Jesus issued this warning to the scribes and Pharisees: You say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves. That warning should apply to our day and time when you hear someone say “I never enslaved anyone.” Jesus wants his opponents (and us) to understand that actions have consequences, that the deeds done in the past are not over but echo in the current age, that a great wound doesn’t go away on its own but needs to be healed. What was done in the past, either prophet killing or chattel slavery, has impacted us in unconscious and unacknowledged ways that require a profound conversion.
