{"id":4125,"date":"2024-06-11T08:43:42","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T15:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/coloringoutsidethelines\/?p=4125"},"modified":"2024-06-10T15:59:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T22:59:32","slug":"i-am-asking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/coloringoutsidethelines\/2024\/06\/i-am-asking\/","title":{"rendered":"I am asking…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Questions can be a rather powerful thing, as you may well know.<\/strong><\/p>\n
When I was in full-time ministry, I used to play a game affectionately called \u201cTwenty Questions.\u201d The game was exactly that, and then some: sitting down with a high school or middle school student over Jamba Juice smoothies or caramel Frappuccinos, the conversation usually went something like this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWanna play a game?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty Questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t get it. What\u2019s \u2018Twenty Questions\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, it\u2019s easy. I ask you twenty questions about yourself and you give me twenty answers about yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay?\u201d They\u2019d say in reply, because who plays that? What kind of game is that?<\/p>\n
I\u2019d put my fingers in the air, ready for the greatest countdown of all time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ready?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess?\u201d Their sentences already populated by question marks at the end, it was like they didn\u2019t even know they\u2019d already started playing the game too.<\/p>\n
\u201cK. On your mark, get set, go. Question #1: Would you rather have a unicorn horn or a donkey tail?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHorn!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAwesome. Question #2: If you could eat one home-cooked meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMashed potatoes and gravy!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing. Question #3\u2026\u201d And on and on we\u2019d go, sometimes not even getting through two rounds of fingers because some question would birth a longer, deeper conversation along the way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some of the questions were funny, others more serious. Some of them elicited a one-word answer, others a laborious, drawn-out paragraph or two. But all them had meaning, because all of them were rooted in an intention to get to know the human on the other end of the park bench or the other side of the table.<\/p>\n
All of them were rooted in the simple act of asking.<\/strong><\/p>\n
I offer you this memory, because there was a phrase I kept noticing in this week\u2019s gospel reading: I am asking, <\/em>Jesus says when he\u2019s been found talking to his dad.<\/p>\n
John 17:6-19 is a section often called the High Priestly Prayer. And it\u2019s rather interesting: here we are on the seventh and final Sunday of Easter. The season of Pentecost begins in another week, but for now, we make a return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, to an interaction that happens in the wee hours before Jesus is arrested and crucified.<\/p>\n
Maundy Thursday has already happened. The foot-washing has already happened. Jesus already foresaw Judas\u2019 betrayal and predicted Peter\u2019s denial; it\u2019s almost as if he\u2019s giving the disciples his last, parting words. It\u2019s almost as if he knows time is running out.<\/p>\n
Much of the action that marked previous chapters has been replaced with dialogue, and this chapter is no exception. Some theologians call this passage the \u201cother\u201d Lord\u2019s Prayer, maybe because the Lord <\/em>is talking to the Lord<\/em>. But it\u2019s not as succinct and to the point as the prayer we pray after communion; instead, it\u2019s rather long. It rambles. It doesn\u2019t necessarily, entirely make sense. Maybe, one writer surmises, that\u2019s because it\u2019s from the heart.<\/p>\n
Because here, Jesus is praying for his disciples. All the \u201ctheys\u201d he mentions throughout the 13 verses are about the disciples, about how his father gave them to him \u2013 for his short three-year ministry on earth \u2013 and how they did exactly what they were supposed to do. Jesus is pretty sure the disciples get it now, saying, \u201cNow they know that everything you have given me is from you,\u201d that Jesus points to the Father, and the Father points back to the son, that this is the cycle we see and know and believe in.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the words that you gave me I have given to them,\u201d he continues, \u201cand they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.\u201d It\u2019s here that he inserts that statement of asking, so \u201cI am asking,\u201d \u201cI am asking on their behalf,\u201d the whole phrase says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow surprising is it that God incarnate spends his final moments with his friends in humble supplication on their behalf?\u201d Debie Thomas writes of this verse<\/a>. \u201cKnowing full well the trials and terrors that lie ahead, he prays into uncertainty. He hopes into doubt. He trusts into danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because when he prays, he doesn\u2019t know what the end result will be. He\u2019s pitching a question to God, to whom he has an intimate connection, sure, but he doesn\u2019t know how God is going to respond or if God will even respond at all.<\/p>\n
I am asking, <\/em>he says. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to do with this request, God, but I am asking. I don\u2019t know if you can even hear me now, God, but I am asking. I don\u2019t even sometimes know if what I am saying is even the prayer I\u2019m supposed to be praying, but I am asking.<\/p>\n
I am asking, I am asking, I am asking.<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s not all that different for the rest of us.<\/p>\n
When the diagnosis comes, I am asking. <\/em>When we feel overwhelmed by loneliness, I am asking. <\/em>When the hospitalization and the uncertainty, the doubt and the joblessness arrive, the thing that seemed so certain that does not feel quite so certain anymore, I am asking. <\/em>When the world feels turned upside-down by heartache and bad seems to outshine the good, I am asking. <\/em><\/p>\n
I am asking and pleading for answers, presence, peace. I am asking and pleading, sometimes, for that which is also what theologians call \u201cintercessory prayer,\u201d when we intercede and pray on behalf of someone else.<\/p>\n
We do this during the prayers of the people, when we speak aloud those who come to mind \u2013 those who are hurting and ill, those who have passed from this earth, those who live on our hearts.<\/p>\n
Of course, this type of prayer is highly subjective. As Debie<\/a> also notes, \u201cWhat looks like God\u2019s \u2018yes\u2019 in my eyes might easily look like God\u2019s \u2018no,\u2019 God\u2019s silence or even God\u2019s nonexistence in yours.\u201d What then are we to do when we don\u2019t know whether our prayers are subjective or not, whether they\u2019re really in God\u2019s best interest?<\/p>\n
Well, I think we\u2019re to pray.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re to pray, because that\u2019s what Jesus did. We\u2019re to put it out there, believing that this is the next right thing: I am asking, <\/em>because this person comes to mind. I am asking, <\/em>because I can\u2019t not ask on their behalf. I am asking, <\/em>because this pleading for <\/em>them is the only thing I can do right now.<\/p>\n
And in this asking, there\u2019s connection. Like the high school students I sat across the table from, asking question after question, we say the words that accompany our prayers on behalf of others also become the very act connects us with God.<\/p>\n
There is engagement and attentiveness, relationship and worship. Sometimes, there\u2019s a peace and a calm that only happens when we enter into this place and hand over that most weighing on our hearts, and sometimes there\u2019s not. Sometimes there\u2019s just silence, stillness, eeriness.<\/p>\n
But always, there\u2019s an invitation to come again, to enter into this sacred place and just ask.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Because we can.<\/p>\n
Because we believe that someone bigger than ourselves really, might just hear our prayers when we close our eyes and whisper, I am asking. <\/em><\/p>\n
And so we do.<\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
The following is from a sermon preached on May 12, 2024, at St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal<\/a> in San Rafael, California. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Questions can be a rather powerful thing, as you may well know. When I was in full-time ministry, I used to play a game affectionately called \u201cTwenty Questions.\u201d The game was exactly that, and then some: sitting down with a high school or middle school student over Jamba Juice smoothies or caramel Frappuccinos, the conversation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3607,"featured_media":4128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1539,1533,1530,1536],"class_list":["post-4125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-debie-thomas","tag-high-priestly-prayer","tag-john-176-19","tag-pentecost"],"yoast_head":"\nI am asking...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Questions can be a rather powerful thing, as you may well know. 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