April 27, 2003
Second Sunday of Easter
I John 1:1-7
John 20:19-31

Rainer Rilke, in his Letters to a Young Poet writes,

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved
in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves.

Do not seek the answers
which cannot be given
because you would not be able
to live them.

And the point,
is to live everything.

Live the questions now
Perhaps you will then
gradually,
without noticing it,
live along some distant day
into the answers."

In Zen teachings digesting the big questions of life is described as being like "swallowing a red-hot iron ball that won't go up or down the gullet. Let the questions burn."

Live the questions. Let the questions burn.

In our Christian lives one question to be lived, a question that burns in our hearts, minds and souls is this question of resurrection: "What is it? What can it be? Is it real? Did he raise up from the grave? or is it myth — a story filled with meaning for human life?"

I remember a lecture once where New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson addressed the resurrection — and really his answer to the resurrection was more like a question — a question to be lived.

In essence he said, "We don't know what, but something happened."

Something — something that utterly changed and changes lives

Something — something that gives people confidence in the eternal

Something — that has forged a community for the ages

Something that, as we take all of these things together, we know that something totally miraculous has happened

But what? O, I don't know -- Something. We call it resurrection.

But, for us, now 2000 years later, the question still burns, as it should. Burns: what does this mean for us now? For me?

For me that is what being a Christian is — letting the question burn — letting this question burn -- getting to the place where I can allow this "something happened" into my life.

I remember a retreat that I attended a few years ago, "Letting God Guide." An alternate title might have been "Let the question burn." The retreat leader had simple/difficult instructions before setting us out on our own: "Forget your ideas about God, how God works, etc…and just let yourself be guided by God. Let this be your intent: apart from any understanding or idea just let your steps, your thoughts, your motivations be guided by God. There were no how-tos, special techniques — just four days of questions, "Let God Guide."

I wandered for two of those days. I saw others reading their Bibles, walking the labyrinth, some folks Catholic, others not, praying before a statue of Mary. I wandered just repeating to myself, "Let God guide, let God guide — without a clue — what could this mean? By the third day I had about given up. So, I climbed a hill on the retreat house grounds intent on taking a nap in the sun. Then something happened. Laying there I felt a tug

Under the shade of hardwood trees, on the bank of a small stream, I found myself…

Standing in a dump. A trash heap. I thought of the others — their Bibles, their statues, their labyrinths and here I was letting God guide, living the questions and I end up in a dump — a trash heap. Next to me a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, a baby buggy, milk jugs strewn about. All of it woven together with rusty barbed wire.

That plow blade became the focus of my spiritual life for about a year. This was the opening I had prayed for when going on retreat.

A beautiful surprise in a trash heap. Love among the ruins.

Let the questions burn — become absorbed in the questions — like a red-hot iron ball that won't come up or go down — live the questions — not a mind thing, this is a matter for mind, heart and body — live the questions, become wholly absorbed, becoming one with our lives — every fiber of being vibrating — our cells calling out — appealing, appealing to the unknown. This is called searching for the "something happened" in our lives.

Rilke said, "Perhaps one day you will live into the answers."

The disciples weren't probably even aware that their distress was a question.

Yet that day was filled with nothing if not questions — just three days before Jesus had been killed. How could that have happened? Women had come from his tomb that morning and reported it was empty, he was gone and some were reporting that Jesus had raised from the dead. That day was filled with nothing if not questions — questions that burned — certainly they were wholly absorbed by the events of the day.

And then something happened

Jesus appears — new life moves through barriers. Something happened.

For those scared, threatened, desperate disciples — absorbed with the question of the day, life opens…with a blessing of peace as Jesus speaks, "Peace be with you."

On Friday we had Annie Mae Warner's memorial service. Prior to her death Annie Mae had been sleeping a great deal. About two days before she died, she opened her eyes and gazed at something only she could see at the foot of her bed: she called out,

"It's so beautiful, I'm so surprised."

What happened? I don't know. Something. Living means letting the questions burn. And surely on our death beds…. This immersion, this head-long plunge into life is our appeal to the universe, our appeal to God, our opening to the unknown.

with this, something will happen — the full wonder will appear.

It is so beautiful, I am so surprised.

Many questions burn in our lives.

As each of us allows these questions to burn, to absorb us: Something will happen, the full wonder will be revealed.

Rilke: "Live into the answers."

It's beautiful. I am so surprised.