QUESTIONS

1 Samuel 14:1-52; John 7:31-53; Psalm 109:1-31; Proverbs 15:5-7

“’Do what you think is best,’ the armor bearer replied. ‘I’m with you completely, whatever you decide.’ ‘All right then,’ Jonathan told him. ‘We will cross over and let them see us. If they say to us, ‘Stay where you are or we’ll kill you,’ then we will stop and not go up to them. But if they say, ‘Come on up and fight,’ then we will go up. That will be the Lord’s sign that he will help us defeat them.’”

“When the Temple guards returned without having arrested Jesus, the leading priests and Pharisees demanded, ‘Why didn’t you bring him in?’ ‘We have never heard anyone speak like this!’ the guards responded. ‘Have you been led astray, too?’ the Pharisees mocked.”

“I love them, but they try to destroy me with accusations even as I am praying for them! They repay evil for good, and hatred for my love.”

Some Scriptures defeat all efforts to understand them. No doubt, Jonathan had serious guts and radical faith. But how did God feel about Jonathan “interpreting” the Philistines’ response to his brashness as a “sign?” The sheer audacity of dictating options to God almost requires prophecy or lunacy. How did Jonathan get away with it? Everything worked out well enough (for the Israelites, anyway). But that does not change the fact that Jonathan’s decision to confront an entire outpost with just his armor bearer seems, at best, irresponsible. If there is a spiritual message here, it’s pretty well hidden. The initiative apparently all came from Jonathan. This is not the way the Spirit usually works.

Ambiguity also permeates the New Testament reading. Were the soldiers converted or confused? Did they recognize Jesus as a prophet (or more), or just view Him as a pitiable derelict not worth arresting? (Interestingly, when the Pharisees posed essentially that very question to the guards, they got no response.) Their rejection of orders had to result from pity or passion, but we are left to draw our own conclusions.

These passages raise more questions than they answer, but maybe that’s OK. Maybe it’s even the whole point today. Questions do not make our position before the Father more precarious. Questions are a prerequisite to growth. Why can’t I get away with boxing in God like Jonathan? (It sure would make life easier… or maybe not. I digress.) Why don’t I have the courage to refuse “orders” that conflict with who I know Jesus to be? Do my failings just come down to a lack of guts, or is something deeper involved? The questions may unsettle me, but the failure to ask them leads to a bigger problem. Refusing to give voice to serious spiritual questions simply reveals the fragility of one’s faith for the cosmetic Christianity it is.

Wow! That’s pretty blunt. It’s more than blunt. It’s actually a bit offensive. But it also struck a deep, painful chord in my heart. Finally, like it or not, we all have to deal with the truth, and sometimes, that means confronting or testing or questioning the Truth in ways we’d prefer to avoid. Education’s first step is always the revealing of our own ignorance. At that point, then, the Ultimate Question rises once more: what have we got to fear?