Jesus’ opponents were not all necessarily heinous people. It is quite likely that some scribes and Pharisees who constantly debated Him loved their wives and children. The chief priests who determined his need to die were possibly faithful in providing for the well-being of widows and orphans. Pontius Pilate who ordered His crucifixion probably had comrades and other politicians who enjoyed his company and his generosity. How then did it come to be that they each participated in Jesus’ murder?
What is it about some people that they feel the need to kill an itinerant preacher who speaks of turning the other cheek? Why kill a gentle man who asks His disciples to love others as He has loved them. How is it some people respond to a healing power able to cure physical ailments by deciding to murder the man? It could be they were just doing their jobs. Just doing our jobs is sometimes said as if an assertion of moral righteousness. Such an assertion is an inaccurate one according to psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987). In his youth, Kohlberg worked illegally to get Jewish survivors of death camps past the British blockade keeping them out of Palestine. Moved by that experience, Professor Kohlberg went on to develop a theory on the stages of moral development. His theory asserts just doing our jobs is not a description of an elevated morality. It describes a quite conventional morality. Worse, it describes a diminished conscience. Adolf Eichmann claimed he was just doing his job. Eichmann was on trial for his life when he made the assertion. He was on trial for crimes against humanity. Eichmann was a Nazi and an efficient one. He claimed he was just doing his job every time he made sure the trains ran on time; the trains to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka.
“I cannot influence the fate of the globe. Do I start wars? How can I know whether I’m for or against? No, I don’t sin. I only turn screws, weld together parts of destruction, never grasping the whole, or the human lot. I could do otherwise … Though what I create is not good, the world’s evil is not of my making.” (The Armaments Factory Worker – Karol Wojtyla)
Prayer: Spirit of Conscience, you live and breathe within me.
Question: What is my story of not doing my job and living by conscience instead.
April 13, 2014 Gospel Matthew 21:1-11 Palm Sunday