We had made a passing mention about people’s reaction to hearing Jesus saying, “These words are fulfilled in your hearing.” And we concluded that the declaration of the Jubilee Year by Jesus was the most infuriating thing for the people because it demanded lifestyle changes from his listeners.
It is an exciting matter to analyze how people wriggled out of the challenge that Jesus put before them. The tactic they used was to discredit the truth by discrediting the speaker. They said that he was all too familiar to them. They claimed to know him, his father and grandfather! Well, this is a very obscene argument in many cultures: to invoke the parents’ name in order to look down upon someone. Going into the psychological process of discrediting truth, one finds a complex defense mechanism of the mind. “floccinaucinihilipilification” is one longwinded curious word used in politics, while psychology employs the term “dismissal” to refer to this mental process. . Dismissive persons have little sympathy or understanding of the perspectives of the other. When an initial attempt fails to dismiss the argument of the other, they resort to invalidate the other by discrediting. The dismissive person’s typical emotional state is anger.
The community in the synagogue quickly degraded into a dismissive mob that got infuriated and made an attempt on the life of Jesus. Murder the truth by murdering the one who says it! In this case, the Truth was the one who said it!
What is at the psychic core of a dismissive defense? First, the perspective of the other deeply hurts or demands a change of behavior from the listener’s part. The listener is aware deep inside that one’s behavior is against the values that one appears to adhere to. It is often a guarded secret. When someone else points out that secret, the person gets unsettled to the core. The immediate response to pointing out, particularly on a serious matter, is denial. Denial is a defense when the opponent is stronger than oneself. Denial tacitly involves submission to the opponent. Dismissal is a stronger version of denial in which the subject resorts to discredit the one who challenges one’s guarded secret. In the dismissal behavior the obvious weakest point of the opponent is paraded in public to embarrass the other. Dismissive behaviors often feed on cultural prejudices.
Someone might have spoken this idea out, that Jesus is from a low-class family, a carpenter’s family, and we have no obligation to believe what he says. The crowd is immediately carried away by this prejudicious statement and makes an attempt on the life of Jesus. Prejudices could be cultural, racial, religious, political, national or ideological. Sometimes these prejudices blur one’s relationship with their spouses, children and parents. Such prejudices can limit people’s dreams or prevent one from accepting others as they are or look at the truth squarely. Cultural prejudices are on a short-fuse in many communities as they are exposed to more and more intercultural realities in the places they live. Learning to listen without prejudices to the perspectives of the other is a holiness that our times demand of us.
Denial and dismissal give rise to a complex cognitive process of challenging the speaker’s authority. In this case, the cognitive challenges the crowd poses are, “Why should we believe Jesus?” “What is his authority?” The question of his authority comes to debate many times over, beginning from Nazareth to Jerusalem. If one disproves the claim for the speaker’s authority, one can exempt oneself from answering the speaker’s challenges. Jesus is aware of his anointment as the Son of God and needs no external authority to vouch for it. He is sure of the Father’s authority invested in him.
Well, we were looking at the crowd behavior. I have this strange defense in me too. When some gospel passages challenge my attitudes, I am often in denial and dismissal, and try to explain them away to make me feel comfortable within. But, my goodness, what me!!!!