Five Wise Questions
Pentecost 24
November 11, 2007
Luke 20:27-38
By Pastor Tom Kadel
How many of you have ever heard a teacher say to a class you were in, “There are no stupid questions.” I’ll bet that most of us have heard that at least once and maybe a lot of times. But I think that those teachers were wrong. Sure, there are stupid questions.
Have you ever heard of comedian Bill Engvall? He’s been part of that really funny Blue Collar Comedy Tour. He’s the one who came up with the “Here’s your sign” routines. The “sign” is the sign he suggests that people who ask stupid questions should wear on their foreheads. Here are some of his examples.
“A couple months ago I went fishing with a buddy of mine. We pulled his boat into the dock and I lifted up this big ole stringer of bass and this idiot on the dock goes, ‘Hey, y’all catch all them fish.’ ‘Nope. Talked ‘em into giving up.’” “Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side-of-the-road gas stations. The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and I swear he said, ‘Tire go flat?’ I couldn’t resist. I said, ‘Nope, I was driving around and those other three just swelled right up on me.’” “I learned to drive and 18-wheeler in my days of adventure. Wouldn’t you know, I misjudged the height of a bridge. The truck got stuck and I couldn’t get it our, no matter how hard I tried. I radioed in for help and eventually a local cop shows up to take the report. He went through his basic questioning and I thought everything was going okay until he asked me, ‘So, is your truck stuck?’ I could help myself! I looked at him, looked back at the rig and then back at him and said, ‘No, I’m delivering a bridge.’” “My luggage got lost one time by an airline. After I had waited a while and was sure it wasn’t coming down the ramp, I walked over to the service desk and reported that my luggage was missing. Believe it or not, the woman behind the counter asked me, ‘Your plane landed yet?’” “I stayed late at work one night and a co-worker looked at me and said, ‘Are you still here?’ I replied, ‘No. I left about 10 minutes ago.’” Hmmm. Maybe there are stupid questions after all!
I just read you a stupid question in today’s gospel text. It was a question posed by some Sadducees to Jesus and here’s what they asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?”
Now, that’s an odd question. But wait. It gets odder. It was the custom in Jesus’ day that if a man died childless, his unmarried brother would marry the widow and raise the children. The Sadducees got that part right. But, that’s not what made their question stupid. The Sadducees were a sect within Judaism. The easies way to think about them is to think of them as a denomination within Judaism. What made them unique was that, unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection from the dead. So, why did they ask such a question? They couldn’t care less what Jesus would answer. They just wanted to trip him up. I call that a stupid question because it’s not a question at all!
In Luke’s gospel this was the third stupid question Jesus faced in the 20th chapter. Earlier the chief priests, scribes and elders asked Jesus who gave him authority to work miracles. Think about that one. Who else could give authority to work the miracles that Jesus did other than God? They knew the answer, they just wanted to trip Jesus up. Then a bit later the chief priests and scribes sent spies to Jesus to ask, “Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Again, a stupid question because they didn’t care about the answer, they were again just trying to trip Jesus up. And now Sadducees are asking about the afterlife that they didn’t even believe in.
You know, I’ve been thinking back over the last 10 to 15 years of my ministry, and I believe that we don’t ask God so many stupid questions any more. In fact, I can’t think of the last stupid question I’ve heard anybody ask. No, I think that in our post-modern world, we don’t ask God many questions at all. We’ve become advice givers. We’ve always got a better way of doing things than God does, don’t you think? It’s like we’re standing fresh with Adam and Eve in the Garden with a fruit with a bite out of it and now we believe we have knowledge equal to, if not greater than God’s.
So, we tell God what should happen in our lives. We tell God what we’ve got enough of and what we need more of. We tell God what miracles God should work and what we’re prepared to take care of ourselves. Frankly, I don’t think this is much of an advancement over the stupid questions the Sadducees, the chief priests and the scribes asked.
Today, I would like to suggest to you that there is another road. Forget about asking God stupid questions designed only to trip God up. Forget about giving God advice about running the world. Let’s get on another road. Let’s get on the road of asking wise questions.
I came today with five wise questions. They are certainly not the only wise questions, but I do believe they are significant because in the very asking, we are opened up to new understandings, and new possibilities under God. Let me share them with you.
Question #1: What is God up to in my life, in the lives of those I love, in my community, and in my world? This questions is wise because it gets us to look for God’s activity and when we look faithfully, we see, and it can change our whole experience with God.
Question #2: What does my wealth mean to me and what does my wealth mean to God? This questions is wise because it helps us see in a new way, all those blessings we have and gives us a way to understand how God would have us use them.
Question #3: Who is my neighbor? This question was first asked of Jesus by a lawyer who wanted to trip Jesus up, but it becomes a wise question when we really await an answer. And the answer that comes from God is always the same. Everyone is your neighbor. And the unspoken question inside that answer is, “Do you treat everyone as your neighbor?” There are no not-neighbors in the world. When we ask, “Who is my neighbor?” God has the opportunity to remind us that God observes no national boundaries, no racial boundaries, no class boundaries. It’s a good and a wise question.
Question #4: When is it easiest for me to trust God and when is it hardest? That’s a wise question because it points us to those areas of our lives where we want to be in control rather than God. Again, the asking is pretty much the answering, isn’t it?
Question #5: Am I grateful to God? True gratitude results in life-changing behaviors, doesn’t it? Even as we ask the question, the real answer accompanies it. Living gratefully results in radical sharing and far less self-occupation.
Those are my five wise questions. What is God up to? What does my wealth mean to me and to God? Who is my neighbor? When is it easiest and when is it hardest to trust God? Am I grateful to God?
The difference between these wise questions and those stupid ones is that wise questions change us. They get us to look for God’s activities in life so that we can bend our will to God’s will rather than the other way around.
I’ll bet you can come up with your own list of wise questions and maybe you’ll give that a whirl. There’s a lot more benefit in that than asking someone if there’s another word for Thesaurus. We needn’t slap stupid signs on our foreheads. We simply need to be open to looking for God’s signs in the midst of our live.
Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
