Questions

I imagine that we have all had moments in our lives when we’ve asked existential deep questions about our lives, about our relationship to God and about our own particular circumstances sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Questions like–who am I called to be in this world?  What is my purpose—why did God put breath in my lungs? 

Questions like --Why has this or that happened?  You can insert your own this or that into the question—Is there something meaningful that could come out of this or that situation?  What role, if any --do I play in helping affect that? 

There are some many more questions like these that we sometimes ponder. 

John the Baptist—he’s back—  but he’s very different than the wild-eyed prophet we heard about last week.

He’s traded in his camel hair and leather belts for a prison jump suit—he’s traded in his diet of locusts and wild honey for a bit of stale bread and prison gruel.  And he’s traded in his wild eyes assertion about a God who will come and will  baptize Spirit and fire a God with his winnowing fork in his right hand—he’s traded that vision for one simple question to Jesus—Are you the one to come or is there another? 

John seem to have his tail between his legs—he now seems to be questioning the legitimacy of this Jesus guy and a bit of his own ministry.

Are you the one to come or is there another?

I think what I see in this story—is that it is a perfectly reasonable response  in  a life of faith to ask those types of questions—like Are you the one Jesus—or is their someplace else I should place my hope?  

I think this story says-- That it is ok to say to God things like—how long—how long must we endure  and that it is certainly ok  to ask god and maybe even shake your fist at God—to  say things like why this ----now what is my role in the this or that—or is there a good that can come from the this or that? 

I think this story says that our questions are certainly a reasonable response to life and maybe they are even a healthy part of our lives of faith.  The bible is littered with folks who have questions and doubt--- Thomas and Peter and now John the Baptist—he’s the last guy you’d expect—but I would imagine prison might do that to you—question everything leading to that moment up until the cell door slams shut.

Why are the questions important?

The questions they also help to deepen and stretch our faith—so that faith is not simply a shallow stagnant puddle, but a deep spring of living water that can begin to quench our deepest thirst.  

Because it’s about who we are asking—--they help keep  the line open from heaven to earth.

When we ask questions  like why or are you the one I can really trust  ---  or any those questions we’ve engaged God    we’ve wrestled with God like Jacob  wrestled God  at the River Jabbok. That’s an amazing story –Jacob wrestled all night and when the dawn came God said it’s over—but Jacob said I’m not letting go until you bless.  Faith is about wrestling with God and then not letting go until we get an answer. 

So as long as we are asking the questions—we are in good shape our faith is healthy.

The questions are important because they are about real life and real struggles and real sadness and real suffering. 

The incarnation that thing we will celebrate in just two short weeks is —God being born among us Jesus being born and walking with us into the struggles, the sadness, in the messiness of life. 

Questions invite Jesus into the messiness and demand that he answer and  sometimes demand that he do something about it. 

James from the Epistle today reminds his congregation that included in one’s life of faith is the need to be patient—we are not very good at being patient are we?  What is our response to that person who lingers just a little bit too long at the traffic light -beep or the person who maybe just doesn’t quite respond to life the way you do. Patience is not easy yet, we are told it’s a virtue.  

Our call to be patient begins first by being patient with ourselves— saying that it’s ok to still have questions, that it’s ok to not have moved on--  it’ about  being patient with our neighbors who are still asking the questions—who are still back there and most importantly faith is about patience with God—that God so often works on his own schedule in his own time—and realizing that God’s ways are not our ways. 

And God may not answer our questions the way we want God to.  Patience is about remembering that God is not a great vending machine in the sky that we can just punch our selection and get exactly what we want when we want. 

Dear people of St. Dunstan’s keep asking the questions—because as long as you keep asking—there lies the tiniest bit of faith—that little tiny mustard seed of faith—Jesus says is all that we need to move mountains.  A tiny mustard seed.   

AMEN