Week 08 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Jude 17, 20b-25; Psalm 63; Mark 11.27-33

In a sermon entitled Puer Iesus ('The boy Jesus'), Thomas Aquinas, preaching to a university congregation, gives advice about how to learn well. One of the things he recommends is to answer questions prudently. Any response should correspond to the intellectual ability of the one responding - don't try to answer something that is beyond your capacity. Your response should correspond to the character of the one who is asking the question of you. Thirdly, it should be a response to the question asked and not just waffle or, in St Thomas's words, 'full of wind'.

Obviously it is the second of these which is in play in today's gospel reading. The chief priests, scribes and elders put a question to Jesus about his authority for doing the things he does. Jesus replies with a question of his own: was the Baptist's baptism from heaven or earth?

Their hesitation reveals that their initial question was disingenuous: their interest in his answer was not genuine as they wanted, as they did elsewhere in the gospels, to trap him. So he leaves them with the question about his own authority.

Apart from confirming the wisdom of Saint Thomas's advice - your response should correspond to the character of the one who is asking the questin of you - what else can we take from this incident? One thing we can take is the reminder that we need to clarify our own motives in asking questions of others. Are we genuinely interested in the knowledge they can share with us or have we some other motive in asking it of them? Are we genuinely interested in them at all or only in some agenda of our own?

Likewise for the questions we put to God.

Sincere questioning means we have put our faith in the one to whom we put the question. We are not teasing or provoking or trying to embarrass them. Sincere questioning is one of the most important things a student has to do. But 'a student must believe' is a piece of wisdom from the ancient world. A student must trust the teacher. And this is what is lacking in the opponents of Jesus. They do not believe in him, they do not trust him, and so he does not entrust himself to them.

The first reading today is from the Letter of Jude but frm the verses we read it omits his reference to scoffers which is actually very relevant to the gospel that accompanies it. The words of the apostles to which Jude refers, omitted from the reading, are that 'there will be scoffers, setting up divisions'. Recalling that then what follows makes more sense: 'build yourselves up on your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, wait for the mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ'. 

If we do those things then we are in a right disposition to put our questions to God. What is even more wonderful, we are in a right disposition to receive from God direct, truthful and life-giving answers. If we entrust ourselves to God, God will entrust himself to us. For He has already done so, sending the Son and the Spirit.