What would your specialist subject be on Mastermind?
[PAUSE]
There are some people that thrive with having questions
fired at them left, right and centre, but for most of us, it’s an ordeal. Think
of those called to give evidence in law courts. While the media rejoices in
making the courtroom dramatic and even glamorous, the truth is that it is not as fascinating as one might be led to believe.
However, the witness must still answer every question put to him by both the
prosecuting and defending counsels. Why is it such an ordeal? If we’re telling
the truth, then surely there isn’t a problem. We just answer the questions
honestly, and we are allowed to step down and leave.
Things, of course, are very different if you are not just
the witness but rather the one on trial too. In this case, you are afraid that
one wrong answer will send you to gaol. That’s a problem far worse than not
knowing the principal currency of Vietnam at Mastermind. The whole
interrogation becomes a deadly game between you and your accuser who is trying
to trap you into convicting yourself. How much better if you were able to
silence him?
[PAUSE]
These days we face a very similar problem from a more
aggressive and anti-Christian society. Have you ever had someone ask you some
difficult questions just in order to catch you out? “How can you believe in
God. You can’t see Him?” “There’s no evidence for God, why do you still believe
that rubbish?” “Aren’t you sexist for not letting women be priests?” and of
course the biggie, “If there is a loving God, then why all this suffering in
the world?”
St Peter may remind us to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. This is fine, but
some of these questions have been argued by some very wise philosophers, so how
on earth can we ordinary folk possibly answer them?
[PAUSE]
It’s clear that there are and always have been people out to
discredit Our Lord’s teaching by trapping him into saying something that either
is outright blasphemy or that shows him up to be a fool. They watch him like a
hawks looking for some gap in his teaching so that they can swoop down and
catch him out!
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
THE great commandment? You might as well ask to sum up someone’s
entire life in one single word, to teach an entire law course in half an hour
or fit an entire rose garden into a flowerpot.
This is not a genuine enquiry. You can tell simply by the
way it’s asked that he is trying to force the Lord into saying something
foolish. If Jesus were to pick just one of the Ten Commandments and proceed to justify His decision, then the
Pharisees would say, “well, what about the other nine? Isn’t that important
enough?” In fact, the Rabbis around Jesus are deeply divided as to which
Commandments are greater and which are lesser. If Jesus were to answer one way
or the other, then it is going to cause an almighty ruckus among the Jews, and
Jesus would be caught for stirring trouble.
Jesus is not taken in for a moment. He does not launch like
the Pharisees into some great speech into what makes a commandment great. He puts
the Pharisees and Sadducees to silence by careful quoting of Scripture: Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. This is Deuteronomy
vi.5, one of the books of Moses revered by the Pharisees. But Our Lord doesn’t
stop there! Without drawing breath or pausing so that the Rabbis can jump in
and say another word, we have the second commandment. Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. That’s Leviticus xix.18 Another book revered by the
Pharisees. In one fell swoop Our Lord has not just answered the question, but
given a great guiding principle for human life
Before they can even reply to this, Jesus turns the tables.
He asks them a question from their very own scriptures, and they are stumped.
They cannot answer.
[PAUSE]
How can we answer the big questions of Life? It seems that
the people of this world want Christians to answer all the questions in one
short sentence. It may not even be possible for Our Lord to give us a verbal
answer to all the big questions in one short sentence. After all, the Lord Himself says, “If I have
told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you
of heavenly things?” We do not even understand the language of our own reality
to begin to understand the language of God’s knowledge.
That’s not to say that the Lord cannot give us an answer to
the problem of Evil. It is the very Life, Suffering and Death of the Lord Jesus that answers the question
but not in a way that leads to an earthly answer and His Death is the
inexpressible, wordless, unutterable “No” of God to all things Evil and “Yes” of
God to Humanity.
Yes, we may be occasionally be stumped by the questioning of
those who hate Christianity. We must give the best answer that we can, but not
allow ourselves to be pressured into thinking that because we can’t answer a
question, our Faith is worthless. Quite the contrary, how can so great a faith
be expressed in words alone?
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