Some folks want their religion to confirm everything they’ve already committed to, but other folks want, or say they want, a religion that will challenge to change. And there isn’t much common ground between these two types. Or is there?
Some folks want their religion to confirm everything they’ve already committed to. These folks feel that the purpose of coming to church is to get all their opinions reinforced, all their ideas bolstered, all their prejudices confirmed. These folks we call “conservatives”. Their favorite song is, “Gimme that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.” Their slogan is “Come weal or come woe, the answer is no.” Conservatives want their church to be like it was back in the country, want their religion to tell them everything they have always believed is right on target.
But other folks want a religion, they say, that will challenge them to change. Other folks say that the problem with going to church is, in fact, that all the ideas are old, all the preaching is musty, all the songs have already been sung, and all the antique ways are out of date. These folks we call “liberals”. Their favorite song is, “The times, they are a-changin’”. Their slogan is, “Let’s get radical”. Let’s get radical, let’s stir something up, let’s make trouble.
Conservatives and liberals. Those who want to preserve the past and get their own opinions ratified; those who want to throw away the past and get their opinions ratified. I’m not sure either one really want you to agree with them; I suspect that some folks enjoy the combat more than the ideas, and if you agree, there isn’t anything to fight about, and that’s no fun.
But, do you think there is any common ground between these two? Looks like these two camps will never get together. Looks like these two ways of doing church would never co-exist. Unless, unless, somehow, somebody challenges the notion that we should have what we believe all nailed down, forever. Unless somehow, somebody, interrupts both those who insist on the truth as it always was and also those who insist on their brand new truth. Unless somebody interrupts both of them and teaches them that there’s another way to think. Another approach to the faith.
Now, how would you go about working with these two camps? Would you try arguing with the rock-ribbed conservative? Watch out, if you do, because he will quote you the Bible, cover to cover, and the covers too. He will pound you with dogmas until your ears bleed. You don’t get anywhere arguing with somebody who thinks he knows, down cold, the “faith once delivered to the saints.” I’ve been there and done that.
Well, what about arguing with liberals, then? What about trying to punch holes in all that modernity? Have you met the kind of person who has just read the latest book, has just seen the most recent movie, has just heard a piece of music, and it means that we have to throw everything out and start over? Can you argue somebody out of that? I don’t think so. Human nature just doesn’t work that way. We stake out positions, you see, just to stake out positions. We argue for the sake of arguing. It’s very seldom a question of learning anything; it’s a question of winning, overpowering the opponent.
Did any of you ever do formal debating while you were a high school student or a college student? You know what they do in these staged debates, don’t you? There is some kind of issue thrown up for grabs: Oh, let’s say, “Resolved that the United States should put a man on Mars.” Whatever, doesn’t matter. “Resolved that the United States should put a man on Mars”, and then the members of the debate team prepare to argue it either way. They study the pros and they study the cons. They know the reasons why and the reasons why not. They go to the debate tournament and the person in charge just assigns each team, arbitrarily: you take the pro, you take the con. And they set out to argue their case.
Well, it doesn’t really matter, you see, what anyone actually believes. They are there only to win an argument. They are not ultimately interested in learning anything. They just want to win, so they learn how to argue the issue both ways.
Sort of reminds me of the preacher who was being considered by a prestigious and well-paying church. He really wanted to go to that church. Don’t tell him to pray about it, he had already done a real quick prayer, something like, “Thank you, Lord, for the chance to be paid 50 thou a year”, and he was ready to go. But their pulpit committee threw him a hardball. They said, “Do you believe in premillenialism or postmillenialism?” Wow, well, he mentally rustled through his seminary files, and found very little. He looked at their faces to see if he could get a clue as to what they wanted to hear, but there was no hint. And so finally, after much hemming and hawing, the preacher’s answer was, “I don’t exactly know what that is, but if you’ll tell me, I’m sure I can preach it either way.”
We don’t get anywhere by arguing with closed minds, because the only things that counts is winning, and folks with closed minds are going to stay with their position, be it conservative or liberal, until they win or die trying. Arguing doesn’t work.
What else is available to us? What other weapon can we use to deal with the closed-minded? The master teacher, the greatest teacher who has ever lived, Jesus of Nazareth, used the finest teaching technique ever devised. He used questions. He asked questions. He probed at what people were saying with questions that made them think, questions that put the responsibility for getting at the truth back on them, questions that probed not only the mind but also the heart. Ultimate questions. Jesus taught by asking ultimate questions.
Two weeks ago we heard some fellow come and ask Jesus his question, “Teacher what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And we saw that there were some real problems with just the way he asked the question. We saw, in my previous message, that he assumed there was something he could do in order to get eternal life; he just didn’t see that it was a gift. And we saw that he assumed that he could reach out and grasp salvation, that it was his to have and to hold, and that the real problem is selfishness. He asked a pointedly selfish question. How can I, I, I, have?
Today let’s focus on the way Jesus responded to this young man. I want us to pick up on how Jesus saw through this question and got down to its core. You see, I think Jesus smelled a rat. Jesus knew something else lay behind this question. For Jesus, this was not somebody who really wanted information; this was somebody who wanted his own opinions confirmed. Whether conservative or liberal, it doesn’t matter. Whether rock-ribbed Republican or slightly pink Democrat, it doesn’t matter. Jesus sniffed out that all he wanted was to have his own ideas supported. So Jesus answered the man’s question with a question of his own.
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Mister, you pop up here while I am teaching and going about my business and you raise this issue. Before I get into this at all; before I go any farther with you whatsoever, tell me, pray tell, “Why do you ask me about what is good?”
There are several ways to read that question. Several ways in which I can see Jesus penetrating this man’s heart and smoking out his real motives. Let’s try some of these out.
I
First, Jesus may have asked the question in order to see if there was an argumentative spirit instead of a questing heart. It’s possible that Jesus sensed that the man was more inclined to argue than to learn, more ready to fight than to discover truth. The key word in Jesus’ question, then, is “why?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” It’s fine to ask about what is good, but why do you ask? Do you want to know, or do you just want to argue? Do you want to find out what I teach, or do you just want to pick a fight?
Men and women, what is it about churches that stirs up that fighting spirit so much? What is it about church life that brings some congregations to the brink of destruction? It’s not really the big issues, the important stuff. It’s the little things, the insignificant things, that bring out that fighting spirit.
I was in a church business meeting once, but back in Kentucky, where we really know how to fight (you know, with shotguns and rotgut whiskey!). We got into a wrangle about a tree. That’s right, a tree. One man stood up in the business meeting and claimed that we’d better cut down that tree on the edge of our parking lot before it slammed down on somebody’s car. But someone else jumped up to the defense of that tree and said folks had no business parking under the tree and shouldn’t be driving such expensive cars anyway. Somebody offered a motion to cut down the tree, but someone else amended it to cut down only the overhanging branches. Then we got into a royal parliamentary fight over how many overhanging branches would be enough! Well, you know we all went home that night kind of raw around the edges, and what was it about? Some great spiritual principle? Some profound theological truth? Some fantastic new ministry? Some Biblical interpretation? No, we had fought about a tree. One lousy, measly tree.
We preferred to fight rather than to listen. We wanted to win more than we wanted to learn. And if Jesus had been there that night ... notice, I think he had already packed up and gone home ... If Jesus had been there that night, he might well have asked, “Why?” “Why are you talking about a tree? Why are dealing with this? The answer is, you just like a good fight. The issue in dealing with closed minds is that they are also quite often argumentative spirits, and they only thing they know is a win-lose game. Jesus refused to play that game! Jesus refused to get caught up in an unproductive argument. And so he just probed, “Why?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” He was testing for an argumentative spirit.
II
Second, something else Jesus was looking for with his counter-question. There was another dimension he was trying to ferret out. And that was the issue of entrapment. Jesus was trying to find out whether this was an honest question or just a trap of some kind. He had been the object of schemes like this before, times when there were folks waiting around, just ready to pounce on any answer they considered wrong, so they could make Jesus look bad. And so I suspect Jesus was wary this time. He was trying to smoke out whether this was an entrapment situation. The emphasis becomes, “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Why do you expect me to respond to this? What are you trying to catch me in? Entrapment.
Now let me illustrate what entrapment is. Every parent must learn to recognize trap questions, and to counter them with “Why do you ask?” Your teenage son says to you, “Are you using the car tonight?” The correct answer is neither yes nor no! Don’t go there! The correct response is “Why do you ask me?”
Your preteen daughter says to you, “Mom, what is the name of that makeup you use?” Now if you just want to be factual, you can say Coty or Max Factor or Estee Lauder. But if you are a wise woman you will not go there. You will say what? “Why do you ask me?”
Because those are trap questions, aren’t they? You can see where that thing is going, and you aren’t going to like it! Well, Jesus saw where his questioner was going, and he didn’t like it. Closed-minded people, whether conservatives or liberals, it doesn’t matter, closed-minded people often trap others, try to show them up, try to get them to reveal ignorance. Jesus wanted the man to come clean; what was his real agenda? What did he want to have happen to Jesus? Did he care at all about Jesus? Or did he just want to have fun at Jesus’ expense? Did he really want the truth, or was he going to use whatever was said to put Jesus down?
You and I need to be very careful, very, very careful, that in our pursuit of truth we not mangle other people on the way. C. S. Lewis once said that you could always tell when some Christians had made it their business to get their point across to other people, because the other people had a sort of hunted look! We need to be very, very careful, that in our pursuit of truth we not use, abuse, misuse, any of God’s children. “Why do you ask me about what is good?”
III
But there’s still another dimension to this ultimate question. There is still another side to what Jesus is getting at with his probing question. I think Jesus is not only testing for an argumentative spirit, and is not only looking out for entrapment; I think Jesus is also trying to teach the man to listen to his own heart and mind, trying to teach him that the truth is right there at his fingertips, urging him to see the grace of God all around.
Re-focus the question. “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments.” Sir, why are you asking about the obvious? Why are you raising an issue that was long ago settled and done with. Look for the goodness of God. And if you wish to enter life, do what God says, keep the commandments, the commandments which God gave to Moses centuries ago, the commandments which have been lifted up by the prophets and affirmed by the sages. Why are you even bothering to ask about what is good? You already know. Listen to your own heart and mind.
Friends, I believe that Christ wants us to be aware of our own hearts. He wants us to know our own minds. He is interested in our growing not because we have accepted someone else’s opinions, but because we have come to them ourselves. “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Good friend, the answer is under your nose, it has been planted in your mind, it will speak to your heart, if only you will let it. But the issue is that some of us have only second-hand religion, other people’s opinions, mashed and stirred like oatmeal, and it isn’t our own.
They say that cloning is an issue now. You’ve heard of Dolly, the cloned sheep? Well, if after twelve years of preaching here all I have done is to clone sheep, then I have failed miserably. Christ wants you, made in God’s image and after His likeness, to be able to confess your own faith. Make up your own mind. Learn from Him on your own. Listen to your heart. The Bible says that the truth is very near you, in your heart and on your lips. Just listen to it and trust it!
Wasn’t that part of the issue of Palm Sunday? The crowd cried Hosanna, because somebody told them to. A few days later the same crowd shouted out “Crucify” because somebody told them to. “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments.” The commandments you already have.
It’s an ultimate question, and maybe it is addressed to somebody here today. Maybe somebody here today came with an argumentative spirit; you feel all out of sorts with the world, nobody does anything right, everything is rotten! But the issue is not them, the issue is you and me. The issue is how we deal with truth. “If you wish to enter life, keep his commandments.” Maybe somebody here today came with skepticism, just daring the preacher to say something wrong. I imagine you can find it. But that’s not the issue. The issue is “if you wish to enter life, keep his commandments.” Maybe somebody came here today, just out of touch with yourself. You don’t know what you think, you’re not sure what you feel, you feel lost, confused. Then hear the ultimate answer to the ultimate question, and hear it for yourself, hear it loud and clear. “Why do you ask me what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments .. love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Just lay down that troubled spirit, and enter life. Enter life.
