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While
the Pharisees were
gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying, “What is your
opinion about
the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.” He said to them, “How, then, does David,
inspired by the Spirit, call him ‘lord,’ saying, 'The Lord
said to my lord,
“Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your
feet”’? If David calls him
‘lord,’ how can he be his
son?” No one was able to answer him a
word; nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more
questions.
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Joan
Osborne’s song asks questions about God. “If God had a
name,” she sings, “what would
it be? What would you ask if you had
just one question? What if God was one
of us? If God had a face, what would it
look like? And would you want to see if
seeing meant that you would have to believe.” She
does not give any answers in her song, but it does seem as
though her questioning leads to a conclusion. The refrain is
“God is great, yeah, yeah. God is good.” What at
first may sound like a mockery of God may indeed be the eternal
truth of the existence of God.
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There
is little doubt that John Osborne's song “One of Us” can
cause controversy
in religious circles. It is a song about
God that can be interpreted either as blasphemy or praise. Perhaps the
positive approach not only gives
better meaning to the song, but teaches a valuable lesson at the same
time. The lesson? Asking questions about God can eventually
lead to eternal truth.
The key word might be the word “can”. If people want to learn about God by asking questions, they can accomplish the learning. For example, the Pharisees in Jesus’ time asked questions concerning God to Jesus, but they never were prepared to act on the answers they received. If they would have been, their lives, indeed, history itself, may have changed. This is an important idea for the many critics of religion in our world. Yes, there are many questions, serious questions about God’s presence in our time. How can a good God allow the death of children, for example? Why are there so many tragedies perpetrated by seemingly godless people? In particular, why is there such intense pain in our families, pain which everyone of us experiences in one way or another? Questions about God. Indeed, they can lead one to despair. But they can also lead us to life. We can be guided to see that God is great and God is good, and that the pain we all experience is not the result of God’s presence but of our own problems. We can also be guided to see that even out of the evil comes good; that somehow, in some way, the Supreme Being we believe in knows exactly what is happening. Questions about God can lead us to faith in such a God. One final thought from Joan Osborne’s song. Part of her questions dealt with the possibility that God was “a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home” to heaven. The Christian believes in such a God, believes that, in fact, such a God has already come. Jesus Christ was one of us, we believe, and has shown us how to journey to God. If questions about God lead eventually to Jesus Christ, perhaps there should be more of them! |
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THOUGHT
What is the best way to
prove that God exists?
PRAYER Good and gracious God, your
Son became one
of us to show us the way to
you and to guide our thoughts while we are here on earth. Help us
want to learn his direction, and give
us the grace to follow through with what he taught. Be with us, we
pray.
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©2007 Capuchin
Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |
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