Living the Questions

(The following comments are from my sermon at Central, preached Sunday, 2/01/09)

When I was thinking about going to seminary, I asked a pastor who was also a mentor if he learned the answers to complex theological questions. "No," he replied, "I just learned to ask better questions."

Sunday's gospel (2/01/09) from Mark 1 finds Jesus in a synagogue teaching with authority, not like the scribes, Mark is careful to point out. The lecture is interrupted by a man possesed with an unclean spirit. Jesus casts out the demon and everyone is amazed. They start asking, and kept asking, questions. "What is this? A new teaching? With authority!"

There are a lot of questions floating around out there. I saw a Thrivent (Financial for Lutherans) representative last week and he said he's getting questions like, "Why didn't we see this [economic downturn/recession] coming?" As if he knows the answer! The recession leads to tough questions: How much longer must I postpone retirement? How do I deal with the anger of losing %40 of my investments? What do I do when I can't pay the heating bill/mortgage/credit card?

We've been asking tough questions at Central lately. Can we afford four full-time staf? Can we afford a full-time youth director? (We've decided yes, at least for now, but these questions were asked during the budgeting cycle.)

Other questions rise up: Why is our attendance dropping? How can we attract more young people and families? Why do people sometimes feel disconnected from each other at Central? Why is it so hard to find volunteers? Why is everyone so busy?

Back to our gospel. The man with the unclean spirit clearly had a problem but didn't ask Jesus for help. Maybe he was so possesed that he couldn't find the words. Yet he dared bring his unclean self into the holiest place in Capernaum on the holiest day of the week. He made no request. He just placed himself in front of the Son of God. And Jesus healed him, restoring the man not just to health but back into community.

When we question God, each other, ourselves or our mission as disciples, I wonder if we can be so brave: place ourselves in front of Christ. Could we do so even without agenda or expectation? Could we come before God in quiet hope, in open desire to follow?

Perhaps this is the way, as the poet Rilke says, to "live the questions." Rilke continues: "Try to love the questions themselve, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not look now for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself expereincing the answer, some distant day."

Amen.