Questions and Answers

     This evening I had a conversation I will never forget. I was sitting beside a dear friend, ripe in years and equally ripe in wisdom, who asked about the funeral I officiated three days ago. “I don’t know” I responded quietly, “I just feel like the bible leaves me with more questions than answers.” As I sat there frustrated by the things I don’t understand, I waited quietly for his disappointment. I waited for him to tell me I’d make a terrible priest. Instead, his answer surprised me. “Maybe that’s why I like you” he said, more to himself than to me. “I have a lot of questions about the bible myself. When something terrible happens, there are no easy answers.”

     I couldn’t believe it. This man has been a devoted Christian all his life and holds the respect of many in his community. How could he have questions or, dare I say it, doubt? The answer, I realize, is that my friend has suffered a great deal on this earth. Christian or not, he isn’t naïve enough to pretend to have all the answers. Perhaps learning to follow Christ is more about learning to ask good questions than finding all the answers.

     Preaching at the funeral this week, I felt a little stupid, as if people were looking to me to give completed answers I couldn’t possibly provide. And I wasn’t about to pretend I could; I hate hypocrisy. Instead, I pointed them toward a mystery, something I knew was there though I didn’t understand it. I believe in things like the goodness of God, the coming kingdom, and the resurrection of the dead because I can feel them happening, not because I can explain what’s going on. Sometimes I don’t have a blessed clue.

     Watching for the signs of God’s kingdom is a bit like learning to sense the coming of a storm. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, I learned to sense the change in wind that signaled the need to close the barn right away.  I knew that when the animals began to act a little differently or the sky began to change, it was time to put away my toys and head inside. But to this day, I couldn’t tell you a thing about how the storm works. Or why we shut up the barn some days only the have the storm pass in another direction.

     Life in God is a similar mystery which can only be known by being experienced. Just as I can’t explain what it’s like to be playing in the field and suddenly sense that a storm is on the way, so it is very difficult to explain the mysteries of life and death in words. While I stood over the deceased this week with more questions than answers, however, God showed up. Later I was commended for a well-orchestrated funeral, but all I did was ask questions. I think that’s what they call faith- because faith only dies when we no longer wonder at the mystery, when we stop showing up, and when we stop asking questions.