John's commentary in today's Gospel (Jn 4: 43- 54) explaining why Jesus left Samaria for Galilee-- "that a prophet has no honor in his native place"-- might cause us to reflect on why that is so. What is it about the relationship between a prophet and those who live where the prophet was raised that causes the prophet to have no honor? Wouldn't you think it would be the other way? Wouldn't you expect people to be proud when a "native son" or "native daughter" does well? Is it something about the notion of being a propet? Maybe the answer lies in something trial lawyers have known for a while, something social scientists call perception bias, or selective perception. We have learned that jurors quickly develop a sense of who ought to win a case, and then they literally do not see or hear evidence that is contrary to that sense. That's why lawyers spend so much time and effort on their openings, so that they can get the jury to think their side should win, even before they hear the evidence. Get them going your way on the opening, and you've pretty much won the case, lawyers think-- and it is often true. That's how people behave. That's what happens with the hometown prophets, I think. People know, or think they know, all about someone who was raised in their hometown. The hometowner is considered to be a regular, normal person whom they have known from childhood. Even if there were glimpses of the makings of a prophet, no one would see them, since no one even expects such things to be happening. So when the hometown person develops into a prophet, people simply can't see it, and reject all evidence to the contrary. That's what happened to Jesus in Nazareth, after all. As far as it goes I suppose this phenomenon isn't so terrible. The prophets still seem to get to be prophets somewhere else after all. But we might recognize that this same selective perception works in other contexts as well. It explains why race can matter so much-- people see what they expect to see, rather than what really happens, so much of the time. So when we read about how Jesus recognized that in His hometown He would not be honored, we might ask ourselves whether or not we engage in the same kind of thing, just in a different context. Who do we dismiss, or fail to recognize? Why? Do we just "see what we want to see and disregard the rest," as the Simon and Garfunkle song lyric goes?