As you students are getting ready for school, I have a true story for you. A Nobel Prize winner was asked how he became a scientist. He said that every day after school, his mother would ask him not what he learned but whether he asked a good question that day. That, he said, was what led him to become a scientist.
Isn’t that cool? Questions are important. Just hang out with a 4 year old and you’ll discover a curiosity . . . . with continuous “Why? Why? Why? Some questions are harder to answer, such as . . .
Why do we sing “Take me out to the ballgame,” when we’re already there?
If you jog backwards, will you gain weight?
Do fish get thirsty?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
If swimming is good for your shape, then why do whales look the way they do?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the word abbreviated such a long word?
Why is it that rain drops but snow falls?
Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
There are some questions that simply can’t be answered. Did you know that in the four gospels Jesus was asked 183 questions directly or indirectly? And he only answers 3 of them straightforwardly? The others he either ignores, keeps silent about, asks them a question in return, changes the subject, tells a story or uses a prop to make his point. Nothing wrong with that.
And yet Jesus himself asked 307 questions, which would seem to set a pattern to copy. I say to you kids and teenagers, if you want to become more likeable . . . ask people questions. If you are meeting a person for the first time, ask them simply questions.
The trouble with most of us today is that we have lost the art of conversation. Instead we spout off facts we’ve encountered. Or we get into arguing about dumb things, that we can’t control anyway. As the writer of the second reading says, “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed from you from, along with all malice. I say simply, when there is someone who you don’t agree with, “Don’t be furious; be curious.”
For when it comes down to it, we don’t have too many answers ourselves anyway.
The place for our questions is with God.
Faith is not so much about knowing but seeking.
Faith is less about facts to believe and more about trusting.
The opposite of faith is not doubt, the opposite of faith is certainty.
That’s why we come to receive Eucharist, not to have our questions answered but to be OK with mystery . . . such as the many mysteries we have in faith:
Mary, a virgin giving birth.
In giving that we receive.
In dying that we gain life.
Or like we heard it he gospel . . .
Jesus who came down from heaven, but had a mother and a father.
or when we eat the presence of God, we will not die.
You see, life is a mystery in so many ways. And we will always have questions, or things that seem to be contradictions in our lives . . . and it’s OK.
The famous Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (who lived in the late 1800’s) once wrote,
“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”