This essay focuses on a hearing before judgement. We may not end up agreeing with people’s opinion. Something but we can still listen attentively to them and try to understand them.

a hearing before judgement

Should be a thoughtful reaction to some aspect of the assignment. They can include questions, insights, reflections, or connections to something. The assignment as well as web-links to relevant materials or viewings. PLEASE USE THE ATTACHED FILE TO WRITE A REACTION PAPER.

Many people today feel that nobody is listening to them;

they are not being given a hearing. We may not end up agreeing with people’s opinion. Something but we can still listen attentively to them and try to understand them.

In today’s gospel reading, the temple police who were sent to arrest Jesus found themselves listening to him. And, against their expectations, being greatly impressed by what he said. There has never been anybody who has spoken like him’, they said. However, the chief priests and. Pharisees who had sent the police to arrest Jesus were completely closed to what Jesus had to say. They had made up their minds that he was not from God.

Yet, one of their number separated himself out from his peers and challenge. Their refusal to listen with the question, ‘Surely the Law does not allow us to pass judgement on. A man without giving him a hearing and discovering what he is about?.  Nicodemus was insisting that Jesus was deserving of being given a hearing before judgement was made on him.

It takes courage to stand up to one’s peers and express a view that is at odds with the consensus.

A kind of herd mentality can easily dismiss someone who is seen as a threat to the position and status of the group. Every group, no matter how small or large, needs at least one person who. From time to time, sees through the prejudice and blindness that may lie bury within the easy consensus.

Every group needs someone who is prepared to stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute! Let us not rush to judgement. We need to listen to this other point of view. It may have something to teach us. God may be speaking to us through this alien voice’. God was speaking through Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee. Even though the inform consensus was, ‘prophets do not come from Galilee’. Nicodemus inspires us to be open to the Lord speaking to us in ways we might never have expect.