What passes for debate these days seems a lot like mockery. Mostly it seems like people are trying to make others look bad, or hoping for a "gotcha" or otherwise just taking shots at their opponents, rather than talking about real issues. Today's Gospel (Mt 9: 18- 26) shows us that ridiculing others, rather than engaging in a real discussion, is nothing new. That's exactly what the flute players and crowd of mourners do to Jesus when He tells them that the daughter of the official (according to Mark a synagogue official) is not dead but merely sleeping. They are convinced they know what's going on, so they don't engage in a discussion with Jesus-- they just launch a put-down. Having staked out their position so clearly that Jesus is worthy of ridicule, they're in a tough spot when it turns out He is right, and that the girl isn't dead at all. Even though they see what has happened with their own eyes, they probably can't believe it. Cognitive dissonance, the experts call it. They literally can't be convinced that they're wrong, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. That sort of thing happens a lot to us humans. We get dug in, convinced we're right, not open to evidence or persuasion. That's why people can have such a hard time swiching political parties or candidates. They have become immune to the facts. There's a lesson here. The people who saw this great miracle should have all become instant and life-long followers of Jesus, given what He did. But that didn't happen. Despite all the miracles, folks abandoned Christ-- they weren't reached at their core by what they saw. So we need to be careful not to do the same, not to let ourselves get so dug in, so self-righteous, to sure that those who disagree with us deserve to be ridiculed, that we aren't open to persuasion and evidence. The times are divisive enough without our making it worse by a self-selection process that substitutes ridicule for an assessment of truth.