LIVING THE QUESTIONS

Dr. Richard J. Henderson August 24, 2008

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Romans 12: 1-8
Matthew 16: 13-20

Introduction

Kids are full of questions. A three year old will follow you around asking again and again "Why?" You answer them and they ask again, "Why?" Every response gets the same question, "Why?" until you get so tired of hearing the same question that you finally just say, "Because that's the way it is!"

Humans just ask questions - it seems to be in our nature. Questioning may be God's gift to us. What other animal asks questions and discusses answers?

Imagine where we would be if no one ever asked, "Do you think we could put round disks on this box and make it roll easier?" Or, "Do you suppose people could fly like birds?" It's through questions that we find solutions. Through questions we find truth.

A church leader once said, "Children are full of questions: Where did I come from? Who made me? Why am I here?" As we get older we ask smaller questions: "How much money do I need to be happy? Shall I get a blue car or beige? Where shall we go on vacation?"

I

In some ways there are two kinds of churches: the ones that give out answers and the ones that wrestle with questions. Answer churches usually have a pastor who is the chief answer giver. The sermons give answers to every question. Faith is defined as having all the answers available.

I visited a church several years ago where the sermon dealt with marital problems. There was a video clip about marriage and the sermon responded to how to have a happy marriage. The answer, it turns out, was Jesus. I thought of the couples I know, dedicated Christians who are committed to Christ, but are having troubles in their marriage.

Marriage involves many complex issues - communication, finances, personality issues, sexual relations, and dealing with conflict constructively. Yes, having Christ in that relationship is vitally important, but it is too simplistic to say Jesus is the only answer to a happy marriage.

One church leader tells of visiting a church where the pastor had small sheets of paper handed out to everybody in the congregation. On the sheet of paper were the numbers 1, 2, and 3. The sermon had three points in which he explained how to achieve happiness in life.

The first point was about working hard, the second about having a positive attitude, and the third was daily prayer. The numbers on the sheets of paper were to write down the three answers to finding happiness. The church leader said he sat there thinking: is this fair to the grand sweep and scope of the Christian faith?

All three of those things do help us with happiness, but to say doing these three things will make you happy is simplistic, if not insulting.

II

Other churches try to wrestle with the big questions. Through worship, fellowship, and education they try to help each other struggle with the major questions of life, realizing that there are very few simple answers.

Early in my career I came across a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke. It says in part, "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions for themselves; you need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." In many ways living our faith is living the questions.

Unless you want to make God so small that he will fit in your back pocket, you aren't going to have answers to all of life's questions. Live the questions so that you find some answers, and then trust God with the rest.

For some, faith means an end to all questions - "I have the answers". And people will say, "Isn't he religious, he has an answer for everything." But if you have all the answers, you aren't asking big enough questions.

Some think "accepting on faith" means you accept without any questions. I hope when we accept on faith we mean that we don't know all the answers but we trust God with what we don't know.

And I would ask, "Which takes more faith? Having a locked-down, sealed tight answer for everything or learning what we can toward an answer and trusting God with the rest?"

III

People of faith ask tough questions of God, and we let God ask tough questions of us. Three weeks ago we saw the tough questions we can ask God when we talked about Jacob wrestling with God. Some of those questions are: Why do innocent people suffer? Why do good people face tragedy? Why do those who do wrong seem to sail through life?

But God also asks tough questions of us. "Who do you say that I am?" Who am I in your life? How does that alter what you do? If you answer as Peter did, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," what difference does that make in how you live your life, act at work, or at home, or in your community? How does it change what you do about starvation in the world, or abuse, or injustice? How does it affect your prayer life with God?

Conclusion

The questions Jesus asks us are the questions that make a real difference. "Who do you say that I am?" How you answer that question makes all the difference. Or Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan and asks, "Which one proved to be a neighbor to the wounded man?" Jesus redefines neighbor in a way that is uncomfortable for you and me.

Jesus asks Peter, Andrew, James, and John, "Will you follow me?" How they respond decides whether they are disciples or not. Jesus asks the most difficult and the most important questions.

Sometimes Jesus asks questions through other people. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project and one of the world's leading scientists, tells of being asked what he believed about God by a woman who was on her death bed. She had shared her faith with him as he made his rounds. Now she asked what he believed.

Collins was an atheist and a scientist, but he answered, "I don't know." Her question made him rethink this most important question. As a scientist he had approached every other question by looking at all the options. Now he asked himself why he hadn't given God the same chance. He began to explore the question of God and look at all religions. Collins has become a devout Christian, who is brilliant, passionate, and always looking at the bigger picture. His book, The Language of God is a great explanation of how Christians can trust in God and not be threatened by the discoveries and questions of science.

A dying woman asked a simple question, and his whole life was changed. She asked a "Jesus question," one of the really big questions, and he responded.

Amen

© Richard J. Henderson 2008