After they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?’ Mt. 27:17

False Dichotomy

Matthew 27:15-31

Preached at the Ecumenical Good Friday Service

March 25, 2005

Who was the Roman governor Pilate? The Gospels of Matthew and Luke present different perceptions of Pilate. What were his motivations? Was he trying to save Jesus from crucifixion? Was he trying to save himself and prevent a riot?

What about Jesus Barabbas? Was he an insurrectionist, a robber, a murderer? Again, the Gospels are not uniform. What does notorious mean in reference to his character? What happened to him after his release?

We will never really know the definitive answer to any of these questions. Maybe the wisdom of the Gospels correctly turns our attention, not to the personalities of Pilate and Barabbas, but to the event of Jesus’ crucifixion precipitated by questions Pilate asks the crowd and the crowd’s response. “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” “Barabbas,” the crowd shouted. “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” “Let him be crucified!” When asked what evil he had done, the crowd only yelled the more, “Let him be crucified.”

On that Friday, before the first Easter, before the resurrection, the cross was not the symbol of the Christian faith that hangs around our necks and is displayed in our sanctuaries. The cross was the cruel means of execution by the Roman government upon which condemned, non-Roman citizens hung. Roman citizens were not crucified.

Pilate, in a shrewd public relations ploy aimed at playing off the unruly crowd, sets up an “either or” situation which I refer to as a false dichotomy: whom do you want released Barabbas or Jesus? Condensing the options to the unambiguous choices of either/or and turning justice over to the public opinion, Pilate attempts to wash his hands of responsibility, while securing his position as governor by maintaining order among the crowd. In asking the question, Pilate keeps the favor of the chief priest he appointed, Caiaphas, and stays in favor with the Emperor by preventing a riot.

Yet, few things in politics and religion are more destructive and dangerous than the false dichotomy-an "either/or" situation which limits solutions to a given problem to only two options. A dichotomy is a set of two mutually exclusive alternatives. Dichotomies are typically expressed with the words "either" and "or", like this: "Either the test is wrong or the program is wrong." A false dichotomy is typically used in an argument to force your opponent into an extreme position -- by making the assumption that there are only two positions or possibilities.

False dichotomies appeal to crowds because they seem to offer a simple choice. False dichotomies intensify the emotionalism of a crowd when their decision is restricted to seemingly exclusive and opposing positions. False dichotomies succeed in dividing people into proponents or opponents, for or against, them or us, with long term polarizing effects.

For example, Hitler used the false dichotomy to great effect, telling Germans that the solutions to the problems facing Germany in the 1930s were limited to Nazism or Jewish communism. Playing on the economic chaos in Germany following World War I and the people’s anxiety, Hitler secured his power with the blessing of the German National Church by offering Nazism and using the Jews as scapegoats.

From the halls of public power to the walls of schools and offices to the living rooms of our homes, false dichotomies are set up to force a choice and secure a position.

You are either my friend or hers!

America, love it or leave it!

You either believe that God created the earth or you believe in evolution.

And, sadly in the public debate over the life and death of Terri Shiavo, false dichotomies are arising to polarize opinion for political gain on every side.

From the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, Peggy Noonan writes an article entitled In Love with Death, the bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people. Her opening statements are these:

“God made the world or he didn't.

God made you or he didn't.

If he did, your little human life is, and has been, touched by the divine. If this is true, it would be true of all humans, not only some. And so--again, if it is true--each human life is precious, of infinite value, worthy of great respect.”

She goes on then to justify the emotionalism of those who want to continue feeding while saying she can not understand the emotionalism of those who “want to pull-the-tube.” The premise is simple, if you believe God made the world and God made you, then there is only one way, one option for seeing each human life as precious, of infinite value, and worthy of great respect.

I wish Peggy Noonan had sat with me as I sat with families of elderly loved ones. I wish she had sat with the parents of newborns, and the mothers and fathers of teenage boys killed in car accidents, and with spouses of all ages as we prayed through difficult medical decisions that were theirs to make, not mine.

I wish Peggy Noonan had held Hannah as I did, born with most of her brain missing except that part that kept her heart beating and her lungs breathing. Hannah, whose very name meant grace, was held by many of us in her five days of life. It was not the media or public opinion that decided whether Hannah would be fed or not, but her parents within a community of family, doctors, hospital chaplain, and two churches, Immaculate Conception and First Congregational, where they lived in deep relationships with neighbors and in faith trusting God.

I am not sure that our decisions about life and death are as unambiguous as Peggy Noonan assumes. I confess that I am not certain what is God’s will. Is it God’s will to make the first medical intervention to sustain life when it would have died? Is it God’s will to wait upon a miracle? Is it God’s will to trust that truly the last enemy death has been defeated by the Christ who has died, the Christ who is risen, and the Christ who will come again. I do not know for certain.

This I do know and confess. Peggy Noonan is the very same editorial writer who incensed me with her In Love with Death piece and also inspired me with her Flannery O’Connor Country piece about Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols. Ashley Smith is the woman who was held hostage by Brian Nichols after he had killed a judge and court deputy. Brian let Ashley go to her daughter, she turned him into police, and in their seven hours together both of them were changed.

This I do know and confess. Every time I say that I would not want to live as Terri Schiavo, I stand before the cross. It is not my decision about my life, nor would it ever be my decision alone, as if I lived in isolation on an island. Nor is it the decision of a public who are not committed to her care, nor bear the personal joy and personal burden of supporting her life. It is the decision of a family within a community who are embroiled in a battle, and we do not know their motives any more than we knew the motives of Pilate in asking his question: whom do you want me to release for you Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah. The task of the public is not to exacerbate an already tragic situation by further polarizing the parties, but to support both Terri Schiavo’s parents and husband.

This I do know and confess that when the crowd was given that choice in the false dichotomy, they chose Barabbas. Public opinion chose Barabbas!

This I do know and confess. We are not saved by our choices. I can only be here today, on a Friday that is called Good because of Easter, because Jesus died not telling the crowd they were wrong or right. Jesus died forgiving them because they didn’t know what they were doing.

I am here before the cross on Good Friday, just like you and everybody else, because we share a common, vulnerable, and limited humanity that God has redeemed not because we have the right answers, but because we belong to the God of grace who created us and in Christ has defeated even that last enemy – death!