There is a saying, “keep it simple, stupid.” This saying is directed to those who like to throw around all sorts of information, so much so that it muddies the point they are trying to make. The mark of a really intelligent person is the ability to take a very complicated and complex issue and reduce it to its simplest form, making it understandable to others.
I have been recently having Facebook conversations, if one can actually call them conversations, with the ultra neo-orthodox Catholic right. It is quite evident that the base of most of their information is mostly hearsay. To attempt to prove they are right, they tend to throw around sanctimonious platitudes and biblical pericopes like simplistic bumper sticker soundbytes, generally out of context. Any of the biblical disciplines used in proper biblical exegesis by any true scholar or student of scripture are totally absent. They have no apparent desire to explore the complexities or the depths of the subject about which they feel so self-righteous. Their ability to think critically about very complex questions in human life is not apparent. When their arguments or sentiments are questioned or countered, they are unable to respond, some resorting to sputtering out insults, name calling, and aghast accusations of excommunication. I have been called a “demon”, a fat piece of sh*t”, told to get “f*cked”, and so on. It is akin to attempting to reason with a young child who covers his/her ears and shouts repeatedly, “I know you are, but what am I.”
I suppose one could simply ignore them and let them drown in their own self-righteousness, their ignorance like a millstone around their neck dragging them down into the depths. As frustrating and as irritable as it is in trying to expand their minds to consider the wider complexities of life, the educator in me prods me to not leave them in their small, dank, miserable world of fear.
Fear is the dominant characteristic of many of the religious right, regardless of the Christian denomination, or for that matter, any world religion. They live in a world of fear, and the only thing that can protect them from the scariness around them is the perceived palisade of half-truths they build up around themselves. Not thoroughly understanding the fullness of the truth their religion provides, they tend to crouch in darkness behind this palisade clutching their perceived truth of their religion like knife, blindly and erractically swinging the blade around them. They hope their blade will cut the Evil they think is attacking them, but in the end the only thing the blade cuts is emptiness. The irony is that the Evil they are trying to fend off is not outside the palisade. That Evil has already breached the palisade and is sitting comfortably and safely next to them.
When I was in graduate school in the seminary, Fr Mike Joncas briefly interrupted one of his lectures to pose this question to my class. “What is the purpose of graduate school?” The summation of our response to him boiled down to “coming to know the answers.” Mike looked at us and said, “No. The purpose of graduate school is not to know the answers. The purpose is to know the correct question to ask.”
God gave humanity a brain so that we might be able to ask the key questions that are necessary in order to become fully human. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, didn’t so much give answers, but instead posed questions for his disciples. Many of his parables were not simplistic stories, but challenged the listener to really think and explore what the parable meant. In Mark’s Gospel, the apostles are particularly portrayed as rather dense, and seemed always puzzled as to what a parable meant, often to Jesus’ own consternation. A true follower of Jesus does not live in comfortable complacency seeking simplistic answers to the complexities of human life. A true follower of Jesus, rather, lives in the crucible, always trying to discover where God is within the complexities of human life.
For the true disciple of Jesus, it is not having the answers that is important. Rather, it is the journey to the fullness of the Reign of God that is ultimately most important. Consider for a moment, Mary and Joseph’s journey as parents of Jesus. Scripture repeatedly tells us that they did not have a full understanding of what the mission of their special child was all about. All they were capable of doing was pondering and reflecting upon the events of life as they unfolded. They had no answers. Mary continued questioning and pondering her way as a faithful disciple of her son all the way to Calvary, never fully understanding the will of God but trying to understand it as it unfolded in her life.
In the end, it is not answers that we seek. We seek to ask the correct question, which is always, “Where is God in all of this?” That question will ultimately lead us to that which we seek, God.
