Questions

                                                                             

Luke 7:18-28                                                                                                              August 31, 2003

 

So John summoned two of his disciples  and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ ”  Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind.  And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers   are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.  And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 

When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus   began to speak to the crowds about John:   “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?  What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who put on fine clothing and live in luxury are in royal palaces.  What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.  This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’  I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

 

We will come back to this passage later, but for now notice one feature: what I’ve just read essentially, are a string questions.  There are eight in all, one of which is phrased three ways, which means there are six different ones.  In my reading, at least two of the questions are meant to be funny.  Listen as Jesus asks rhetorically if people had gone out to the wilderness to see some prissy member of the royal family dressed in soft robes, a thin reed so weak that it quaked in the wind; or whether they had gone out to see a real man’s man, dressed in a hair shirt, eating locusts and honey stolen from bees’ hives, who slept on the ground not in some cushy royal palace.  Imagine those listening to the questions smiling.  No they had not gone out into the wilderness to see prissy pant-loads, they’d gone out to see a prophet, and more than a prophet, and of course, Jesus knew that.

 

Questions.  Our theme today is questions, and this reading asks a boodle of them, which as it turns out is illustrative of the way Jesus often interacted with his audiences.  Check it out on your Bible software.  Search for the words “ask, asked, and asking,” and note how many times questions were put to and by Jesus, to his friends and followers, by his enemies, detractors, and the merely curious.  There are dozens of scenes.  Chapter 7 in Luke is typical: questions were the currency in which Jesus often traded.

 

Charles Kimball first called my attention to this reality in the book of his we spent so much time on last spring: When Religion Becomes Evil.  In emphasizing that it is dangerous when religious “authority figures discourage or disallow honest questions,” Kimball notes that “Jesus often taught in parables, enigmatic stories that illuminated one or more points.  He was a rabbi, a teacher, not a dictator who demanded blind obedience.  Jesus welcomed honest questions.”  And then Kimball continues: “So, too, did the Buddha, who also frequently used parables in his discourse with followers.  In fact, the Buddha’s primary  mode of teaching was in response to questions.  We also know from Hadith materials that Muhammad also welcomed inquiry on all  manner of things.  The Jews furthermore, have a long tradition of questioning the most fundamental teachings or even debating with God.” 

 

We are also aware that questions are not the exclusive domain of religious teachers.  Perhaps the most famous questioner of all is the philosopher Socrates, who indeed lends his name to the Socratic method.  Naturally then, the next question is why did these great figures teach this way?  What makes questioning so effective?  I’m so glad you’ve asked!

 

Have you ever played the simulation game, “Lost on the Moon?”  Group facilitators and trainers love this one, because it so effectively reveals the effects of group dynamics.  The premise of the game is that your lunar rover has stalled on the moon, you are lost, and have to get back to the mother-ship.  The question is, of all the supplies available to you on the rover, which ones should you take, and in what priority?  Supposedly the answers have been vetted by NASA, and so at the end of the exercise, there will be a test. 

 

A twist in the game occurs after individuals have worked out their rankings of what supplies to take.  Setting individual answers aside, small groups are formed to work together to develop a team answer to the problem.  Next, scores are computed for both individuals and groups, and the real fun begins.  The most important learning is that groups who work effectively with one another, almost always score higher than any single individual.  Many heads asking questions, are better than one.  In those groups however, where only a few voices dominate, where questions are ignored, where the quiet thinking types are overshadowed by the noisy show-offs, the scores of the group are almost invariably lower than the scores of some of the individuals in the group.  Groups in which retired astronauts dominate do fine, of course.  But when the one who speaks the loudest and longest doesn’t have a clue, then guess what, the group score suffers.  With church committee meetings about to begin again this fall season, keep these insights in mind, loudest and longest is not always the most insightful.  Given that we have no retired astronauts among us, if we’re going to get to heaven, we need all of you to join the conversations!

 

It strikes me that teachers and students, groups and individuals who ask questions, are likewise going to show greater effectiveness through time, than work groups or classrooms or churches where questions are ignored, or treated with scorn.  Consider the salutary effects of the question.  First of all, questions reveal a sense of curiosity about the world and what’s in it.  I wager that some of the most interesting people we know, are among the most curious people we know.  Secondly, what’s more fun than wondering why or how, and then learning?  Socrates went so far as to say that the unexamined life is not worth living.  Thirdly, as Lost on the Moon demonstrates, an egalitarian group where the questions and opinions of every person are valued, has a greater chance of coming up with an effective solution, than individuals will have working alone.  Indeed, even geniuses benefit from the questions of others.  No matter how smart we are, we can’t think of everything, can’t solve every problem, can’t exhaust every possibility. 

 

Another value in asking questions, and continuing to ask them, is that we might thereby be spared of accepting the first or most obvious answer, which later turns out not to be very insightful.  Did you hear about the results from the shuttle inquiry this week?  It turns out that the study panel concluded that it wasn’t simply a block of foam striking a wing which brought the shuttle down.  That may have been the final straw, but it was not the ultimate cause. The foam answer was a symptom of a much larger problem, described as a “broken safety culture.”  Let me read a paragraph from the report which offers wonderful insights into the value of asking the right questions.  The board said:

 

It is our view that complex systems almost always fail in complex ways, and we believe it would be wrong to reduce the complexities and weaknesses associated with these systems to some simple explanation.  Too often, accident investigations blame a failure only on the last step in a complex process, when a more comprehensive understanding of that process could reveal that earlier steps might be equally or even more culpable.

 

Keep this in mind in the upcoming campaign season, the sound-bite season, and demand something more than bumper-sticker analysis from our would-be political leaders.

 

Having said all this good stuff about questions, let’s not miss the down-side.  These qualifications are not enough to put an end to questioning, but even questions have their limits.  Many of you now earn your bread, or once did, by living on the boundaries between the thinkers and the doers, between the theoreticians and the sales-force, between the architects and the construction gang.  I love watching these skirmishes here at church.  I’ll never forget a scene which unfolded right here where I’m standing on the day before this newly renovated building was to reopen.  While others scurried all around them, carrying chairs and tables, crosses and candlesticks, while dust was being swept and carpets vacuumed, two theoreticians sat in that front pew, still dusty because nobody could get past them, sat there, heads craned upward toward holes in this front wall, which eventually were going to house speakers for a brand-spanking new marvel of a digital organ.  Subject of the debate?  Whether to shave another inch of sheet rock from around the openings to provide for the most optimal sound.  Meanwhile the tumult around them continued, and seemingly their line of questioning had no end.  I can’t remember if the additional inch came down or not.  I do know the organ sounds magnificent.  But I must confess that I was tempted to give the theoreticians a broom and a dust rag!

 

Paralysis by analysis I believe it’s called.  Questions are great.  But life goes on!  There comes a time, when the doers say to the thinkers, let’s get on with it already!  Fish or cut bait!  Cut the sheet rock or sweep the floor.  Get on with it!

 

Around a church however, perhaps a greater danger, one I trip into all the time, is becoming so intent upon asking the questions, that I forget to make the affirmations.  It is one thing to admit humbly that we don’t have all the answers, that there are many mysteries in our existence, unanswerable questions about suffering and evil; deep questions about the purpose of life, why we’re here and where we’re going, but to dwell on the questions, while forgetting to celebrate the answers however provisional they may be, is also to miss the boat.  I read a story about a colleague who talked with a young man just home from college after an encounter with a more conservative brand of Christianity.  The young man was mightily impressed by their knowledge of scripture, by their firm moral stands, and consciousness of higher standards and callings.  At first the minister was non-plussed, but then he dropped his usual, on the one-hand and then on the other approach, and began to speak to that young person about his own passions for peace and the commitments to social justice of a tradition like ours.  The young man was bowled over, and both departed from that encounter wondering why they had failed to explore those convictions and passions before.

 

Questions have their place, rightfully a prominent place, but they also have their limits.

 

Now finally, back to the reading. 

 

Please recall that Jesus did not answer John’s question directly.  “Are you the one?”  Jesus answered, “go tell John what you have seen and heard, the blind see, the lame walk, the poor hear the good news...”  Think about it.  Decide for yourselves.  Can’t we imagine John’s disciples beating it back down the road questioning what Jesus meant?  Indeed doesn’t Jesus’ indirect answer also draw us further into the story with questions of our own?  Weren’t messiahs supposed to be political leaders, avenging conquerors?  Of what significance are healings and exorcisms?  How will restoring the health of a few poor peasants be any threat to the reign of Caesar in his soft robes and royal palaces?  What kind of savior is this?

 

Not only that, but there is also this curious stuff about good news.  This narrative began with a question about Jesus, who then after the questioners have left, asks the crowd a series of his own questions about John.  “Who did you go out into the wilderness to see?”  Yes, a prophet and more than a prophet.”  Jesus asks six quick questions, two of which caused people to smile, remember?  But those six questions lead to the really big question.  First Jesus assures the crowd that John the Baptist in his hair shirt is greater than any sissy, reed thin, royal.  Indeed, “among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”  Huh?  What did he just say?  Even the least of us is greater than John?  What?  Really?  How can that be? 

 

Of all the questions in this passage, this is the biggest one.  Indeed the whole passage is designed to lead to this question.  It seemed like we were talking about messiahs, prophets and royals: the important folk, the movers and shakers.  Page one people.  But then there is this sudden reversal at the end: the least in the kingdom is greater, the ones the papers never mention, are the most important in God’s kingdom.  What kind of kingdom is that anyway?  You can bet the crowd divided into small groups to talk about that assertion.  What did Jesus mean?  Was he talking about us, and if he was, that hints at something pretty wonderful, and incredibly affirming.  Who me?  Little old me?  A cipher in Caesar’s kingdom, but greater than John in God’s kingdom?  Really?  You?  Me?  What a wonderful, affirming answer this is to all our questioning, self-doubts and insecurities. 

 

                                                                                                                                    Craig Anderson