If you’ve been in church over the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a lot of people asking questions of Jesus, at least as Matthew’s Gospel tells it. From last week: “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” And this week we overhear a Pharisee asking “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Now to some degree, I think questioning Jesus is always fair. He was a teacher, after all. And in the preceding stories in Matthew, Jesus had been telling a whole series of pretty inscrutable parables, whose purpose was clearly to raise questions. About who controlled vineyards and grape harvests, about absentee landlordism, about who is most important and first and last in God’s order of things, about what faithfulness actually looks like, and about what might be the consequences of skipping the party or coming unprepared.
These stories about power and privilege and preference challenged the status quo and were clearly threatening to some powerful people. So today, we meet a lawyer—a member of the Pharisee party—asking Jesus a question with the intention to test him, as the Gospel tells us. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” And Jesus responds: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
If this question were actually intended as a test, Jesus passed with flying colors. Take a look at the decalogue—those Ten Commandments from Exodus 20—hanging on our own church walls. Notice that they divide rather conveniently into commandments 1-4 (about honoring God) and 5-10 (about honoring family and neighbors). And so follows the entire Torah. So we shouldn’t be at all surprised that Jesus got the answer right, so to speak. He was a teacher of the law. But two things about this conversation do surprise me. One is that he answered at all: most often Jesus responded with a question. I’ll return to that shortly. But the other thing that stands out to me about this interaction is that Jesus took the question seriously. If the lawyer was really trying to trap him in some way, Jesus didn’t seem concerned about it. I might even say that he assumed positive intent.
We’ve all been there, no? On the receiving end of an unkind question. Maybe with a lawyer trying to trip us up, but more frequently someone making statements or asking questions that might bait us into anger or a defensive response. Sometimes it’s the people closest to us who can do that the most effectively, because they know our triggers. The holidays are coming up, so get ready for questions like “why haven’t you gotten a better job yet?” or “ do you think that haircut really flatters you?” or “why are your children so ill-behaved?” These questions may not feel to us like they are positively intended.
And maybe they’re not, but what if we just didn’t respond in kind? What if we take a human interaction that might be ill intended, and treat it as if it positive? It can be profoundly disarming choice. “I don’t have a better job because it’s a really tough employment market out there, but I’d be grateful if you’d like to help make some introductions for me.” Or “whew, raising children these days is challenging. Would you be willing to babysit for me on occasion?” Because here’s the thing: most of the time, we don’t actually know what people’s actual intentions are. The ones asking unwelcome questions may be feeling insecure or stressed themselves. What we do know, however, is that responding angrily or defensively to what we perceive to be hostility or passive aggression will only escalate the tension. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. We’ve all been there.
And we all always have another choice. We can assume positive intent and respond honestly and non-defensively, as Jesus did. You really want to know about the law and about God’s good intentions for all creation, huh? Well, let me tell you what I know, responded the One who himself embodied all the law and the prophets. Love God and love your neighbor. Simple, truthful, and not intended to escalate into an argument. It’s almost like the conversational equivalent of Jesus praying “Father, forgive them,” from the cross. He took hostile intentions and did not respond in kind, but rather transformed them through his abiding trust in God’s forgiveness and love.
Jesus’ ministry among the Pharisees and Sadducees—competing religious sects within Judaism—showed us yet another way to transform aggression. We can hold up a mirror to a hostile questioner by asking another question. We heard Jesus doing just that last Sunday when he asked whose head was upon the Roman coin. So you want to trap me by asking technical questions about taxation, huh? Let me ask you about yourself, then. What do you see on this coin, and by whose values do you actually live?
Respond to questions with questions that deepen the self-awareness of the questioner is a pastoral art, and surely accounts for the 12 billion dollar behavioral therapy industry. Every other Friday I pay someone handsomely to respond to my questions with questions, so I know that it’s not easy to do it well. Especially if the initial question doesn’t seem positively intended. But responding with a loving question has the power to transform not just a tense moment, but an entire life. Of the 183 questions Jesus was asked in the canonical Gospels, he answered only three. Today’s was one, so you know it’s important. But consider the 307 questions that Jesus himself is recorded as having asked of other people.
Educational theorist Parker Palmer calls this kind of questioning “listening each other into deeper speech.” Palmer himself asks: “When was the last time someone asked you an honest, open question—one that invited you to reflect more deeply on your own life, asked by a person who did not want to advise you or “fix” you but “hear you into speech,” deeper and deeper speech? For most of us, that’s a rare experience. In our culture, we tend to ask each other questions that are “fixes” or advice in disguise. ‘Have you thought about seeing a therapist?’ is NOT an honest, open question!”
“But when we share a problem,” Palmer continues, “with someone who wants to listen and knows how to ask honest, open questions—such as, ‘Have you had a problem like this before? If so, what did you learn then that might help you now?’—something in us comes alive. Now we have a chance to learn from our own inner teacher, to tap into own inner wisdom.”
What we inquire of others we might just as well ask of ourselves, as well. What is it that we really want? What is our most profound hope? Jesus was known for asking his followers probing questions: things like “who do you say that I am?” and “what do you want me to do for you?” These questions can be scary, because—I suspect—if we are truthful about what we want, we might have to risk disappointment. Which means wrestling at the deepest level with our hope in God—who may not fix or save us—but who heals all creation in the fullness of time.
So let us be brave to respond to questions with trust and love—even when it’s hard—and to question ourselves and others in that same spirit. And at the end of all our positively intended questioning, we might just arrive at the answer that counts. Remember, this is one of only three questions Jesus actually answers in four Gospels, so listen up: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
