“Doubt
is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
Khalil Gibran
It occurs to me, without overstating
what should be obvious, the world might be a better place if we would put more
energy and effort into asking questions than in making proclamations, if we
would work harder to understand our neighbors rather than demand they accept us
and what we believe first. There is
nothing wrong with expressing confidence in what we believe (but not to the
point of arrogance) but if we care to learn more about a subject or - more
importantly - a person, questions AND a willingness to receive answers we may
not agree with become necessary. It is
first about getting to know them.
In the pilot episode of a new TV series,
"Resurrection", a young American boy suddenly woke up in the middle
of field in China with no explanation as to how he got there. Once he was finally returned to his home in
Missouri, we learned the boy had been dead 32 years from drowning in a river
behind his house in Missouri!
Through the twists and turns of the
yet-undetermined plot, the boy ran into a local pastor who remembered this boy
to have been his childhood friend. The
preacher expressed his utter dismay and confusion to a friend when he said,
"I'm seeing something I cannot believe, and I cannot explain it. I'm supposed to have the answers!" His friend replied, "Should you not
rather help your congregation to ask the right questions than to think you can have
all the answers?"
Check mate! The preacher found peace in the reality that
when we enter into the realm of mystery - especially the mysteries of the
Kingdom of Heaven and of life and death - we are always in a much better
position to ask questions than we are to have ready answers; asking is far
better than making something up that sounds good to us! This is especially important when we enter into
the "mission field" to seek out the lost and the marginalized and the
alienated as Jesus commands and expects of us, His Body the Church. But in order to gain the trust and confidence
of our neighbors who are too often strangers to us, should we not first set out
to establish a relationship? And is the
first step in any relationship not geared toward learning more about the other
person by freely entering into his or her world before we impose ourselves and
our world upon them - especially if they have come to feel alienated from our
world?
Nicodemus approached Jesus very
carefully "by night", as the Scripture says, but also by words. He seemed to be feeling Jesus out not by
challenging Him but by trying to determine exactly where Jesus was coming
from. The inquiry seems to be more about
the nature of Jesus Himself rather than about the nature of His
"signs". Is this just another
prophet, self-appointed rather than anointed, or is there more to Him than
meets the eye? We stopped asking
questions like this a long time ago.
The Church has been so caught up in the
tension between faith and works-righteousness as to what we "have to"
do for so long that we seem more concerned about what it takes to be
"saved" than we are concerned about being "sanctified"
which will necessarily involve others.
Even in our efforts to reach out, we have become a little too obsessed
with new "programs" that might attract new members - yet not nearly
concerned with new ministries that seek to serve others rather than to serve
ourselves.
"No one can SEE the Kingdom of God
..." So when others in the New Testament preach and
proclaim that the Kingdom of God has "come near", perhaps they are
getting closer to what becomes necessary for us to be enabled to "see" this Kingdom which has "come
near"; that there is something we must seek after so we can
"see" this Kingdom which is upon us - without being so distracted by
worldly things ... or our own concerns.
We must also remember that very little
works in isolation to itself. Just as
fasting is meaningless without prayer, baptism by water can have no lasting effect
if the Holy Spirit is not present. So
baptism (Exodus 30:18 and Matthew 3:6) and the reality of the Holy Spirit - which is the essence of
the Living God (Micah 3:8) - were
(are) not foreign concepts to Judaism, yet Nicodemus did not fully understand
what Jesus was saying.
As a "teacher of Israel",
Nicodemus was well aware of the Presence of God in the Spirit and the use of
water as a means of cleansing (some passages use "sanctifying" as
ritually purifying oneself with water) as a matter of Law perhaps, but he was
missing the crucial element: that what Jesus was proposing was something
Nicodemus and the Sanhedrin (Jewish council) should have already been doing and preaching just as Jesus teaches "when
you fast" rather than "if".
Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" Jesus seems to reply, "How can this NOT be?"
It must be understood from this passage,
I think, that Nicodemus would have discovered nothing had he not approached
Jesus the way he had. The religious
leaders of Jesus' day were never shy about "challenging" Jesus even
as they asked what may be better described as "sarcastic" questions
with ulterior motives, but few approached Jesus as Nicodemus did; i.e.,
"we know you are a teacher from God"; that is, acknowledging Jesus in
a positive and inquisitive way rather than in a negative and challenging one. Trying to learn something rather than trying
to impose or defend something.
Recall that Jesus quotes the Scriptures
when challenged by the tempter in the wilderness, "You shall not put the Lord
your God to the test" (Deuteronomy
6:16, Matthew 4:7). Quoting from Deuteronomy, Jesus was mindful of Moses'
instruction to the people not to test the limits of the Holy Father's patience
and mercy, for it follows that Moses states: "You shall diligently keep
the commandments of the Lord your God".
I recall an online conversation I had
some time back with a messianic rabbi about kosher law (messianic being Jews
who embrace Messiah Jesus). The rabbi
pointed out that such laws are not strictly about diet and what one can or
cannot eat; rather it is about a God who cares deeply about His people and that
this thought alone should be enough for us who claim to "trust" the
Lord. He also reminded me that the
prohibitions against certain meats should not provoke a "why not"
from us but more along the lines of "what will I learn from
this?" Not in search for excuses
but honest, genuine answers. From the
very beginning, even the Law calls the Lord's people to a life filled with the
struggle of "right questions" that serve to prepare us for life's
next moments.
Think about it in this way. We parents know - or should reasonably know -
that telling our children to "do" or "don't do" - BECAUSE I
SAID SO - is asking for rebellion sooner or later! They might
be obedient for the moment, but they will have learned nothing. Demanding blind obedience even when we answer
"because I care" fails to teach our children the value of any particular
lesson and does not help them to think through things for themselves. The lesson is lost on them because we often
feel our authority is being challenged or threatened because our children don't
accept our inadequate answers that often do not speak to the topic at hand but
rather to our parental authority.
"Going on to perfection" (what
we Methodists understand as sanctifying grace) requires a certain resolve from
each of us to always strive to do our very best in the Lord's name, but
discipleship also requires that we "ask the right questions" - not to
try and affirm what we think we already know but to grow spiritually in faith
and in love of God and neighbor.
Lent is the time to ask questions - and
lots of them. Lent challenges us in
prayer, in fasting, in Scripture study - alone and in fellowship with other
disciples - in submission to the Spirit to always reach higher and go
deeper.
Our Lord Jesus assures us that when we
seek, we will find ... not necessarily what we may be looking for only for
ourselves, and certainly no excuses - but surely we will find what our Lord has
in store for us. IF we trust Him enough
to ask.
In the name of the Father, the Son, the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment