It is very hard for us as human beings to keep an open mind. It takes real effort to force ourselves to hear both sides of an argument, and to make up our minds only when we have fully heard and understood the various positions in dispute. We ask jurors to do that in court, and I am sure they try as hard as they can, but they almost-never succeed. Multiple studies show that jurors decide cases based on the opening statements of the parties, andthen engage in selective perception, hearing only the evidence that supports that decision, for the rest of the case-- all subconsciously, of course. We decide political questions that way too. In the current impeachment situation there seem to be very few people, in percentage terms, who even claim to have an open mind. Most folks admit that they have decided for or against impeachment of President Trump, and the evidence doesn't seem to matter. That whole way of deciding things is nothing new. I'll bet there were very few people who changed their mind about slavery in the US in the period from 1850 to 1861 (when the Civil War started), even though the arguments and factual presentations continued during that period. People just "heard what they want to hear and disregarded the rest," as the Simon and Garfunkle song lyric goes. The reality of that human phenomenon is why the end of today's Gospel (Lk 20: 27-40) is so surprising. The Gospel is familiar. It is the attempt by the Sadducees to trip up Jesus and His teaching about the Resurrection by positing a situation where a woman married each of seven brothers in turn, after the prior one dies. The unanswerable question, from the Sadducees' perspective, is whose wife will that woman be after the resurrection. Of course, Jesus explains that they are thinking incorrectly about the resurrection, and thus that their question is based on a false premise. Then comes the interesting part. Luke tells us that some of the scribes, who we would expect to be allied with the Sadducees in opposition to Jesus, said: "Teacher, you have answered well." And they no longer dared to ask Him anything. Can you imagine that happening in our political debates? President Trump saying to Speaker Pelosi: "You have answered well"? (Or vice versa, I must say). Somehow Jesus gets through to people who we'd expect to have closed minds. They listen to Him and, shockingly, they are persuaded. We're usually closed-minded too, and particularly so when it comes to matters of faith. We've got our opinions about what the Church teaches, and what it means to be a Catholic Christian, and we pretty-much stick to them. We like, or dislike, the Latin Mass. We like, or dislike, Gregorian chant, or guitar music, or whatever. Jesus wants to break through that closed-mindedness, to open us up to new ways to get close to Him, to allow ourselves to experience His love more fully. He wants us to get to the point where we, like the scribes, can say: "Teacher, you have answered well." Work at listening to Jesus with an open mind-- in prayer, when we read or hear the Gospels, when we're just sitting in quiet contemplation. Don't look for Jesus to tell us what we already think we know. Be open to something more. Allow yourself to go deeper. You might be surprised at the results.