QUESTIONING JESUS: THE BEGINNING
In school I learned there are three kinds of sentences: declaratory, interrogatory, and imperative. According to my husband most of my verbalization is in the form of the second, questioning. In a way he is right! I do ask a lot of questions and I do use them in all sorts of ways—to gain information, to initiate conversation, to make a point, to teach, come to mind quickly. Asking questions is a way of life for me.
Even if you tend more toward declaratory or imperative statements, I imagine sometime you do ask a question or two. And perhaps you would like to ask God sometimes. You may have already done that and found that sometimes you get an answer and sometimes not—sometimes you can figure the answer out and sometimes it seems veiled in the mist or lost in a maze. All of us at some point I think want to ask God a question. We often say, “I’m putting that on my list of inquiries when I get to the pearly gates.” or some such comment.
A cursory reading of the gospels reveals that questioning was very much a part of Jesus’ public life. He often used questions to those who listened to involve them in seeing what he taught. Many came to him with their own questions. Sometimes he answered, sometimes he responded cryptically, and sometimes he seemed to ignore the question all together. My thought is perhaps there is a clue for our own asking in these passages.
To begin the search I’d like to think about questions:
What kind do we ask?
Where, when, how, do we ask?
Who do we ask?
Why do we ask?
In school I learned there are three kinds of sentences: declaratory, interrogatory, and imperative. According to my husband most of my verbalization is in the form of the second, questioning. In a way he is right! I do ask a lot of questions and I do use them in all sorts of ways—to gain information, to initiate conversation, to make a point, to teach, come to mind quickly. Asking questions is a way of life for me.
Even if you tend more toward declaratory or imperative statements, I imagine sometime you do ask a question or two. And perhaps you would like to ask God sometimes. You may have already done that and found that sometimes you get an answer and sometimes not—sometimes you can figure the answer out and sometimes it seems veiled in the mist or lost in a maze. All of us at some point I think want to ask God a question. We often say, “I’m putting that on my list of inquiries when I get to the pearly gates.” or some such comment.
A cursory reading of the gospels reveals that questioning was very much a part of Jesus’ public life. He often used questions to those who listened to involve them in seeing what he taught. Many came to him with their own questions. Sometimes he answered, sometimes he responded cryptically, and sometimes he seemed to ignore the question all together. My thought is perhaps there is a clue for our own asking in these passages.
To begin the search I’d like to think about questions:
What kind do we ask?
Where, when, how, do we ask?
Who do we ask?
Why do we ask?
I’m sure the answers are greatly varied by time, person, place, and almost any variable we can think of. But I think we can form some sort of image of our questioning, some categorization of our own use of the interrogatory. And then begin to think what kinds of questions would we address to Jesus, to God?
Finally I’d like each of us this week to look for a picture that reflects a “questioner” for us today? Hopefully we will spend some time reflecting on why this picture is the model of asking for us at this time. Maybe we’ll want to share these musings.
Blessings on our Lenten journey.
Caroline
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