Questions and Answers

Learning how to ask and answer questions

09/23/2018

Mark 9:30-37 Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him. They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

It is said that a good teacher never asks a question that he or she does not already know the answer to. When a teacher asks a question it is not for the sake of her education but rather for the students’ instruction. Sometimes these questions are called “loaded questions” because they are never as simple as they sound. For instance when I visit parishioners’ homes for supper, I offer to bless their home. I sometimes ask them: “Do you know how to make holy water?” They guess various answers, but I explain: “You take some tap water and boil the hell out of it.” That’s an old joke, but it’s the question that makes people think. Have you watched any of the Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court? Every question a senator asks is fully loaded. It is intended to elicit an answer either to make Judge Kavanaugh look highly qualified or highly incompetent. And then sometimes the questions are so loaded that the answer is the question itself. Remember the old Abbot and Costello comedy routine called, “Who’s on first?” You might remember the answer was identical to the question: “Who is on first.” Good teachers never ask questions they do not already know the answer to, and thereby they can teach more through one question than a hundred answers.

Jesus asks a question in the gospel of Mark as he walks along with his apostles to make them think a little more deeply about discipleship. He asks: “What were you arguing about on the way?” Now, Jesus is not just a “good teacher,” or even the “best teacher,” he is the only Teacher, and consequently all others – everyone without exception – is disciple and student. Did Jesus not know what they were discussing? Of course he did, in spite of their sheepish silence. After laying the ground-work with that provocative question, he explains that discipleship is about service and humility, not about pomp and pageantry or a popularity contest, something our modern Catholic hierarchy is learning in the wake of the sex abuse scandals.

Think about the incisive inquires that Jesus makes in the gospels. They are never idle or ignorant, but always insightful and instructive. Each one provokes his listeners to profound personal reflection. In John 2 at the wedding in Cana when the couple ran out of wine, Jesus asks his mother, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus indicates how persuasive his mother’s intercessory prayers are, which prompted his first miracle. In John 8 with the woman caught in adultery, Jesus ask her, “Where are your accusers? Is there no one to condemn you?”  That question suggests that God alone judges justly. In Mark 10 when approached by the rich young man, Jesus asks him: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Our Lord implies that the rich young man was correct: Jesus is good because he is God. In virtually every encounter, like in today’s gospel, Jesus always asks loaded questions, and just one of Jesus’ questions can teach you more than a hundred answers you can get from Google.

My friends, we find similarly loaded questions not only scattered throughout Scriptures, we can also find them strategically placed in the sacraments. In baptism the priest asks the parents: “It will be your duty to bring your child up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us…Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” But how many Catholics parents fail to bring their children faithfully to Mass every Sunday? Notice how the question teaches. In marriage the priest asks the couple: “Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?” I always add, “Until one of you is six feet under, and pushing up daisies!?”  But how many couples on their wedding day stop and seriously ponder the problems that pop-up in the course of a life-long commitment? The question that instructs. In the ordination of a priest, the bishop asks the young man: “Do you promise obedience to me and my successors?” And I have to say often obedience has felt a lot harder than chastity and poverty combined, especially when you have been moved 18 times in 22 years. In each and every sacrament, we are asked critical questions, really loaded questions. A mature Christian knows not only what the right answers should be, but also pauses to ponder the question itself. One sacramental question can teach us more than an infinite number of answers we find on the internet because they reveal not only the truth about God, but also the truth about ourselves; who we are and who we are not.

Every year when we start the RCIA classes for those interested in Catholicism, I welcome the inquirers and ask them why they want to become Catholic. Of course, it is good that family and friends encourage them to consider Catholicism, but that alone is not enough reason to dive into the Catholic ocean. Rather, they should ask themselves: “Does God want me to become a Catholic?” And only the individual can find the answer to the questions deep inside their own heart. Why should they ask themselves that question? Well, because eventually they will stand before God on Judgment Day and he will ask them a question: “Why did you become a Catholic?” And the only good answer on that day will be if they can honestly say: “Well, Lord, it is because I thought you wanted me to.” That will be only good answer for anything we choose to do while we walk on this earth, because we believe it is God’s will.

That question God asks us on Judgment Day will be the most loaded question of all. Why? It will be loaded with our eternal destiny. But, like any good teacher, God will already know the answer to that question before he asks us. And that question will teach us who is in heaven, and who is in hell, and who is on first.

Praised be Jesus Christ!