Overcoming Confirmation Bias in Scripture Reading for Lenten Reflections to Overcome Our Sinfulness

Because of our confirmation bias, we tend to understand only certain issues at the expense of other important issues in the scriptures.

As I pointed out in my blog article, “Confirmation Bias and the Scripture Reading (Mark 1:29-39 and 40-45)”, our confirmation bias seems to make it difficult for us to recognize, understand, and remember that Jesus also prayed alone in silence, as our attention tends to be fixated to Jesus’ amazing acts of teaching and healing, in reading Mark 1:29-39, which is the Gospel reading for the 5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. Likewise, in reading its sequent narratives, Mark 1:40-45, which is the Gospel reading for the 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B, we tend to remember only the fact that Jesus cured a leper but hardly remember anther fact that Jesus was kept out of the crowds due to the leper’s failure to keep Jesus’ words upon being cured.

In 2015m which is Year B, the 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time falls on the Sunday of the week of Ash Wednesday.  Therefore, it makes the Gospel narrative for this Sunday before Lent,  Mark 1:40-45, more meaningful, to link the Gospel narrative to Lent. But, for this, we must overcome our confirmation bias in reading the Gospel narrative for the 6^th Sunday.

So, let’s take a look.  The Gospel narrative is as below:

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, 
touched him, and said to him, 
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning the him sternly, he dismissed him at once. 

He said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest 
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.                             Mark 1:40-45

Based on Leviticus 13, a leper in the Gospel narrative is considered as an outsider. According to this Mosaic Law from Leviticus, lepers were publically pronounced to be “unclean” by a priest.  Such was a humiliation that lepers were forced to experience as the public would keep them out because of the fear of contracting leprosy.  Given this context, the leper in the above Gospel narrative was considered as an outsider because of his leprosy.

Even having such a horrible infectious disease to be isolated from the rest of the society, the leper in the story apparently wanted to become an insider.  So, he came near to a synagogue , where Jesus was preaching and driving demons out of possessed people (Mark 1:39). Then, as a blind man, Bertimaeus, did to Jesus in Jericho (Mark 10:46-52), the leper asked Jesus to “clean” him.  Obviously, this means to cure his leprosy. 

Because this disease was viewed as defilement in Leviticus 13, curing leprosy also meant to cleanse.

As moved by his compassion, Jesus cured the leper – cleansed his leprosy.  

Given Leviticus 13-14, as only the priest can examine and cleanse lepers, this act of Jesus affirms Jesus’ priestly nature in light of the Mosaic Law.

Upon successful cleansing of his leprosy, the man was no longer an outsider. He was now fully integrated back to the mainstream society.

And, Jesus told the man to go show himself to the priest, as Leviticus 13-14 as the priest is the one to also declare the cure. However, interestingly, Jesus also told the man not to tell anyone how his leprosy was cured or cleansed.

Many wonder why Jesus told the man not to tell anyone about his cure – why Jesus did not want the public to know about his amazing power of healing, even though he had already demonstrated it public, as the Gospel narratives from the 4^th Sunday on (Mark 1:21-39) describe.

To this question,  William Wrede attempted to answer by proposing a theory, “Messianic Secret”, in his “Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien”.

According to Wrede, Jesus prohibited the man from telling others how his leprosy was cured because it was not yet the proper time for the greater public to know about his amazing healing power.  This theory can be affirmed with John 2:4, where Jesus also shows his obvious reluctance to the greater public to know about his power to perform a miracle too soon at the wedding at Cana.

I am sure that the man whose leprosy was cured by Jesus could not resist his excitement – even though Jesus, the one who cured him, told him not to tell anyone about the cure. So, the man “evangelized” about how Jesus cured his leprosy to a great extent.

As a result of the man’s announcement of what Jesus prohibited him from telling, it became not just difficult but impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly any more, for more and more people were coming to see Jesus from everywhere. 

Obviously, this was what Jesus did not want to happen. But, because of the man’s failure to keep Jesus’ words, things turned contrary to what Jesus had desired, bleaching the Messianic Secret prematurely.

In order to overcome our confirmation bias, in other words, in order for us to ensure our attention is not just fixated to curing act of Jesus to the leper in Mark 1:40-45, let us examine the consequence of the man’s failure to keep the words of Jesus.

Before the man spread the news of how Jesus cured his leprosy, contrary to Jesus’ request not to tell, Jesus was able to enter a town openly to teach and heal.  However, after the man told the greater public about what Jesus did to him, greater crowds came to the town, making it impossible for Jesus to enter openly. The failure of the man to keep Jesus’ words turned Jesus an outsider, while Jesus made him an insider for curing his leprosy.

Jesus’ compassionate act to the man turned this leper from an outsider to be an insider, while the failure of this man to keep Jesus’ words turned Jesus from an insider to an outsider.

Notice that Jesus had to stay outside the town in deserted places (Mark 1:45), as if he were now excluded as the man once was expected when he was a leper.

As in the case with the 5^th Sunday Gospel reading, Mark 1:29-39, the fact that Jesus was out of the obvious sight for praying in a deserted place (Mark 1:35), also in the 6^th Sunday Gospel reading, Mark 1:40-45, Jesus ended up being deserted places (Mark 1:45).  The invisibility of Jesus from the public eyes in town or where the crowd was makes it difficult for our attention to retain, because of our confirmation bias.

But, it is important that we pay enough attention to Jesus in deserted places – Jesus as an outsider, because Lent is a critical time for us to experience what it is like to be an outsider, or as Fr. Mark Bosco, SJ of Loyola University Chicago puts it in light of Flannery O’Conner’s “The Displaced Person”, Lent is a period of being a displaced person.

Why so?  It is to prepare ourselves spiritually not only to recognize our own sinfulness which we have not realized yet but also to be ready to walk the redemptive suffering and death with Jesus in order to spring into a new life with the Risen Lord on Easter Sunday.

Let’s think of possible factors that could have made the man to fail to keep Jesus’ words.

One possible factor was his excitement, as he let this strong emotion forget about the words of Jesus.

Now, think how Adam and Eve failed to keep the words of God (Genesis 3:1-6) – God’s words of prohibition form eating a fruit of the wisdom tree (Genesis 2:15-17).

Perhaps, it was a emotion of burning curiosity, set by Satan in serpent, that tempted Adam and Eve to eat forbidden fruits, in spite of the fact that both of them understood God’s words of prohibition.

The way the man failed to keep the words of Jesus (Mark 1:44-45) and the way Adam and Eve failed to keep God’s words (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-6) make a parallel for us to reflect upon our own sinfulness and our disposition to fail.

As sinners, besides our confirmation bias, we inherently have this tendency to fail to keep God’s words , also, fail to keep our promise to God, especially when we let strong emotions, such as curiosity, and carnal desires, as in the case with the man in Mark 1:40-45 and Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.

The man’s failure to keep Jesus’ words made Jesus excluded from a town, keeping him in deserted places, while the failure of Adam and Eve to keep God’s words made them outsiders, as they were evicted from the Garden of Eden.

Both of these incidents symbolizes our sinfulness, which we must examine and overcome through our Lenten journey.

In particular, for our Lenten journey, we must pay special attention to the fact that the man’s failure to keep Jesus’ words made Jesus an outsider, being excluded.  It is because this foreshadows what Lent will lead to – the Cross.

Jesus was nailed to the Cross, as a result of our failure to keep God’s words – his words, by becoming the ultimate outsider, in place of us, who, otherwise, would have become the kind of outsiders like Adam and Eve when they lost Eden.

To make the 6^th Sunday Gospel reading (Mark 1:40-45) to make our Lenten journey more meaningful, we must ponder the implications of the man’s failure to keep Jesus’ words and its consequence of making Jesus become an outsider in Mark 1:44-45 relevant to the Cross, on which Jesus died, as the outsider, in place of us, who are the kind of outsiders to be nailed there.

Again, for this meaningful Lenten journey with this Gospel narrative, we must overcome our confirmation bias, as well as our tendency to be carried away by strong emotions.

To gain the spiritual discipline to regulate emotions, teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas from the Summa Theologicae (II-1, 22-48) and de Veritate (q.26) and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola can be helpful.