Questions

One of the earliest descriptions I can remember of the bible was someone making it into an acronym: B.I.B.L.E. This acronym, as you might know, was supposed to stand for “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” This was a quick way of communicating the idea that there were answers to be found in the pages of my english-language bible, and that those answers would be both basic, meaning simple, and instructive, meaning that they would be something I could follow. Even as a child, I think this was something that did not sit well with me. 

I was a questioner. In fact, I was begrudged by some adults who taught my Sunday school classes for both having too many questions and for knowing too many of the answers. This combination meant that I wrestled with scripture, even from an early age, and couldn’t quite square what I encountered in those pages with “basic instructions.” As I grew up, I found increasingly that the bible offered me fewer answers and more questions. 

For a time, I resisted this. I refused to acknowledge the growing list of questions to which I could not find answers in scripture, and refused even more so to acknowledge the growing list of questions which scripture itself presented to me. I knew my bible stories, and knew my faith. Moreover, I knew that I was to have a “childlike faith.” That faith, I had been told, was one that took what I was offered at face value. To have a childlike faith was to reject that growing list of questions and cling to answers that had never really worked for me before, and were continually falling short. 

I do not know exactly when the shift from prioritizing answers to prioritizing questions happened for me. I do know that it has saved my faith. Moreover, I have come to recognize that it is, in fact, the pinnacle of a childlike faith. Because children ask questions. “Why” is the favorite word of many children, as any parent or guardian can tell you. The key here is to recognize that questions are not attacks. Children do not ask questions to belittle something. They do not ask “why” because they want to hurt a person’s feelings, or tear down a person. Children ask questions because they are full of wonder. 

Somewhere along the way, we lose our sense of wonder, for the world around us and for our faith. When we do, we stop asking questions and start settling for, and clinging to, answers. This Sunday, we’ll be talking about childlike faith, and how wonder might just be the way forward for so many of us who are struggling with the answers we have been handed. We’ll also celebrate the work of Footprints Preschool as they encourage a wonder-filled faith in the youngest amongst us. 

See you Sunday, friends. 

In Grace,

Rev. Tim