Asking the Questions

Proper 20

Year B

          I am often hard on the disciples, and often when reading the Gospels I can hear, or at least I think I can hear, Jesus’ utter frustration with their lack of understanding, with their continual thickness—but today that’s not how I hear it.  This morning I can so easily identify with the disciples and their confusion and fear, and this morning I can also hear the love and compassion in Jesus’ words and voice.  I invite you to walk back through the Gospel with me and see if you hear it too.

          This passage of the Gospel in Mark immediately follows the transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John have been to the mountain top with Jesus, they’ve come down and were immediately surrounded by a large crowd—Jesus had thrown an evil spirit out of a demon possessed boy, and the crowds had surged.  This is from where and from what they have come, and even as a tremendous extrovert, I can feel their need for some down time, for some time to process and for some quiet.

          And so they are walking along and Jesus continues to teach them.  I can imagine they are in overload, but Jesus knows how important this teaching is, so he continues.  Jesus tells them again what is going to happen to him—that he is going to be killed and after three days he will rise.  Mark clearly tells us that they didn’t understand.  That doesn’t seem so ridiculous—what Jesus is telling them is so far stretched; so out there.  I imagine they can hear that he is going to be killed; they’ve been with him, they know there are people who hate him; they know he is turning the world as they know it upside down.  But this part about rising again?  That is outside of what they can imagine, and so they get quiet, and they don’t ask because they are afraid.

          That I can understand.  Their minds are swirling; their minds can probably not even put into words the questions they have, and so they say nothing.  Have you ever been so confused (think math class maybe), that you don’t even know where to begin asking the questions?  And here’s where I can also identify with the disciples.  They are so afraid of asking the hard questions maybe because by asking the hard questions they too are going to have to do something hard.  Maybe the answer they get is going to call them to a different life, a different way of being, a way of being that is not “normal”, not like the rest of the world—a way of being that will make them different.  For them, the answer may even require death.  When we ask the hard questions about our faith, the questions about what it means to live out what we profess here in church, the “answers” may call us up short.  And so they remain silent, and they do what I think a lot of us do when we’re nervous and scared of information—they change the subject.

          They change the subject and talk about who would be the greatest among them.  It bears pointing out that the Gospel today doesn’t say they were arguing.  It says they were discussing.  They’ve side stepped the real questions they have for Jesus and try to discuss something they can maybe wrap their minds around.  And they get “caught”; they get called out.  And I imagine they have understood Jesus enough to know that’s not what they should be talking about. 

          I suppose they are probably silent because they are ashamed—they don’t want to answer; they don’t want Jesus to know.  Here’s where I have a ton of compassion and empathy for the disciples, because I wonder what I would say to Jesus if he asked me the same question.  What if Jesus asked me, asked us to explain how what we say and do—with how we live outside these walls goes with what we profess?  (Pause)

          So this is what I hear this morning.  I hear God calling us to a way of life, a way of being right here and right now.  I hear God saying that the Kingdom of God is not only yet to come, but it is here now and it is about how we live here on earth—how we live here on earth God’s way. 

          Jesus answers the questions for them—the questions they are afraid to ask.  He tells them that they have to see the world differently; they have to love the world differently.  They have to live and love not worrying about what’s in it for them, not worrying about what they’ll get out of it.  Jesus tells them to love and care for the world like a child.  It’s not just about care for children as we know it; no, in this time, children were non-entities.  They were lower than servants because they could give nothing back; they couldn’t increase anyone’s social status, and in fact they sometimes were liabilities.  They were the lowest of the low, the unrecognized, and the ignored.  And yet, Jesus says that is how we are to be—we are to embrace and love the children, the non-entities.   We are to live differently.

          Asking the hard questions—we have to ask the hard questions.  We must ask them of ourselves; we must ask them within a community of faith; we must ask them here.  We must recognize that asking questions doesn’t threaten God—God wants to be in relationship with us; God wants us to draw near to him.  Asking questions can deepen that relationship; asking the questions says right from the start, “I want to live how you want me to live, but I don’t know how. Please help me.”  Asking and struggling with how our faith, how our professed faith, impacts and drives our way of living is in and of itself a profession of our desire to bring the Kingdom of God here; right here and right now.  God doesn’t want us to be ashamed, to be embarrassed, to be scared—God wants us—all of us; the whole of our being—our certainties and our questions.  God wants to make us whole.

          God is calling us to a way of life.  God is calling us to live out our profession of faith; our baptismal covenant—as we strive to do that as individuals and as a community of faith, we must ask the hard questions, struggle with the questions, pray about the questions—we can’t be silent; we can’t change the subject.  We must ask the questions, and then we must live the answers.  Amen.