate to the two sons in today’s gospel
and they relate to all of us.
McLaren maintains that we have these different biases
that enable us to see or not see things clearly.
But two that are particularly important for today's reading are that of
convenience bias and consciousness or cognitive maturity bias.
Let me just start with convenience bias first.
Convenience bias basically says that
our brains welcome things that allow us to relax
and be happy and reject data that requires us
to adjust our work, our life, or inconvenience us at all.
That might be hard to hear, but it is true.
Our brains basically desire to be efficient,
and we might call that lazy, but in fact it does.
Our brain tries to minimize amount of work to function.
For example, if somebody asks us to do something that is inconvenient,
our brain tends to say no.
That is why children find it easy to say no to our requests of them.
Because it is inconvenient.
A child is playing on a computer game,
and you ask them to take out the trash
and they do not move. Why?
Primarily because it is inconvenient.
Why would I do it? They think, it is inconvenient.
Of course, we teach them otherwise.
We teach them how to overcome this bias through moral formation.
We teach them how important it is to step outside of yourself
and to do something for someone else.
To sacrifice, is the religious language we use.
But the idea is that we do not live only for ourselves.
Inconvenience is the reality of living in community;
we need community and therefore we need inconvenience.
We hear that from the first son in today’s gospel
that he thought it was not convenient to go.
And so, he said, “No, no, I, I won't go. It isn't convenient.”
We could hear ourselves in his response.
Many of us when asked to do something difficult,
we choose to not go and not inconvenience ourselves.
That is why we have so few volunteers
who do the majority of work. Why?
Because it is inconvenient to volunteer. Let's face it.
It is not easy to step outside of that.
That brings me to the second of these biases.
The second one is called consciousness or cognitive maturity bias.
It says that our brains can only see
from the level of cognitive maturity that we have.
In other words, we cannot expect a young child
to understand the level of sacrifice
that we would expect more from a teenager
and we would expect more, again, from a young adult
and maybe more again, from an older adult,
because each of them is cognitively more mature than the others.
Therefore, we would expect more from older people
because they are more mature, and they understand
that we do need to sacrifice for the sake of others.
We do need to help others. Why?
Because that is what a morally mature person would do.
Or maybe just simply a more mature disciple,
or we might simply say a mature human being would care about others.
These two biases really come together in today's gospel
when we hear how these two sons react.
Bear in mind this is Matthew's version of the two son’s parable
and Luke is more famous for his two sons parable,
often called the parable of the prodigal son.
But both have the exact same elements to them.
Two sons, one apparently doesn't do the father’s will
and one apparently does the father’s will,
but in fact, when we start to analyze it,
neither do the will of the father completely.
We are left with a dilemma.
And Jesus asks the chief priests and elders about this dilemma.
“Which of the two sons did his father's will?”
The answer is neither or both.
In one sense, the first son honored the father by saying he would do it,
but then later change his mind because of inconvenience
and did not do it, and therefore followed his first bias.
The second son first disgraced the father by saying no,
but then slowly came to cognitive maturity bias
and operated more maturely and did the father’s will.
That all sounds very good and it is great in breaking open the word
and a great explanation of scripture.
But how does that affect us?
All of us have to acknowledge these biases are within us, from both sons,
both the convenience bias and a cognitive maturity bias.
And the only way to overcome these biases is
to first acknowledge that they are there.
That our first instinct is to resist discomfort, to resist inconvenience.
And it is wired into our brains to do that.
What are we to do?
When we ask you to get involved in something,
for example, going on this retreat
that we are going to have in two weeks here at St. Simon,
and it is inconvenient.
If it is not convenient according to your schedule,
then why would you do it?
Because it is going to cause you to go deeper
with your relationship with Christ.
It is going to deepen your friendship with God.
I am hoping that might inspire you to move beyond your convenience bias,
but you have to go through that.
Second bias, cognitive maturity bias
which does not allow my brain to see what I do not know.
It is sort of obvious but we cannot know what we do not know yet.
This bias requires us to be humble enough
to acknowledge what we do not know yet.
To get past this bias we need to pause and acknowledge our limits.
In our discipleship we are called to pause and reflect
about how my bias is working in my life.
Am I called to inconvenience myself
for the gift and the sacrifice of others,
to love others in a way that is inconvenient to me,
causing growth in myself and learn something new
at the same time be a gift of love to others.
Are we called to a more cognitively, more mature discipleship,
which requires me to pause and to ask that question?
Am I called to pause here and
to recognize the other person's needs
that might cause me inconvenience?
You see how they both biases can go together.
Today the one son changed his mind,
and he went because it required a conversion,
an acknowledgement of his need to check his biases,
both convenience bias and cognitive maturity bias.
Today, may we also check our biases
and come to follow the Lord, even if it is inconvenient
and grow a little more mature in our discipleship.
He changed his mind and went…
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