“Canyonlands cairn” ©Yolanda Kauffman
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" John 1:35-38
You might take a moment to imagine yourself walking that road behind Jesus, having just left one teacher and now wondering how to approach this potential new teacher. Before you can figure out what to say to him he turns, sees you following, and asks you directly: “What are you looking for?” How would you answer?
You might take a moment to imagine yourself walking that road behind Jesus, having just left one teacher and now wondering how to approach this potential new teacher. Before you can figure out what to say to him he turns, sees you following, and asks you directly: “What are you looking for?” How would you answer?
Throughout the gospel accounts we find Jesus teaching people by asking questions. Not just any sort of questions, of course. It is entirely possible for us to ask what I would call closed questions that essentially amount to answers and statements of presumption: What is your problem? Didn’t you realize that was going to happen? Don’t you hate it when….? Don’t you just love it when….? Isn’t this a beautiful day?
Jesus, like so many great teachers, knew the power of living with open questions, questions that invite living our way into life with an open heart and an open mind: What are you looking for? Do you want to be made well? Who do you say that I am? Can you drink from the cup that I will drink?
These are the questions that invite the disciple to listen within for the presence and guidance of God’s Spirit. Often times these are the sorts of questions we will need to return to again and again in the course of our lives: Who am I? What is my deepest desire? Where do I see God at work in my life?
Sometimes the open questions are the ones that lead us deeper into relationship with our sister and brother: Who is my neighbor? What does this person have to teach me? How is God already at work in your life?
If we live only with our iron-clad answers and well-defended assumptions it is difficult for us to hear the voice of God and to keep growing. When we allow the most intimate and open questions of faith to lead us then we know we are on a holy and vital path of life in God. As the poet Ranier Maria Rilke once advised an eager and aspiring young poet:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. - from “Letters to a Young Poet”
