11/4/12 – 31st Sunday in ordinary time – Mark 12:28b-34

         When we hear this scribe asking Jesus this question about which is the greatest commandment of all, we are probably thinking: Well, Jesus has 10 commandments to choose from, so this doesn’t seem like such a difficult question.  However, according to Jewish tradition, there are 613 mitzvot or commandments in their Holy Scriptures, so this question is actually a lot more difficult than it seems on the surface to us.  And when you think of how the scribes and Pharisees were obsessed in their observance of the law, Jesus is indeed faced with a very challenging proposition. 

         This question is posed to by the scribe in the Gospel of Mark, after this scribe hears Jesus having an intense discussion with some Pharisees and Herodians.  These Pharisees and Herodians were asking Jesus a bunch of questions in order to try to trap him and get him in trouble with the chief priests and the Jewish elders.  All of this got me thinking about the questions that we ask. 

         Sometimes we are afraid to ask questions, aren’t we?  Maybe we think our question is silly, that we should already know the answer.  Maybe we are afraid of embarrassing ourselves.  We often see the disciples in the Gospels being very hesitant to ask any questions at all; perhaps they are afraid of the answers they will get from Jesus.  We see the Pharisees ask a lot of questions in the Gospels, but as we know, they used their questions to push Jesus into a corner.  In fact, we can see a lot of people in our society who use questions in a sarcastic and mean-spirited way, using questions as weapons that will harm or injure.  This is certainly not the way we are called to asked questions in our lives of faith.

Sometimes we have a lot of questions in our minds, but the answers we seek are not so clear-cut and are not so easy to understand.  I remember that when I went off to be a missionary in Canada and in South America, I had a lot of questions that I thought would be answered through my missionary work.  I wondered about the best approach to help people in a country that is surrounded with poverty, with corruption and violence that seemed overwhelming.  I brought my questions and my wonderings to my missionary work with a very idealistic and positive attitude, or so I thought.  I spent 8 years as a missionary, and I returned from those experiences with even more questions and not a lot of answers.  And perhaps I lost a lot of idealism along the way as well.

         In our society, perhaps we think that asking questions is a sign of weakness.  There are a lot of religions out there that try to answer every question with a very precise, confident answer.  Yet, in our Catholic faith, we are not afraid to say that we do not have all of the answers.  We are not afraid to admit that there is a sense of mystery to our faith, that there will always be some aspect of the divine that is beyond our human comprehension.  Sometimes someone comes to me as a priest thinking I will give them an authoritative answer to their questions and tell them exactly what they should do and what they should know.  However, I think that a more appropriate role for me as their priest is to help them find the answers for themselves, to give them the tools to live out their faith, and to help them understand what the Church teaches so that they can make an informed decision for themselves. 

         Look at the twists and turns our lives of faith can take as we travel along our journey.  Sometimes in our journey of faith and in our search for meaning in life, our questions can turn into doubts that end up having us question our very faith.  But asking questions, struggling with our doubts and our unbelief, will make us all the more stronger.  A searching, inquisitive faith is far better than a faith that is lazy and complacent.  I remember that one of my advisors in seminary challenged me with a couple of really provocative questions that really made me think.  He asked me: “Lincoln, what kind of priest do you want to be?  What kind of priest are you going to choose to be?”  At first I thought: What kind of questions are these?  What is he really asking me?  Can’t I be the kind of priest that everyone needs me to be?  Well, of course the answer to that question is certainly no – I certainly can’t be everything to everyone.  Those questions really have me thinking, and I still wonder what kind of priest God wants me to be, that God is calling me to be.  I wondering what kind of priest my parishioners need me to be.  

         So I might ask all of you a couple of questions in light of todays Gospel and todays homily:  How is God calling you to live out your Christian faith?  What kind of questions do you need to ask in order to grow and develop as a follower of Christ?  Are there are questions that you are afraid to ask?  And if you have a question where there is no easy answer, are you willing to wrestle and struggle with that question, and try to find some sort of meaning without any easy resolution?