"Asking and Answering Questions"
Sermon Presented November 5, 2006
Mark 12:28-34
Thankfully, we are only two days from the election. If you are like I, you're sick and tired of all of the campaigning and negative advertising. I'm not tired of the process and I look forward to voting, I'm just tired of evasive answers to questions and advertising that attacks the opposition and fails to deal truthfully with the issues. Both parties and most candidates are guilty of these offenses.
I'm a person who entertains lots of questions on political, social and theological issues. I want answers - even a courageous "I don't know" will suffice. I want to see a willingness to explore the issues rather than certainty, when there can be no certainty. I don't see this much today.
An unwillingness to explore the questions isn't peculiar to politics. I have a friend in Kansas City who attends a mega church. Twenty members there are meeting in a home to discuss the curriculum series "Living the Questions." The senior pastor and the minister of religious education won't allow this material to be included as a curriculum offering, nor can the meetings be held in the church building because they believe the curriculum isn't conservative enough. They don't want questions raised to which there are no definitive answers. My friend loves the interchange that happens in this study and wants to pursue the next segment of the series. (This material is being used in several churches in this area to rave reviews by their pastors.) It takes time, energy, careful study and prayer to live with and explore questions. I loved seminary for this very reason - even though I was often uncomfortable.
Our text this morning is such an exchange. The question is asked of Jesus by a Jewish leader who truly wants to know the answer, rather than one who wants to trap Jesus into saying something incriminating. This isn't the norm the religious leaders usually use to question Jesus, and Jesus recognizes the difference. Hear the exchange as written in Mark 12:28-34.
This story is also told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke and since becoming a pastor, I have preached from these texts many times. However, the sermons bear little similarity to one another because of what I'm reading or what's going on in the world or in my life at the time of preparation. This sermon is no exception. I am amazed how God brings newness to the familiar, and shows me that the Bible is God's living word for all ages.
Jesus answers the scribe's question by quoting scripture from Deuteronomy and Leviticus - familiar words to all of his listeners. He chooses two commands as top priority - ones that he believes cannot be separated. The first is to love God with our whole being and the second is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
The scribe affirms Jesus' choice and Jesus tells him that he's not far from the kingdom of God. Because the scribe wants to know the answer to his question, he listens and is satisfied. With this exchange, no one in the primarily hostile audience dares to ask another question because they know Jesus can't be bested.
Let's look at these two commands. Catherine of Siena wrote "the only thing we can offer God of value to Him is to give our love to people as unworthy of it as we are of His love." Really meeting the God who is love means stepping into the refining fire to be gradually remade and changed into the kind of love we find in God. This isn't an easy process, especially when we realize how powerful love can be. We often resist being opened up to love that might change us from ego-centricity to being centered on others. Love is a powerful experience that can get hold of us and force us to change, which is often a painful process. God's loving touch is no less powerful and dangerous than that of a human love affair. (Morton Kelsey: The Other Side of Silence, p. 17)
From Jesus' perspective, the kingdom of God is all about love - love of God and love of people. According to this exchange, entrance into God's kingdom has nothing to do with right beliefs, and everything to do with right actions - acts of love toward God and people - a willingness to listen deeply to both God and people, and then act on what we hear.
Some of you have heard me speak of Tina and Kay, the lesbian couple who lived next door to the parsonage for a couple of years while I was a pastor in Marysville, KS. This couple had twin boys who were a delight to all who were around them. However, this town of 3000 people was too small for this family that was constantly faced with judgmental intolerance and harassment from Christians and non-Christians alike. I was the one God sent to listen to their grief and anger during that time, and this experience was life-changing for me. But I had to listen to Tina and Kay - and to God - for the transformation to occur.
Morton Kelsey, a Trappist Monk, wrote: "Love can begin only as we begin to allow others to really know us. We can begin to love and be loved only as we bring all of ourselves to the other person, all of our disappointments, our joys, our angers and hopes. This is the nature of love and communities. It applies as much between God and a person as it does between person and person, and perhaps even more" (Ibid. p. 20.) The commands of our text call us to the process of giving loving attention to one another and to God.
Last week I attended the first in a series of five retreats for ministers in the Courage to Lead program funded by the Lilly Foundation. These retreats have been held for teachers and other professionals for more than a decade, and this is a pilot program for ministers. One core activity of the program is what is called a "Circle of Trust" or a "Clearness Committee" - a practice originated by the Quakers.
Clergy have a difficult time refraining from fixing, saving, advising or setting a person straight, and this kind of speech is forbidden in a Clearness Committee. The space for this circle must be hospitable and the participants must be trustworthy, confidential and fully present to the focus person - who asks for the privilege. On Wednesday night, our group of 26 split into four groups, each of which was attentive to one person for two hours. Each group had a facilitator who kept time.
The focus person begins by describing the problem or dilemma being faced. After the problem is shared and a period of silence is respected, group members ask questions to which they don't know the answers, ones that can't be answered with yes or no, and ones that have no hint of a solution.
The process entails loving questions and thoughtful answers. It requires attentive listening. Deep insight and thoughts emerge from the focus person that he or she didn't know existed. Love and respect between the focus person and those in the group, a trust in silence, and the understanding that our inner teacher will emerge in such a setting brings enlightenment. The discussion is confidential and can't be mentioned again to one another, the focus person or anyone outside the circle. Loving communication makes this process work.
We are good people who go to church and give money to help others. We really are "close" to the kingdom of God, but most of us stop before we get there because we are too busy pursuing all we want for ourselves. We forget that we are called to live in God's kingdom in the here and now!
If Jesus had stopped with "Love God…" when asked for the greatest commandment, we may have been satisfied with our expressions of worship, but Jesus didn't stop there. He added the second part of the equation to love people. Loving people is the proof of loving God. We are commanded to do for the inner city gang member, the undocumented immigrant, the pregnant teen, and the politician of the opposing party what we would want if we were in their place. And sadly, we don't know if we are capable of that kind of selflessness.
This powerful teaching came as the result of a question posed to Jesus by a man who truly wanted to know what Jesus thought about what godly people should do. His question was just as important as Jesus' answer, because it evoked the answer. Communicating with God and with others is a necessary ingredient for beginning to trust and love both the Divine and people. Communication is necessary; and it's difficult as anyone in a relationship will tell you.
So let's keep our ears and hearts open to hear God and to hear the cries of those who need our love. Let's ask the right questions and listen carefully to the answers. Then, let's pray that God will show us how to respond with love! That's what the kingdom of God is all about!
