questions

A Quest for Questions

/ JJS / 1 Comment

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Today’s readings:
Psalms 36; 147:12-20, Isaiah 45:5-17, Ephesians 5:15-33, Mark 4:21-34

Human beings like answers. It was true thousands of years ago in the time of the prophet Isaiah, it’s true today, and (if we are still around) it will be true thousands of years from now. Uncertainty vexes us. Sometimes we are more content to grasp at false answers than to have no answers at all. Yet sometimes the answer is simply … there is no answer.

When the exiled nation of Israel cried out because it seemed God had abandoned them, Isaiah challenged their right to take God to task. He compared them to lumps of clay questioning the choices of the potter. The God of Israel declared he “made weal and created woe” as he saw fit, and human beings should not strive to comprehend why.

Like the ancient Israelites, we often want to know why God has allowed bad things to happen to us (and isn’t it funny how we are less likely to wonder why we are deserving of the good things?). Some people’s faith evaporates when it does not protect them from the bad things and the world stops making sense to them. “How can a loving God let evil things happen?” they wonder. That question can feel threatening to people of faith. An entire industry of apologetics, creationist “proofs,” and theological musings has evolved to address that question. In the end, most of them are overly pat and largely unsatisfying. But “we’ll never know” doesn’t exactly sell books and videos.

Questioning is healthy, but some questions will remain unanswerable. Isaiah, Job, Proverbs: these scriptures and others advise us energy spent on unanswerable questions could be put to better use. If we can accept the paradox that God is good and bad things still happen, we can move on to address questions of a faith lived in the world as it really is: Whom shall we serve? How shall we love? Where is God leading us?

Folk wisdom tells us the journey matters more than the destination. If an answer is a destination, perhaps finding the right questions to ask matters more than getting there.

Comfort: Asking the right questions makes all the difference.

Challenge: We must learn to live with the reality that we’ll never have all the answers.

Prayer: God of mystery, may your love be answer enough. Amen.

Discussion: Do any unanswered questions really bug you?

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Following The Recipe

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 15; 147:1-11, Nehemiah 7:73b-8:3, 5-18, Revelation 18:21-24, Matthew 15:29-39

There’s an old joke about a new bride who wants to make her husband happy by learning to prepare a roast – his favorite meal – just the way his mother did. She spends time with her mother-in-law and memorizes every step of the recipe. One night she surprises her husband with a beautifully prepared roast. He enjoys it immensely but asks why she cut the ends of the roast. “That’s what your mother does,” she replies. “That,” he says, “is because she can’t find the bigger pan.”

We’ve gotten mileage out of this joke before, but this time let’s consider it in the context of today’s passage from Nehemiah.

After the people of Israel returned to Jerusalem after decades in Babylonian exile, they rededicated themselves to their Lord and their Law. The priests wanted to help the people understand the law, so while all the people were gathered “they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”

They didn’t just read verbatim, they provided context. Part of God’s previous displeasure with the people, which had culminated in the exile they had just concluded, was their tendency to follow the letter of the law without valuing or considering the principles of mercy and justice behind it. Nobody wanted to that to happen again.

Yet a little less than five hundred years later when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem many people had forgotten the lesson and repeated the mistakes of the past. It seems we are much better at following and enforcing rules, even misunderstood or twisted versions of them, than looking at what’s behind them.

Christians seem to be caught in the tension between following a savior who fulfilled and freed us from the law and defining Christianity through a whole new set of rules grown from tradition and interpretation. We should not abandon our principles and values simply because they fall out of fashion, but we also benefit from regular examination of what principles determine why we do what we do – in everything from the arrangement of the sanctuary, to decisions about which sins to condemn most loudly, to daily personal practices – and from asking whether what we do and proclaim actually conforms to the Spirit rather than the letter. Biblical literacy is about more than knowing what the Bible says; we should always strive to deepen our understanding of why it says what it does. A faith that doesn’t stand up to examination and challenges isn’t a faith; it’s a tissue of superstitions.

Before you cut the ends off the roast, think about who that means you won’t be feeding.

Comfort: Our faith has rich history and tradition.

Challenge: Some of them have outlived their usefulness.

Prayer: I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety. (Psalm 4:9)

Discussion: Have you ever realized something you did regularly was pointless or counterproductive?

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Questions That Matter

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 116; 147:12-20, Deuteronomy 3:18-28, Romans 9:19-33, Matthew 24:1-14

In Matthew 24, Jesus begins to talk about his eventual return. He speaks about what signs and trials the disciples can expect before the “end of the age.” Despite expectations of his earliest followers, it didn’t happen quickly, and ever since some Christians have spent great effort assembling world events like pieces of an end-times jigsaw puzzle. Others insist on creating a rift between science and religion, pitting evolution against creationism. Is it possible to spend so much time focusing on the beginning and the end that we lose sight of the middle – the only time we can actually know?

While knowledge is important on its own merit, it can be a mistake to hang our faith on specific, unknowable questions, or to judge whether someone else is “our kind” of Christian based on their answers. So what sort of faith questions should we be asking ourselves and each other? Evaluating them against another question might help: Will the answer affect my faith or how I live my life? Developing a relationship with Christ; feeding the hungry; sharing the Good News: none of these depend on arguments for or against evolution, or whether the end is nigh. A life lived in love, justice and mercy transcends apologetics and refutations. Defense of a certain idea or school of thought can easily become an idol substituted for true faith. Hundreds of end time predictions have been wrong. What do we suppose the people who pinned their faith on these predictions did the day after the world ended?

Jesus did talk about the beginning and the end, but the greater part of his lessons was about the middle – about living in right relationship with God and each other. Shouldn’t we spend our limited time and energy on the things Jesus emphasized? Endless debate doesn’t clothe the naked or comfort the sick. If Jesus does show up tomorrow, we might rather be caught doing what he told us to do.

So here’s a question: what can we do for the least of our brothers and sisters? The answer matters to Jesus and to us.

Comfort: We don’t need all the answers to follow Jesus.

Challenge: The next time someone wants to engage you in divisive theological debate, instead invite her/him to share in works of mercy.

Prayer: Gracious and Merciful God, lead me always to the right questions. Amen.

Discussion: Are you able to confidently say: “I don’t know?” Why or why not?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!