September 15, 2025 • 30 mins
What if the most powerful spiritual practice isn't finding answers, but asking better questions?
When Jesus encountered his first followers, he didn't greet them with a sermon or statement of faith. Instead, he asked a deceptively simple question that cuts straight to the heart of human existence: "What are you looking for?"
This question—the first words Jesus speaks in John's gospel—reveals something profound about spiritual growth. In ancient Jewish tradition, faith wasn't about memorizing correct answers but wrestling with meaningful questions. Jesus carried this tradition forward, asking over 300 questions throughout his ministry. These weren't rhetorical devices but invitations to relationship, dialogue, and transformation.
Questions operate on multiple levels. When Jesus asks "What are you looking for?", he's inviting us to examine what we're truly pursuing in life. Many of us chase surface-level desires—wealth, fame, pleasure, uniqueness—without recognizing the deeper longings beneath them: to be seen, to belong, to matter, to find meaning, to receive grace we don't deserve.
The disciples responded to Jesus' question with a question of their own: "Rabbi, where are you staying?" This wasn't evasion but engagement—the beginning of a relationship built on dialogue rather than passive reception. Jesus' response was equally significant: "Come and see." Not a lecture or list of rules, but an invitation to journey and discover.
As we navigate our complex modern lives with endless demands and distractions, could we benefit from living inside good questions rather than clinging to rigid certainties? What are you truly looking for? What lies beneath your surface pursuits? These questions won't be answered in a day, but living with them, wrestling with them, might lead to the transformation your soul is actually seeking.
Subscribe now and join us as we explore Jesus' most profound questions and discover how they still speak powerfully to our lives today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
also the Lord forever .
Amen.
So, god, we pray that thismorning you would give us a deep
sense of your goodness andmercy is coming after us, it's
following us, and that you haveset this table before us.
And, as David writes, in thepresence of our enemies, you
anoint our head with oil and ourcup it overflows.
And this morning, god, may wegather in this room and be
(00:21):
reminded of your goodness andmercy and undeserved, unmerited
grace and favor in our lives, sothat we can then leave and
share with others.
Give us wisdom that we couldtap into, this deep, ancient
wisdom found in the scripturesthat's thousands upon thousands
of years old, that stillresonates today in our lives,
and may it be a tether for us,may it be a guiding light in
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every single way, and may we useit as we navigate our own lives
in this world today, withordinary jobs and school lives
and social lives.
May it impact us deeply inevery way.
We pray, god, that you wouldwake us up and inspire us in all
the ways.
We need it so desperately thismorning, and would you help
correct any kind of yeah, justfalse paradigms that we hold
(01:05):
this morning, and would youbless us as we gather in Jesus'
name.
Amen, amen, all right, how arewe doing this morning Without
fail?
Whenever I get to talk, I justhave this frog in my throat.
So it's not anyway, all right.
Well, hey, good to be with youguys this morning.
It's a celebration.
Oh no, I'm good, no, anyway,yeah, thank you, I appreciate it
(01:26):
.
Actually, I'll take a sip, allright, thank you, olivia, okay,
Okay, let's jump in.
So we are launching a brand newsermon series and we're calling
it this Isn't Rhetorical theQuestions of Jesus.
We're going to get into it, butJesus asked over 300 questions
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in his life, at least, accordingto the gospels, 300.
And so we're going to unpackone of them each week, and so
that's what we're doing here.
So I think questions areunbelievably profound.
If we let questions work on usand let them sink deep into our
lives, into our souls, into ourdaily lives our daily lives as
students, as teachers, aslawyers, as whatever it is that
you're doing If we let thesequestions sink deep into our
(02:09):
hearts and our souls, I thinkthey can really bring about
transformation.
See questions, reveal anduncover information.
When you ask them, you ask theright ones, and questions also,
in a similar way, can lead toprofound transformation.
If you let them work on us,they can change our lives, can
lead to profound transformation.
If you let them work on us,they can change our lives.
I love good questions.
In fact, here's some that Ithink are really poignant and
(02:32):
worth asking.
Oh, we had this happen thismorning.
It wasn't Hang on one second.
Oh, it's me again.
I had my thing off.
By the way, this is a true story.
I got three hours of sleep lastnight.
Can you tell?
Okay, the sermon title.
I have no idea why.
I just could not fall asleep.
I was so excited to see all ofyou guys.
The sermon title is called whatAre you After this Morning?
(02:54):
Okay, here's some greatquestions.
Yeah, when was the last timeyou felt fully seen?
If I were to ask you thisquestion, when was the last time
that you felt fully seen?
Yeah, I want to work on you fora minute or two.
How about this question?
I love a good question.
Where do you go when your soulfeels tired?
Yeah, where do you go?
A lot of levels of that question.
(03:15):
You can see already how a goodquestion can sort of just take
you deep into something thatmaybe you weren't even expecting
, and it got layers to it and itcan reveal information, or at
least begin to invite you towrestle with these thoughts and
ideas.
That's what good questions do.
How about this great, profoundquestion?
Yeah, why do we press harder onthe remote when we know it's
(03:35):
just that the batteries are dead?
If I press harder, I think thebatteries will work.
Why do we do that?
It's a profound question.
How about this deeply profoundquestion?
And if you are under the age of19, this one's for you.
What exactly does six, sevenmean?
Nobody knows what it means.
Anybody never heard of thisbefore.
(03:59):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, thewolves know what's up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,okay, how about this one?
I'll move on.
Okay, how about?
Why do I remember a songlearned from 1998, way back in
the 1900s, but I can't remember.
I put my phone 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, don't pretend thisdoesn't happen to you.
I see you.
I know this is a lot of us outthere.
How this one and this one hashaunted me since I found this
(04:28):
question.
I'm like this is a good one.
If a tomato is a fruit, doesthat make ketchup a smoothie?
Maybe you need to go home todayand have a nice smoothie, fruit
smoothie, although you guys areall Minnesotans, so this is
probably too spicy for you, thatketchup.
You know I'm right too.
You know I'm right.
You too, you know I'm right,you Minnesotans are soft.
I'm just kidding, I'm aMinnesotan too.
Now, I love a good question.
(04:51):
They're unbelievable.
A good question, when you hearit, can challenge you, it can
sink deep into your heart and ifyou hear it it can work on you,
it can work you over, it canecho in your thoughts and in
your sleep even.
It's what good questions do itcan bring transformation in your
life.
A couple of years ago I was on aretreat with a guy called Kent
and my friend Kent and Kent, ifyou know Kent Dobson, he's an
(05:12):
unbelievable question asker.
I often jokingly but seriouslysay he's always like one or two
or three questions away with mefrom making me cry.
It's unreal, I'm not kidding.
So we're on a retreat and I hadthis dream and he does dream
work with me and he'll kind ofunpack my dreams.
And I had this dream one nightwhere I was driving a car and I
was leaning back and there was ayoung man in the back of my car
(05:32):
.
I was doing a blessing, I wasgiving him the benediction, I
was blessing him, and I justfelt this profound sense of
meaning and I woke up.
And so Kent goes.
Oh, let me ask you a couple ofquestions.
He goes.
Number one how did you feelwhen you were blessing him?
I go oh man, I felt like I feltreally good.
I felt like this deep sense ofmeaning and purpose.
I just loved it.
I loved blessing this young man.
He goes, okay.
Question two why do you thinkyou felt this deep sense of
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meaning?
Oh, I just think it's like partof my calling to bless other
people to words.
And then question three, whichis what snapped me in half and
made me weep like a baby.
He goes Ryan, who does this foryou?
Nobody, I just cried, notnobody, I'm just kidding, but I
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did cry, I wept like a baby.
I'm like what is wrong with me?
A good question can sink deepinto the most inner, hidden we
thought parts of our souls and,like some, unearth something
down.
That's what questions do.
So I love a good question.
A good question can invite us.
Oh, by the way, this is whatConfucius said about questions.
He said uh, the man or womanwho asks a question is a fool
for a minute.
The man who does not ask is afool for life.
So don't point fingers, but askquestions.
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It's what helps us to not befoolish in our lives.
How about this famous question?
The wright brothers famouslyasked what if humans could fly
like birds?
It's a silly question, isn't it, isn't it?
Look at us now.
Who would would have thought Ilove a good question.
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Did you know this?
By the way, kids are not afraidat all of questions.
They, on average, ask about1,000 questions a day.
Do you know this?
Yeah, some dads are like yes, Ido.
Actually, I'm totally kidding,it's only 300.
But you guys weren't evensurprised when I said 1,000.
Oh, yeah, 1,000.
(07:24):
No doubt kidding, it's only 300.
But you guys weren't evensurprised when I said a thousand
.
Oh, yeah, a thousand.
No, no doubt.
Yeah, yeah, you totally believeme.
In fact, some of you, teachersor parents of talkative kids,
are like only a thousand.
I think my kid asked that in anhour alone.
Okay, 300 is still a lot.
And I think over half of theseare the question why, why, why,
why?
But keep in mind the words ofConfucius, who said that a
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person who asks a question is afool for a minute and the one
who doesn't is a fool for alifetime.
You know how many questionsadults ask in one day.
Kids ask 300.
Adults ask a measly 20 to 30.
Who's the fool now?
Jesus said have faith like achild man.
(08:06):
What happened to us adults?
Why do we get so serious andwhere did our passions go and
our curiosity, our wonder?
What sucked the life out of usas we got older and aged?
Where our questions go?
Questions can lead us downpathways to discover new and
wonderfully beautiful things.
A question, by the way, innately, is an invitation.
By the way, I love this one.
Uh, this is one of the morefamous lines, I would say maybe
the most famous line in all ofEnglish literature.
(08:27):
Hamlet says to be or not to be.
That's the question.
He's, if you know the play byShakespeare, he's wrestling with
existence itself.
Is it better to exist or notexist, To be or not to be?
The most famous line inliterature, in the most famous
line in literature, in Englishliterature, is this one it's a
question To be or not to be.
That is the question.
Yeah, I love a good question.
(08:51):
Questions are, of course,invitations to relationship.
Questions are not statements.
A statement is one directional.
I tell you something, that'skind of it.
A question invites relationship.
It assumes there's another onthe other side of that question
that might respond, might giveme something, you know an answer
or something else.
But there's this invitation toa relationship and that way a
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question is very much like adoor it's just opening.
You can kind of walk throughand invite others to walk
through.
It's a beautiful dance orwrestling match or something
like this.
This is what questions do andwhat they do for us.
I love it.
Questions also operate on manylevels.
There's the literal level,there's like emotional,
psychological, spiritual.
There's all kinds of levels toquestions.
(09:32):
For example, if I asked you,are you hungry?
Well, maybe you know this, butthere's the Bushmen in the
Kalahari Desert, in the southernpart of Africa, in South Africa
.
They often talk about twodifferent kinds of hunger.
There's the big hunger and thelittle hunger.
The little hunger is, of course, hunger for food.
I need some calories, nutrition, nourishment, something to get
through the day, some fuel.
The big hunger, though, theysay the Bushmen say, is meaning
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and existential meaning,direction in life, purpose.
That's the big hunger.
It's many levels.
So if I said, are you hungry?
You might answer in any numberof ways.
You could answer by talkingabout food, or we're talking
about meaning and purpose.
This, by the way, is calledpolysemy.
It's when words have a varietyof levels of meaning.
Polysemy, not polygamy Don'tconfuse that, you get into
(10:18):
trouble in certain communitiesbut polysemy Because questions
have many layers to them andsometimes we would do well to go
one or two or three layers down.
Questions also activatecuriosity.
Psychologists suggest that whenyou are asked a question, your
brain releases dopamine.
Now, for those of you who lovequestions, it sort of excites us
(10:38):
.
We all get kind of jazzed upand we're ready to answer.
And for those of you who getmaybe stage fright or don't want
to be wrong, you might getnervous and you have like a
flight response to this dopaminerelease.
But it like sort of causes this, like sort of curiosity within
us, and it's something differentthan a statement.
The brain reacts differentlythan if someone just does a
statement to you, because itinvites us to be curious and
(11:00):
good questions create openness.
That's what they do, like anopen door.
They also frame possibilityright, like what's possible, and
they sort of invite us towonder and sort of think outside
the box and allow for discovery, even self-discovery.
I love it in Genesis 3, god,when the humans rebel against
God and they eat of the fruitand they go and hide from God,
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which is a fascinating ideabecause God is the one person,
person, the one being, the onething that can help them.
And they run and hide becausethey're full of shame, of course
.
And God goes to the humans andhe says this where are you?
Now?
Look, I assume that God knewwhere they were Like oh, you're
behind the bush.
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If God is everywhere, god'slike you can't really hide.
I can see you.
You're like oh, you're behindthe bush.
If God is everywhere, god'slike you can't really hide.
I can see you're right there.
What does God ask him?
Or why does God ask them inthis and there's multiple layers
here where are you?
Where did you go?
What happened in implicit?
And this is why are you hidingfrom me?
(12:02):
Why are you ashamed?
Where are you?
I love it.
Good questions invite us toreflect and to wrestle these
kinds of questions that sinkdeep into our souls.
I've told this story before, butwhen I was younger I was about
19 years old, and I had wanderedfar from home, if you will, and
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had sort of been to foreignlands, literal and metaphorical,
but metaphorically there wasnothing out there for me.
I tried lots of things, there'snothing really out there that's
life-giving.
So I began to kind of venturemy way back home, if you will.
But one night, as I'm kind ofwandering back home
metaphorically I was out withsome friends.
We're at a party, hanging outand drinking a little bit too
(12:43):
much or a lot too much, andthey're out on the front porch
and I had this sense of thisdeep existential emptiness and I
remember saying to my friendout loud I go man, what are we
doing out here?
What are we doing out here?
And he goes oh, we're hangingout, man, we're watching the
sunset, we're just gonna hang on, talk for a little bit.
No, like he didn't get it.
(13:04):
You know, no, dude, what are wedoing out here?
Where are you?
Where have you gone?
Questions are also subversive Ifyou know the story of Socrates,
one of the more famousphilosophers in Athens of his
day.
He asked a lot of questionsthat made a lot of people mad,
the powers that be.
He asked such subversivequestions that undermined their
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authority and maybe theirunhealthy behavior that it got
him killed.
He was sentenced to deathSocrates was because of the
questions that he asked.
That sort of subverted thenarrative, got him into trouble.
Questions can also be liberating.
If you remember the civilrights movement, during the
abolitionist movement, one ofthe questions that people asked
was am I not a man and am am Inot your brother?
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Yeah, so it was written onsigns and people who were
protesting segregation and sortof this way of life in the 60s
and 70s in the 60s anyway, theybegan to ask hey, am I not a
human, am I not a man?
Am I not your brother?
It was a liberating questionfor those who could hear it and
it subverted the narrative thatno, you're not, you're not equal
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to me.
No, no, am I not your brother?
Yeah, questions can be thiskind of liberating thing.
Questions can also be dangerous.
Just ask any NFL head coachafter a loss of a game.
They don't want to answer a lotof questions.
Or ask politicians.
You watch them dodge questions.
This is why, because questionscan be dangerous, they can
reveal things that they don'twant to be revealed.
Questions can be indeed adangerous, dangerous thing.
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They also slow us down if welet them.
Where are you?
What are we doing out here.
Where did you go?
They also invite us to wonder.
I wonder, where am I?
I wonder if Adam and Eve askedthemselves I don't know.
I wonder what happened.
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Where am I?
What am I doing out here?
What's going on?
That's what questions do.
So we're beginning this serieson the questions of Jesus called
.
This Isn't Rhetorical.
Jesus asked over 300 questions2,000 years ago.
But I believe the beauty ofthis ancient text.
Now look when you read theBible.
I get it.
It's ancient, it's antiquated,it feels archaic and old.
(15:13):
I get it.
But you guys, there are stillthings in there that resonate
deeply with us moderns,enlightened people, thousands of
years later.
That's the reason it's stillsold so many copies, this thing
called the Bible, and that westill read it and we talk about
it, because it's incrediblyinsightful into the human
condition and our place in theworld and with God and each
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other and the communities thatwe're around and we're in.
It's an unbelievably helpfulancient text and in a world of
rapid fire tweets and shallowthoughts and quick opinions, we
could use some deep wisdom.
Are you with me?
And so Jesus asked thesequestions.
I want to ask us the samequestions today, so we're going
to take one question each week.
Unpack it a bit, and I want toask us that question.
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And then have you askedyourself this very same question
throughout the week.
So write it down, put it onyour mirror, put it on your car,
put it on your front door,whatever you got to do, but ask,
let this question work on you.
Maybe it'll bring someenlightenment or some
transformation in your life.
And let these questions be aninvitation to you.
The great Rilke, the poet Rilke,said this be patient towards
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all that is unsolved in yourheart.
Well, we love answers, don't we?
We love answers in ourpost-enlightenment,
post-scientific revolution.
We love this, our modernWestern.
We love answers.
Gotta find the answer.
But Rilke says just be patientand let these unsolved answers,
let them just hold attention andtry to love the questions
themselves.
He writes Like locked rooms andlike books that are now written
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in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answerswhich cannot be given to you,
because you would not be able tolive them.
He says you don't know yet.
Just hang tight, and the pointis to live everything.
Rilke says Live the questionsnow and perhaps you will then,
gradually, without noticing it,live along some distant day into
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the answer.
I love that.
Be patient, let the questionswork you and marinate.
Let yourself marinate in thequestions.
See, the Jewish faith was builtaround questions.
It revolved around questions.
So the rabbis believe thattruth wasn't passed down like as
a propositional truth statement.
Here's the truth.
Rather, the truth wasdiscovered by rustling and
debate and dialogue anddiscussion and arguing around
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walks and journeys and campfiresand these kinds of things.
It's how you discovered thetruth.
It wasn't just passed down on asheet of paper.
That's how they did it and theybelieve this too, that the
questions were not a form ofrebellion but a form of faith.
It helped deepen your faith,help you discover the deep
meaning of faith.
When I first became a pastorhere years ago, there was a
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pastor in the area who was sortof a theologian in residence in
the area and a Lutheran pastor,and I wanted to know like hey,
is this Lutheran story narrativetradition for me or not?
So I wanted to ask him allkinds of questions, and so I did
.
And this person it wasn'tPastor Paul, by the way, if
you're wondering, it's not Paul,but this person they couldn't
really handle all my questionsbecause they sort of assumed I
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was attacking the faith and theygot defensive and they kind of
put the sort of the fences upand they got like irritated,
like I was always attacking.
I'm like no, no, I'm justtrying to wrestle with the faith
.
I got to know what it means tobe a Lutheran and to live as a
part of the stream and traditionand it just was not helpful for
me at all.
So I left that dialogue aftertrying for many weeks and I went
and said I was a part of LutherSeminary, getting my work done
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there, my Lutheran core coursesthere, and met a guy called Dr
Stephen Paulson, and Paulson wasthis wizard man and he let me
ask any question I wanted and hewas not insecure, he was not
afraid of my questions, he lovedit.
We would wrestle and argue andit was awesome and I found
incredible responses from DrPaul.
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It was super helpful and itbuilt my faith.
It sort of rooted my faith.
It helped me root my faithBecause questions are not
rebellion always, but a form offaith.
That's what the rabbis believe.
This dialogue, this back andforth, this wrestling, is how we
discover our faith.
So of course Jesus would asklots of questions, the disciples
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too.
The Talmud said this a wisequestion is half of the answer.
So, as I mentioned, jesus askedover 300 questions.
He asked questions like what doyou want?
What does he want me to do foryou?
What do you think?
What does he want me to do foryou?
What do you think?
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Questions of self-discoverywhat do you want?
He also asked is your Facebookmarketplace item still available
?
Things like that.
You know deep questions.
And here's the question that heasked today.
So John is out walking around.
John the baptizer has a coupleof disciples with him, because
John was also sort of a rabbi,had followers.
And when these followers andJohn see Jesus, john says oh, by
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the way, let me just read thisbefore I say the question why
does Jesus ask so many questions?
Well, because that's whatrabbis did In the Jewish world.
The rabbi doesn't give you theanswer, a neat answer, but he
gave you a question big enoughto live in.
Think back to the Rilke poemFaith was never about shutting
down a conversation.
It was about keeping the searchalive.
That's why, at Passover,children don't receive answers
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first.
They ask questions first.
Let them ask them.
Jesus continues this tradition.
He doesn't hand out formulas.
He invites us to wrestle and towonder and to seek.
I love that.
So John is out with hisdisciples, his followers, and
they see Jesus.
John says, hey, look, there'sthe Lamb of God.
The two disciples hear him andthey say they hear him say this
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and they begin to follow Jesus.
So Jesus is out just walkingaround.
John's like yo, that's the Lambof God.
John's followers leave John,they go find Jesus.
They start following Jesus.
Jesus turns around, says hey,what are you looking for?
I love this question.
This is his first question thathe asks in the Gospel of John,
by the way, whenever in theancient text, when it was a
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person who speaks for the firsttime, in this case it's this
very first question.
It's significant, it's like asignature.
So notice what, what the personsays, what the first question
they ask is.
And jesus's question is what areyou looking for?
It sort of frames his wholeministry.
He's asking him what are youlooking for?
What are you after?
Also, when jesus, you know,years later, when he's
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resurrected, the first questionhe asked after the resurrection,
he asked mary, hey, well, whomare you seeking?
So there's this like frame,this bookend of Jesus's life and
at least the latter three orthree, three years or so of what
are you looking for?
Whom are you looking for?
What are you seeking?
What are you after?
Yeah, and in the Greek textit's something like this.
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It's like Jesus asked him whatare you seeking?
And, by the way, the wordseeking it's not like a passive
wish, it's not like oh, I wish Ihad a million dollars.
It's not this passive verb oh,I really would like to have an
ice cream cone.
No, it's more existential.
It's his quest, it's hislonging, it's a pursuit in the
original Greek language.
(22:03):
So it could be like this he'sasked them hey, what are you
guys looking for?
What are you after?
What do you want?
What do you seek?
What do you desire?
It presupposes they are lookingfor something.
These two young men are aftersomething and they think they've
seen it in Jesus.
So they go follow him and heasks them what are you looking
for?
Yeah, what are you looking for?
(22:23):
It was this piercingexistential challenge for the
disciples these two especially,by the way, I love this.
In the hebrew culture andcontext and language, there's
this idea called midrash ormidrash.
Midrash is this idea ofinterpreting texts or the
ancient laws by wrestling, byconversation.
It was an interpretive tool, soyou would do midrash.
(22:45):
This, by the way, is how Ipreach a lot.
I just do midrash around thetext.
You ask, ask all thesequestions, you wrestle with it,
you try to find stories and youkind of align it together.
It's this incredible way ofwrestling with the ideas and
texts.
It's called midrash, and theHebrew word for seeking is the
same root word as the word formidrash.
It's the word darash, and soJesus could be asking them hey,
(23:05):
fellas, what are you after?
What are you seeking?
What's your midrash?
What's your midrash?
What interpretation of life areyou seeking?
What framework for life are youafter?
Because we all have a framework, by the way.
Do you know this?
I mean, this past week, we'veseen a lot of folks frame life
in this way oh, if you don'tagree with somebody, let's shoot
(23:25):
them, okay, or yell at themonline or cut them out of our
lives.
Or maybe it's framed like oh,violence is indeed the way to go
.
This will solve all of ourproblems.
It's more violence.
You know, we've had a number ofshootings and acts of atrocious
, senseless violence, and Ithink back to when I was just
out of high school and we hadthe Columbine shootings in
(23:47):
Colorado.
We had just become friends.
One of my friends was shot andkilled in that in that incident
back in 90, 99.
And yeah, they found out laterthe two shooters, eric Harris
and Dylan Klebold, when theyunpacked all of their writings
and their journals.
These two young men had adopteda form of philosophy, it's sort
of something like nihilism, andthey railed against God and
(24:10):
society and their community andall the people that had harmed
them, and it became this sort ofnihilistic way of being that
just nothing means anything.
Forget all of it, screweverybody, and then it leads
inevitably to destruction andviolence.
This is, of course, what alwayshappens when you embrace these
sort of dark forms of thisphilosophy called nihilism.
(24:32):
Read Fight Club or watch themovie.
I guess, too, that's whathappens when we untether
ourselves from a proper frame oflife.
It leads to destruction andviolence.
So you have.
I don't know all the time whythese folks do what they do, but
we've all adopted someframework of life.
Some are better than others.
I'm just telling you, and Jesusasks them what is your
(24:53):
framework of life?
Some are better than others.
I'm just telling you and Jesusasks him what is your framework
for life and what are you after?
What do you want?
Yeah, then they found it,whatever it is in Jesus.
What are you after?
By the way, you notice this too, that sometimes the things
we're after are not the thingswe're really after.
Sometimes we're up here on thesurface level, but there are
things deeper that we'reactually after.
(25:14):
We just don't know it yet.
I mean, many of us, you know, wewould love to be rich and
famous.
I know I would be.
Anyway, it'd be awesome to berich and famous.
You know, like well, why.
Why would you want to be richand famous?
Well, because then people wouldrecognize money.
I could just buy a nice car anddrive around in a sweet car.
It would be just awesome, it'dbe so great.
Okay, well, why does thatmatter to you?
Oh, well, then, because youknow, then I, it'd make my life
(25:37):
a little bit easier.
I don't have to stress outabout it.
Okay, yeah, fine, fine, but why?
And you dig a few layers down, afew floors, and you realize, oh
, I think, deep down, I justwant to be loved, I want someone
to see me, I want to matter,I'm afraid of dying and I think
if I do all these things up here, I won't die, I'll live forever
, because sometimes, deep down,the things we desire, not really
(26:00):
the things that we desire.
So Jesus asks what are youafter?
What do you want?
What do you want?
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I love this.
It's pretty great.
You know, at the bottom is thisidea of your physiological needs
.
And once you have those met,great now what.
Well, once you have food andwater, okay, now you safety.
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You kind of go up the ladder.
So once you have safety, you'relike safe.
You got a shelter and maybesome protection in a tribe.
Okay now what?
Well, social needs you got somefriends.
You got some friends.
You got some belonging Okay,now what.
Well, self-esteem, okay nowwhat.
Well, self-exercise, okay, nowwhat.
And when all these things arefulfilled, and you're still
(26:41):
asking yourself now what?
There's a deeper hole in ourlives, a deeper longing that
we're not able to find an answerfor.
That's the thing.
That's the thing that's down inthere.
That's the thing.
That's the thing that's down inthere.
What are you after?
For many of us, I don't knowwhat it is.
In our culture today, we justseek to be right.
Rightness seems like this thingthat we're all after.
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You know, if I want to be right, then I'll have what's below
that, what's down there, yeah,what are you seeking?
What are the things that you'reafter?
Maybe it's perfection.
If I can just be perfect, I canjust put on this and make no
mistakes, and then everyone willsee okay, fine, what's down?
What's down beneath that?
What's down there?
Maybe it's pleasure.
I just want to do whatever youknow, sort of self-actualization
(27:24):
through hedonism, okay, butwhat's down there, what's
underneath that?
Yeah, it's power, it'suniqueness.
We love to be unique these days, don't we?
I was in a retreat just acouple weeks ago and I'm not
going to say it.
No, I'll move on.
We just love being unique, youknow, and the more unique I can
be, the more I'm important.
(27:45):
So what's down there, what'sbeneath the surface?
What's down there?
Maybe that you want to belong,you want to be part of a bigger
story, you want to have meaning,maybe you want grace that you
don't deserve, and if you couldjust get it from something or
somebody who would just, theywould call this the jesus hole
or the god shaped hole.
It's cliche, because it's truefor many of us.
(28:06):
So I would ask you today, as Iclose here, what are you after
these young men show up becausethey're looking for something.
Maybe you're here today becauseyou're looking for something.
Maybe you don't know what it is, but you have this sense deep
down in your soul likesomething's missing.
And you're here because maybethis group of people can help me
, or that weirdo with the beard,maybe he can help me.
(28:29):
I don't know.
Yeah, what are you after?
What are you longing for?
Weirdo with the beard?
Oh, maybe he can help me.
I don't know.
Yeah, what are you after?
What are you longing for?
What do you need?
What do you want?
What's deep down in there?
These men see Jesus and they goand take a closer look.
Maybe you're here, you want totake a closer look.
I'd encourage you to not leaveit and to ask somebody to sort
of bounce some ideas around withyou, around, to sort of bounce
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some ideas around with you.
Maybe.
Ask for prayer Someone next toyou, someone in the band myself,
kirsten.
One of the ushers grabs someoneto pray with them.
Jesus asks them what are youafter?
And I love their response.
They say oh Rabbi, where areyou staying?
They answer his question with aquestion hey, what are you
after?
Oh Rabbi, where are you staying?
They're not dodging it.
This is how the rabbis anddisciples would work.
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They would wrestle by askingthey're showing him, we're in,
we're serious, we want towrestle with you, we're in,
where are you staying?
He responds come and see.
Come and see.
That's what the faith isCentral.
May you know in the deepestparts of your souls that God has
invited us to question, towrestle your souls, that God has
invited us to question, towrestle, to debate, to dialogue
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with the faith, with theseancient texts.
And over the next couple ofmonths, when we do that and
these questions resonate deepwithin our souls and our lives,
not just today, on Sundaymornings, but tomorrow and on
Thursday and on Friday, may theyinfiltrate all that we do, may
they haunt us even as we sleep.
That's my prayer for you thatyou would be haunted in your
dreams by these questions.
And may, today and for at leastthe next seven days, may you
(29:58):
explore what do you seek.
Amen.
also the Lord forever .
Amen.
So, god, we pray that thismorning you would give us a deep
sense of your goodness andmercy is coming after us, it's
following us, and that you haveset this table before us.
And, as David writes, in thepresence of our enemies, you
anoint our head with oil and ourcup it overflows.
And this morning, god, may wegather in this room and be
(00:21):
reminded of your goodness andmercy and undeserved, unmerited
grace and favor in our lives, sothat we can then leave and
share with others.
Give us wisdom that we couldtap into, this deep, ancient
wisdom found in the scripturesthat's thousands upon thousands
of years old, that stillresonates today in our lives,
and may it be a tether for us,may it be a guiding light in
(00:43):
every single way, and may we useit as we navigate our own lives
in this world today, withordinary jobs and school lives
and social lives.
May it impact us deeply inevery way.
We pray, god, that you wouldwake us up and inspire us in all
the ways.
We need it so desperately thismorning, and would you help
correct any kind of yeah, justfalse paradigms that we hold
(01:05):
this morning, and would youbless us as we gather in Jesus'
name.
Amen, amen, all right, how arewe doing this morning Without
fail?
Whenever I get to talk, I justhave this frog in my throat.
So it's not anyway, all right.
Well, hey, good to be with youguys this morning.
It's a celebration.
Oh no, I'm good, no, anyway,yeah, thank you, I appreciate it
(01:26):
.
Actually, I'll take a sip, allright, thank you, olivia, okay,
Okay, let's jump in.
So we are launching a brand newsermon series and we're calling
it this Isn't Rhetorical theQuestions of Jesus.
We're going to get into it, butJesus asked over 300 questions
(01:48):
in his life, at least, accordingto the gospels, 300.
And so we're going to unpackone of them each week, and so
that's what we're doing here.
So I think questions areunbelievably profound.
If we let questions work on usand let them sink deep into our
lives, into our souls, into ourdaily lives our daily lives as
students, as teachers, aslawyers, as whatever it is that
you're doing If we let thesequestions sink deep into our
(02:09):
hearts and our souls, I thinkthey can really bring about
transformation.
See questions, reveal anduncover information.
When you ask them, you ask theright ones, and questions also,
in a similar way, can lead toprofound transformation.
If you let them work on us,they can change our lives, can
lead to profound transformation.
If you let them work on us,they can change our lives.
I love good questions.
In fact, here's some that Ithink are really poignant and
(02:32):
worth asking.
Oh, we had this happen thismorning.
It wasn't Hang on one second.
Oh, it's me again.
I had my thing off.
By the way, this is a true story.
I got three hours of sleep lastnight.
Can you tell?
Okay, the sermon title.
I have no idea why.
I just could not fall asleep.
I was so excited to see all ofyou guys.
The sermon title is called whatAre you After this Morning?
(02:54):
Okay, here's some greatquestions.
Yeah, when was the last timeyou felt fully seen?
If I were to ask you thisquestion, when was the last time
that you felt fully seen?
Yeah, I want to work on you fora minute or two.
How about this question?
I love a good question.
Where do you go when your soulfeels tired?
Yeah, where do you go?
A lot of levels of that question.
(03:15):
You can see already how a goodquestion can sort of just take
you deep into something thatmaybe you weren't even expecting
, and it got layers to it and itcan reveal information, or at
least begin to invite you towrestle with these thoughts and
ideas.
That's what good questions do.
How about this great, profoundquestion?
Yeah, why do we press harder onthe remote when we know it's
(03:35):
just that the batteries are dead?
If I press harder, I think thebatteries will work.
Why do we do that?
It's a profound question.
How about this deeply profoundquestion?
And if you are under the age of19, this one's for you.
What exactly does six, sevenmean?
Nobody knows what it means.
Anybody never heard of thisbefore.
(03:59):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, thewolves know what's up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,okay, how about this one?
I'll move on.
Okay, how about?
Why do I remember a songlearned from 1998, way back in
the 1900s, but I can't remember.
I put my phone 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, don't pretend thisdoesn't happen to you.
I see you.
I know this is a lot of us outthere.
How this one and this one hashaunted me since I found this
(04:28):
question.
I'm like this is a good one.
If a tomato is a fruit, doesthat make ketchup a smoothie?
Maybe you need to go home todayand have a nice smoothie, fruit
smoothie, although you guys areall Minnesotans, so this is
probably too spicy for you, thatketchup.
You know I'm right too.
You know I'm right.
You too, you know I'm right,you Minnesotans are soft.
I'm just kidding, I'm aMinnesotan too.
Now, I love a good question.
(04:51):
They're unbelievable.
A good question, when you hearit, can challenge you, it can
sink deep into your heart and ifyou hear it it can work on you,
it can work you over, it canecho in your thoughts and in
your sleep even.
It's what good questions do itcan bring transformation in your
life.
A couple of years ago I was on aretreat with a guy called Kent
and my friend Kent and Kent, ifyou know Kent Dobson, he's an
(05:12):
unbelievable question asker.
I often jokingly but seriouslysay he's always like one or two
or three questions away with mefrom making me cry.
It's unreal, I'm not kidding.
So we're on a retreat and I hadthis dream and he does dream
work with me and he'll kind ofunpack my dreams.
And I had this dream one nightwhere I was driving a car and I
was leaning back and there was ayoung man in the back of my car
(05:32):
.
I was doing a blessing, I wasgiving him the benediction, I
was blessing him, and I justfelt this profound sense of
meaning and I woke up.
And so Kent goes.
Oh, let me ask you a couple ofquestions.
He goes.
Number one how did you feelwhen you were blessing him?
I go oh man, I felt like I feltreally good.
I felt like this deep sense ofmeaning and purpose.
I just loved it.
I loved blessing this young man.
He goes, okay.
Question two why do you thinkyou felt this deep sense of
(05:53):
meaning?
Oh, I just think it's like partof my calling to bless other
people to words.
And then question three, whichis what snapped me in half and
made me weep like a baby.
He goes Ryan, who does this foryou?
Nobody, I just cried, notnobody, I'm just kidding, but I
(06:21):
did cry, I wept like a baby.
I'm like what is wrong with me?
A good question can sink deepinto the most inner, hidden we
thought parts of our souls and,like some, unearth something
down.
That's what questions do.
So I love a good question.
A good question can invite us.
Oh, by the way, this is whatConfucius said about questions.
He said uh, the man or womanwho asks a question is a fool
for a minute.
The man who does not ask is afool for life.
So don't point fingers, but askquestions.
(06:43):
It's what helps us to not befoolish in our lives.
How about this famous question?
The wright brothers famouslyasked what if humans could fly
like birds?
It's a silly question, isn't it, isn't it?
Look at us now.
Who would would have thought Ilove a good question.
(07:04):
Did you know this?
By the way, kids are not afraidat all of questions.
They, on average, ask about1,000 questions a day.
Do you know this?
Yeah, some dads are like yes, Ido.
Actually, I'm totally kidding,it's only 300.
But you guys weren't evensurprised when I said 1,000.
Oh, yeah, 1,000.
(07:24):
No doubt kidding, it's only 300.
But you guys weren't evensurprised when I said a thousand
.
Oh, yeah, a thousand.
No, no doubt.
Yeah, yeah, you totally believeme.
In fact, some of you, teachersor parents of talkative kids,
are like only a thousand.
I think my kid asked that in anhour alone.
Okay, 300 is still a lot.
And I think over half of theseare the question why, why, why,
why?
But keep in mind the words ofConfucius, who said that a
(07:46):
person who asks a question is afool for a minute and the one
who doesn't is a fool for alifetime.
You know how many questionsadults ask in one day.
Kids ask 300.
Adults ask a measly 20 to 30.
Who's the fool now?
Jesus said have faith like achild man.
(08:06):
What happened to us adults?
Why do we get so serious andwhere did our passions go and
our curiosity, our wonder?
What sucked the life out of usas we got older and aged?
Where our questions go?
Questions can lead us downpathways to discover new and
wonderfully beautiful things.
A question, by the way, innately, is an invitation.
By the way, I love this one.
Uh, this is one of the morefamous lines, I would say maybe
the most famous line in all ofEnglish literature.
(08:27):
Hamlet says to be or not to be.
That's the question.
He's, if you know the play byShakespeare, he's wrestling with
existence itself.
Is it better to exist or notexist, To be or not to be?
The most famous line inliterature, in the most famous
line in literature, in Englishliterature, is this one it's a
question To be or not to be.
That is the question.
Yeah, I love a good question.
(08:51):
Questions are, of course,invitations to relationship.
Questions are not statements.
A statement is one directional.
I tell you something, that'skind of it.
A question invites relationship.
It assumes there's another onthe other side of that question
that might respond, might giveme something, you know an answer
or something else.
But there's this invitation toa relationship and that way a
(09:11):
question is very much like adoor it's just opening.
You can kind of walk throughand invite others to walk
through.
It's a beautiful dance orwrestling match or something
like this.
This is what questions do andwhat they do for us.
I love it.
Questions also operate on manylevels.
There's the literal level,there's like emotional,
psychological, spiritual.
There's all kinds of levels toquestions.
(09:32):
For example, if I asked you,are you hungry?
Well, maybe you know this, butthere's the Bushmen in the
Kalahari Desert, in the southernpart of Africa, in South Africa
.
They often talk about twodifferent kinds of hunger.
There's the big hunger and thelittle hunger.
The little hunger is, of course, hunger for food.
I need some calories, nutrition, nourishment, something to get
through the day, some fuel.
The big hunger, though, theysay the Bushmen say, is meaning
(09:57):
and existential meaning,direction in life, purpose.
That's the big hunger.
It's many levels.
So if I said, are you hungry?
You might answer in any numberof ways.
You could answer by talkingabout food, or we're talking
about meaning and purpose.
This, by the way, is calledpolysemy.
It's when words have a varietyof levels of meaning.
Polysemy, not polygamy Don'tconfuse that, you get into
(10:18):
trouble in certain communitiesbut polysemy Because questions
have many layers to them andsometimes we would do well to go
one or two or three layers down.
Questions also activatecuriosity.
Psychologists suggest that whenyou are asked a question, your
brain releases dopamine.
Now, for those of you who lovequestions, it sort of excites us
(10:38):
.
We all get kind of jazzed upand we're ready to answer.
And for those of you who getmaybe stage fright or don't want
to be wrong, you might getnervous and you have like a
flight response to this dopaminerelease.
But it like sort of causes this, like sort of curiosity within
us, and it's something differentthan a statement.
The brain reacts differentlythan if someone just does a
statement to you, because itinvites us to be curious and
(11:00):
good questions create openness.
That's what they do, like anopen door.
They also frame possibilityright, like what's possible, and
they sort of invite us towonder and sort of think outside
the box and allow for discovery, even self-discovery.
I love it in Genesis 3, god,when the humans rebel against
God and they eat of the fruitand they go and hide from God,
(11:21):
which is a fascinating ideabecause God is the one person,
person, the one being, the onething that can help them.
And they run and hide becausethey're full of shame, of course
.
And God goes to the humans andhe says this where are you?
Now?
Look, I assume that God knewwhere they were Like oh, you're
behind the bush.
(11:41):
If God is everywhere, god'slike you can't really hide.
I can see you.
You're like oh, you're behindthe bush.
If God is everywhere, god'slike you can't really hide.
I can see you're right there.
What does God ask him?
Or why does God ask them inthis and there's multiple layers
here where are you?
Where did you go?
What happened in implicit?
And this is why are you hidingfrom me?
(12:02):
Why are you ashamed?
Where are you?
I love it.
Good questions invite us toreflect and to wrestle these
kinds of questions that sinkdeep into our souls.
I've told this story before, butwhen I was younger I was about
19 years old, and I had wanderedfar from home, if you will, and
(12:23):
had sort of been to foreignlands, literal and metaphorical,
but metaphorically there wasnothing out there for me.
I tried lots of things, there'snothing really out there that's
life-giving.
So I began to kind of venturemy way back home, if you will.
But one night, as I'm kind ofwandering back home
metaphorically I was out withsome friends.
We're at a party, hanging outand drinking a little bit too
(12:43):
much or a lot too much, andthey're out on the front porch
and I had this sense of thisdeep existential emptiness and I
remember saying to my friendout loud I go man, what are we
doing out here?
What are we doing out here?
And he goes oh, we're hangingout, man, we're watching the
sunset, we're just gonna hang on, talk for a little bit.
No, like he didn't get it.
(13:04):
You know, no, dude, what are wedoing out here?
Where are you?
Where have you gone?
Questions are also subversive Ifyou know the story of Socrates,
one of the more famousphilosophers in Athens of his
day.
He asked a lot of questionsthat made a lot of people mad,
the powers that be.
He asked such subversivequestions that undermined their
(13:26):
authority and maybe theirunhealthy behavior that it got
him killed.
He was sentenced to deathSocrates was because of the
questions that he asked.
That sort of subverted thenarrative, got him into trouble.
Questions can also be liberating.
If you remember the civilrights movement, during the
abolitionist movement, one ofthe questions that people asked
was am I not a man and am am Inot your brother?
(13:48):
Yeah, so it was written onsigns and people who were
protesting segregation and sortof this way of life in the 60s
and 70s in the 60s anyway, theybegan to ask hey, am I not a
human, am I not a man?
Am I not your brother?
It was a liberating questionfor those who could hear it and
it subverted the narrative thatno, you're not, you're not equal
(14:08):
to me.
No, no, am I not your brother?
Yeah, questions can be thiskind of liberating thing.
Questions can also be dangerous.
Just ask any NFL head coachafter a loss of a game.
They don't want to answer a lotof questions.
Or ask politicians.
You watch them dodge questions.
This is why, because questionscan be dangerous, they can
reveal things that they don'twant to be revealed.
Questions can be indeed adangerous, dangerous thing.
(14:31):
They also slow us down if welet them.
Where are you?
What are we doing out here.
Where did you go?
They also invite us to wonder.
I wonder, where am I?
I wonder if Adam and Eve askedthemselves I don't know.
I wonder what happened.
(14:52):
Where am I?
What am I doing out here?
What's going on?
That's what questions do.
So we're beginning this serieson the questions of Jesus called
.
This Isn't Rhetorical.
Jesus asked over 300 questions2,000 years ago.
But I believe the beauty ofthis ancient text.
Now look when you read theBible.
I get it.
It's ancient, it's antiquated,it feels archaic and old.
(15:13):
I get it.
But you guys, there are stillthings in there that resonate
deeply with us moderns,enlightened people, thousands of
years later.
That's the reason it's stillsold so many copies, this thing
called the Bible, and that westill read it and we talk about
it, because it's incrediblyinsightful into the human
condition and our place in theworld and with God and each
(15:34):
other and the communities thatwe're around and we're in.
It's an unbelievably helpfulancient text and in a world of
rapid fire tweets and shallowthoughts and quick opinions, we
could use some deep wisdom.
Are you with me?
And so Jesus asked thesequestions.
I want to ask us the samequestions today, so we're going
to take one question each week.
Unpack it a bit, and I want toask us that question.
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And then have you askedyourself this very same question
throughout the week.
So write it down, put it onyour mirror, put it on your car,
put it on your front door,whatever you got to do, but ask,
let this question work on you.
Maybe it'll bring someenlightenment or some
transformation in your life.
And let these questions be aninvitation to you.
The great Rilke, the poet Rilke,said this be patient towards
(16:15):
all that is unsolved in yourheart.
Well, we love answers, don't we?
We love answers in ourpost-enlightenment,
post-scientific revolution.
We love this, our modernWestern.
We love answers.
Gotta find the answer.
But Rilke says just be patientand let these unsolved answers,
let them just hold attention andtry to love the questions
themselves.
He writes Like locked rooms andlike books that are now written
(16:38):
in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answerswhich cannot be given to you,
because you would not be able tolive them.
He says you don't know yet.
Just hang tight, and the pointis to live everything.
Rilke says Live the questionsnow and perhaps you will then,
gradually, without noticing it,live along some distant day into
(17:04):
the answer.
I love that.
Be patient, let the questionswork you and marinate.
Let yourself marinate in thequestions.
See, the Jewish faith was builtaround questions.
It revolved around questions.
So the rabbis believe thattruth wasn't passed down like as
a propositional truth statement.
Here's the truth.
Rather, the truth wasdiscovered by rustling and
debate and dialogue anddiscussion and arguing around
(17:26):
walks and journeys and campfiresand these kinds of things.
It's how you discovered thetruth.
It wasn't just passed down on asheet of paper.
That's how they did it and theybelieve this too, that the
questions were not a form ofrebellion but a form of faith.
It helped deepen your faith,help you discover the deep
meaning of faith.
When I first became a pastorhere years ago, there was a
(17:48):
pastor in the area who was sortof a theologian in residence in
the area and a Lutheran pastor,and I wanted to know like hey,
is this Lutheran story narrativetradition for me or not?
So I wanted to ask him allkinds of questions, and so I did
.
And this person it wasn'tPastor Paul, by the way, if
you're wondering, it's not Paul,but this person they couldn't
really handle all my questionsbecause they sort of assumed I
(18:10):
was attacking the faith and theygot defensive and they kind of
put the sort of the fences upand they got like irritated,
like I was always attacking.
I'm like no, no, I'm justtrying to wrestle with the faith
.
I got to know what it means tobe a Lutheran and to live as a
part of the stream and traditionand it just was not helpful for
me at all.
So I left that dialogue aftertrying for many weeks and I went
and said I was a part of LutherSeminary, getting my work done
(18:33):
there, my Lutheran core coursesthere, and met a guy called Dr
Stephen Paulson, and Paulson wasthis wizard man and he let me
ask any question I wanted and hewas not insecure, he was not
afraid of my questions, he lovedit.
We would wrestle and argue andit was awesome and I found
incredible responses from DrPaul.
(18:53):
It was super helpful and itbuilt my faith.
It sort of rooted my faith.
It helped me root my faithBecause questions are not
rebellion always, but a form offaith.
That's what the rabbis believe.
This dialogue, this back andforth, this wrestling, is how we
discover our faith.
So of course Jesus would asklots of questions, the disciples
(19:14):
too.
The Talmud said this a wisequestion is half of the answer.
So, as I mentioned, jesus askedover 300 questions.
He asked questions like what doyou want?
What does he want me to do foryou?
What do you think?
What does he want me to do foryou?
What do you think?
(19:34):
Questions of self-discoverywhat do you want?
He also asked is your Facebookmarketplace item still available
?
Things like that.
You know deep questions.
And here's the question that heasked today.
So John is out walking around.
John the baptizer has a coupleof disciples with him, because
John was also sort of a rabbi,had followers.
And when these followers andJohn see Jesus, john says oh, by
(19:55):
the way, let me just read thisbefore I say the question why
does Jesus ask so many questions?
Well, because that's whatrabbis did In the Jewish world.
The rabbi doesn't give you theanswer, a neat answer, but he
gave you a question big enoughto live in.
Think back to the Rilke poemFaith was never about shutting
down a conversation.
It was about keeping the searchalive.
That's why, at Passover,children don't receive answers
(20:16):
first.
They ask questions first.
Let them ask them.
Jesus continues this tradition.
He doesn't hand out formulas.
He invites us to wrestle and towonder and to seek.
I love that.
So John is out with hisdisciples, his followers, and
they see Jesus.
John says, hey, look, there'sthe Lamb of God.
The two disciples hear him andthey say they hear him say this
(20:38):
and they begin to follow Jesus.
So Jesus is out just walkingaround.
John's like yo, that's the Lambof God.
John's followers leave John,they go find Jesus.
They start following Jesus.
Jesus turns around, says hey,what are you looking for?
I love this question.
This is his first question thathe asks in the Gospel of John,
by the way, whenever in theancient text, when it was a
(21:00):
person who speaks for the firsttime, in this case it's this
very first question.
It's significant, it's like asignature.
So notice what, what the personsays, what the first question
they ask is.
And jesus's question is what areyou looking for?
It sort of frames his wholeministry.
He's asking him what are youlooking for?
What are you after?
Also, when jesus, you know,years later, when he's
(21:21):
resurrected, the first questionhe asked after the resurrection,
he asked mary, hey, well, whomare you seeking?
So there's this like frame,this bookend of Jesus's life and
at least the latter three orthree, three years or so of what
are you looking for?
Whom are you looking for?
What are you seeking?
What are you after?
Yeah, and in the Greek textit's something like this.
(21:42):
It's like Jesus asked him whatare you seeking?
And, by the way, the wordseeking it's not like a passive
wish, it's not like oh, I wish Ihad a million dollars.
It's not this passive verb oh,I really would like to have an
ice cream cone.
No, it's more existential.
It's his quest, it's hislonging, it's a pursuit in the
original Greek language.
(22:03):
So it could be like this he'sasked them hey, what are you
guys looking for?
What are you after?
What do you want?
What do you seek?
What do you desire?
It presupposes they are lookingfor something.
These two young men are aftersomething and they think they've
seen it in Jesus.
So they go follow him and heasks them what are you looking
for?
Yeah, what are you looking for?
(22:23):
It was this piercingexistential challenge for the
disciples these two especially,by the way, I love this.
In the hebrew culture andcontext and language, there's
this idea called midrash ormidrash.
Midrash is this idea ofinterpreting texts or the
ancient laws by wrestling, byconversation.
It was an interpretive tool, soyou would do midrash.
(22:45):
This, by the way, is how Ipreach a lot.
I just do midrash around thetext.
You ask, ask all thesequestions, you wrestle with it,
you try to find stories and youkind of align it together.
It's this incredible way ofwrestling with the ideas and
texts.
It's called midrash, and theHebrew word for seeking is the
same root word as the word formidrash.
It's the word darash, and soJesus could be asking them hey,
(23:05):
fellas, what are you after?
What are you seeking?
What's your midrash?
What's your midrash?
What interpretation of life areyou seeking?
What framework for life are youafter?
Because we all have a framework, by the way.
Do you know this?
I mean, this past week, we'veseen a lot of folks frame life
in this way oh, if you don'tagree with somebody, let's shoot
(23:25):
them, okay, or yell at themonline or cut them out of our
lives.
Or maybe it's framed like oh,violence is indeed the way to go
.
This will solve all of ourproblems.
It's more violence.
You know, we've had a number ofshootings and acts of atrocious
, senseless violence, and Ithink back to when I was just
out of high school and we hadthe Columbine shootings in
(23:47):
Colorado.
We had just become friends.
One of my friends was shot andkilled in that in that incident
back in 90, 99.
And yeah, they found out laterthe two shooters, eric Harris
and Dylan Klebold, when theyunpacked all of their writings
and their journals.
These two young men had adopteda form of philosophy, it's sort
of something like nihilism, andthey railed against God and
(24:10):
society and their community andall the people that had harmed
them, and it became this sort ofnihilistic way of being that
just nothing means anything.
Forget all of it, screweverybody, and then it leads
inevitably to destruction andviolence.
This is, of course, what alwayshappens when you embrace these
sort of dark forms of thisphilosophy called nihilism.
(24:32):
Read Fight Club or watch themovie.
I guess, too, that's whathappens when we untether
ourselves from a proper frame oflife.
It leads to destruction andviolence.
So you have.
I don't know all the time whythese folks do what they do, but
we've all adopted someframework of life.
Some are better than others.
I'm just telling you, and Jesusasks them what is your
(24:53):
framework of life?
Some are better than others.
I'm just telling you and Jesusasks him what is your framework
for life and what are you after?
What do you want?
Yeah, then they found it,whatever it is in Jesus.
What are you after?
By the way, you notice this too, that sometimes the things
we're after are not the thingswe're really after.
Sometimes we're up here on thesurface level, but there are
things deeper that we'reactually after.
(25:14):
We just don't know it yet.
I mean, many of us, you know, wewould love to be rich and
famous.
I know I would be.
Anyway, it'd be awesome to berich and famous.
You know, like well, why.
Why would you want to be richand famous?
Well, because then people wouldrecognize money.
I could just buy a nice car anddrive around in a sweet car.
It would be just awesome, it'dbe so great.
Okay, well, why does thatmatter to you?
Oh, well, then, because youknow, then I, it'd make my life
(25:37):
a little bit easier.
I don't have to stress outabout it.
Okay, yeah, fine, fine, but why?
And you dig a few layers down, afew floors, and you realize, oh
, I think, deep down, I justwant to be loved, I want someone
to see me, I want to matter,I'm afraid of dying and I think
if I do all these things up here, I won't die, I'll live forever
, because sometimes, deep down,the things we desire, not really
(26:00):
the things that we desire.
So Jesus asks what are youafter?
What do you want?
What do you want?
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I love this.
It's pretty great.
You know, at the bottom is thisidea of your physiological needs
.
And once you have those met,great now what.
Well, once you have food andwater, okay, now you safety.
(26:20):
You kind of go up the ladder.
So once you have safety, you'relike safe.
You got a shelter and maybesome protection in a tribe.
Okay now what?
Well, social needs you got somefriends.
You got some friends.
You got some belonging Okay,now what.
Well, self-esteem, okay nowwhat.
Well, self-exercise, okay, nowwhat.
And when all these things arefulfilled, and you're still
(26:41):
asking yourself now what?
There's a deeper hole in ourlives, a deeper longing that
we're not able to find an answerfor.
That's the thing.
That's the thing that's down inthere.
That's the thing.
That's the thing that's down inthere.
What are you after?
For many of us, I don't knowwhat it is.
In our culture today, we justseek to be right.
Rightness seems like this thingthat we're all after.
(27:02):
You know, if I want to be right, then I'll have what's below
that, what's down there, yeah,what are you seeking?
What are the things that you'reafter?
Maybe it's perfection.
If I can just be perfect, I canjust put on this and make no
mistakes, and then everyone willsee okay, fine, what's down?
What's down beneath that?
What's down there?
Maybe it's pleasure.
I just want to do whatever youknow, sort of self-actualization
(27:24):
through hedonism, okay, butwhat's down there, what's
underneath that?
Yeah, it's power, it'suniqueness.
We love to be unique these days, don't we?
I was in a retreat just acouple weeks ago and I'm not
going to say it.
No, I'll move on.
We just love being unique, youknow, and the more unique I can
be, the more I'm important.
(27:45):
So what's down there, what'sbeneath the surface?
What's down there?
Maybe that you want to belong,you want to be part of a bigger
story, you want to have meaning,maybe you want grace that you
don't deserve, and if you couldjust get it from something or
somebody who would just, theywould call this the jesus hole
or the god shaped hole.
It's cliche, because it's truefor many of us.
(28:06):
So I would ask you today, as Iclose here, what are you after
these young men show up becausethey're looking for something.
Maybe you're here today becauseyou're looking for something.
Maybe you don't know what it is, but you have this sense deep
down in your soul likesomething's missing.
And you're here because maybethis group of people can help me
, or that weirdo with the beard,maybe he can help me.
(28:29):
I don't know.
Yeah, what are you after?
What are you longing for?
Weirdo with the beard?
Oh, maybe he can help me.
I don't know.
Yeah, what are you after?
What are you longing for?
What do you need?
What do you want?
What's deep down in there?
These men see Jesus and they goand take a closer look.
Maybe you're here, you want totake a closer look.
I'd encourage you to not leaveit and to ask somebody to sort
of bounce some ideas around withyou, around, to sort of bounce
(28:50):
some ideas around with you.
Maybe.
Ask for prayer Someone next toyou, someone in the band myself,
kirsten.
One of the ushers grabs someoneto pray with them.
Jesus asks them what are youafter?
And I love their response.
They say oh Rabbi, where areyou staying?
They answer his question with aquestion hey, what are you
after?
Oh Rabbi, where are you staying?
They're not dodging it.
This is how the rabbis anddisciples would work.
(29:11):
They would wrestle by askingthey're showing him, we're in,
we're serious, we want towrestle with you, we're in,
where are you staying?
He responds come and see.
Come and see.
That's what the faith isCentral.
May you know in the deepestparts of your souls that God has
invited us to question, towrestle your souls, that God has
invited us to question, towrestle, to debate, to dialogue
(29:33):
with the faith, with theseancient texts.
And over the next couple ofmonths, when we do that and
these questions resonate deepwithin our souls and our lives,
not just today, on Sundaymornings, but tomorrow and on
Thursday and on Friday, may theyinfiltrate all that we do, may
they haunt us even as we sleep.
That's my prayer for you thatyou would be haunted in your
dreams by these questions.
And may, today and for at leastthe next seven days, may you
(29:58):
explore what do you seek.
Amen.
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