On the Power of Jesus' Questions: Calling us to Transcendence

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I liked your post on Jesus's two questions to Peter and his disciples from Sunday. It was the first time I ever heard anyone speak about one question, "Who do others say that I am?" as representing the world, and the other, "And you, who do YOU say that I am?" representing the Kingdom or being freed from "the world" and moving toward the Kingdom. I think you are right that the world tells us what to think and buy, value and reject, though I never saw it this way before. I have two questions. First, do all questions have this kind of power or did only Jesus' questions?  Second, why does Jesus tell his disciples to say nothing to anyone about who he is?]]

Thanks for your comments and questions! While I believe Jesus' questions might have had a peculiar kind of power, I believe that was because they were motivated by love and sought to bring the best (i.e., the truest) out of every person. Also, I believe that it was because Jesus was absolutely trustworthy (i.e., he challenged people but they were completely safe with him too) that his questions could work as powerfully as they did. He asked questions like, "Do you want to be well?", "What would you have me do?" "Do you love (Agape) me?" "Why are you anxious (or terrified)?" "What did you go out to the desert to see?" "What are you looking for?" and, of course, the two we heard on Sunday and many others besides. Each one of these confronts us with ourselves, each uncovers the deeply held beliefs and biases, and often too, the deeply hidden parts or dimensions of ourselves and asks us to trust Jesus with them. 

When I hear these kinds of questions that were so typical of Jesus in the Gospels, it is clear these are no mere requests for information or a kind of polite "How are you doing?" with no real desire to hear (much less nurture!) the truth. Instead, I hear a call to vulnerability, self-knowledge, and faith (trust) in the face of our deepest needs and desires. This is the way we grow, the way we are called beyond ourselves, first with confrontation (You are sick, you are looking to me for something, you are frightened, you betrayed me and I think there is something deeper and truer within you, etc.) and then, with a call to transcendence and the invitation to place ourselves in Jesus' hands so that that change might be achieved. And even in Jesus' absence these kinds of questions still have great power. They can still confront us with who we are and what we hold as true and sometimes incontrovertible, and they can stir us to imagine something other and even something greater, not only in ourselves but in others and in the whole of God's creation. 

If we can allow ourselves to "live the questions," (Rilke) we will also begin to see where we are really profoundly dissatisfied with the answers we were formerly at least superficially comfortable with, or where potentialities and opportunities lay deeply hidden within us, covered by layers of "What others have told us" or much of "what we have become convinced of."  Questions of the sort Jesus seemed to specialize in are like psychological or existential dynamite. They can explode the hardened worldly accretions of years of hopelessness and futility or complacency and unearth the fires of Life burning at the core of our Being that make us alive, creative, hopeful, and courageous. Of course, the one who asks the questions is also critical in this entire process, but I think there is no doubt that the questions themselves can work in us and produce powerful results.

Why did Jesus tell his disciples not to tell anyone about him (or about who he was)? I think there are several reasons. 

• First, when Peter gave his answer, "You are the Messiah" Jesus had already become persona non grata to the Jewish and Roman leaders. They were out to get him and Jesus needed to maintain a low profile, not have his disciples touting him as the Jewish Messiah! 
• Secondly, while Jesus did not eschew the title Messiah, he knew it needed to be redefined in terms of suffering if God's love and mercy were to be fully and exhaustively revealed. A God who chose to become God-With-Us to the extent Jesus' Abba did this was literally inconceivable as was a crucified Messiah. One needed to meet this God face to face and, in Christ, allow him to confront, change, and grow one's heart. Second or third-hand reports would not do it! This was true of the disciples as well as those whom they might meet.
• Thirdly, those who met Jesus needed to see (discern) and say (claim) for themselves who it was they were meeting. This was imperative for those who would truly follow Jesus, particularly since they would be following him to his crucifixion --- and potentially to their own passion and death as well. Only those who answered from their own hearts what they truly knew in that profoundly biblical sense of "knowing," would be able to muster the courage one's discipleship to this man would necessitate. 

As you imply in your comments, an encounter with Jesus and his questions led his hearers to a new kind of freedom. It is this freedom we see in the book of Acts when Peter and the other disciples start proclaiming the crucified and risen Christ to their fellow Jews --- those responsible for Jesus' trial and crucifixion --- the kind of freedom associated with what the New Testament calls parrhesia, a remarkable boldness of speech (and associated living) that is wholly transparent to others. One says what is on one's mind and does so completely, without fear or rhetorical tricks or veiling. One is made free to be oneself and to say precisely what one believes so that others might also be brought to the same kind of freedom in Christ.