When the question is also the answer

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 14 January 2024
1 Samuel 3:3-10.19 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 6:13-15, 17-20 ><}}}}*> John 1:35-42

We have reflected last Sunday how our questions are an epiphany too of ourselves because a person is known by the questions he/she asks. What really matters in life are the questions we ask or stumble upon than the answers we have that most often are wrong. Many times, there are no easy answers to life’s many questions that actually, we may never find any answer to our questions because they often lead us to more questions.

Fact is, we just have to keep on asking questions as we journey in life. If we ask the right questions, we could arrive at the right answers too; but, even without a ready answer, it is in asking the right question when the problem is half-solved. That is why in life, the questions we have are also the very answers we need most.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” – which translated means Teacher – , “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.

John 1:35-39

It is very interesting that the very first words spoken by Jesus recorded in the fourth gospel was this question to Andrew and companion, “What are you looking for?” As we start 2024, these are also the very first words of Jesus to us, what are you looking for?

Here we find the kindness and goodness of Jesus, inviting us to express to him our desires, what we want, what we are looking for. But, here lies too the biggest problem in our life when we do not know what we want or when we are easily distracted with what we really want. 

How many times had it happened when we forget what we are supposed to do when distracted by our endless scrolling of Facebook or Instagram? Or, when we go to the mall just to walk and unwind only to find ourselves buying things we do not need at all? Even our dreams and plans in life crash with costly mistakes because we could not stick to our goals. Despite the viral videos we see almost every week, many still go on road rage and end up fools while great men and women fall in disgrace because of sex scandals, including some priests. 

If we could just focus on what we are looking for, we could have avoided losing the opportunities we have had in life. Sadly, we only confront that question when we face death or when in a major crisis in life, when we realize what we really need most is God. In my three years as a hospital chaplain, I have proven daily in the sick people I visited that the only thing we must first look for in this life is God because in the end, we all go back to him.

That is why ageing gracefully is a virtue. As we get older, it is only then when we realize the spiritual things are more essential than material things. It is later in life we realize when we are already weak and sick that it was not time but us who have actually passed by through the years. Then we become bitter filled with regrets for not having loved God in our very selves, in our family and friends.

Don’t be shy telling Jesus what you are looking for in this life. Tell him what you feel. Nothing is so trivial for him. What matters is we keep on entertaining within us that question until one day, our desire becomes one with his and that is when fullness happens in life. Like what Andrew and his companion experienced that afternoon.

How amazing that the two disciples of John the Baptist answered Jesus with a question too, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” 

The word “stay” or “dwell” in some translations is from the Greek word menein which does not necessarily refer to place and space but connotes more of an image of mystery and security. During the last supper, Jesus told his disciples not to be bothered and worried because “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I am going to prepare a place for you” (Jn. 14:2). We hear this gospel in funeral Masses to assure people of having a place in heaven but, more than the spatial reality it signifies, to stay or to dwell evokes in us a sense of mystery, of security and home – of heaven in fact – which we all desire though rarely expressed. 

Here, we find dwelling is a sense of belonging. Very early on as disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and companion must have learned their master’s teachings of the coming Messiah with whom they wanted to belong with that is why their question, where do you stay or dwell was actually what they were looking for. See now their question was a revelation of their desires in life too!

And likewise we find Jesus so welcoming when he told them to “come and see” – to experience him. What they have seen and experienced that afternoon must be so profound that in a brief moment with Jesus, they immediately concluded he is the Christ or the Messiah!

But that is how it is with life especially when we examine those birthday parties we have hosted, to the graduation and wedding or ordination that happened so briefly compared with the long preparations we have made; the significance and impact of those brief moments in our lives are something that stay and remain with us, kept us going because in them also we had Jesus impressed and etched in our hearts, in our very being that we must treasure most and take care of lest we lose or waste them.

That is why in the second reading we heard St. Paul telling the Corinthians including us today to stop all forms of immoralities, that as Christians, we live for Christ. Stay focused on that. No one can claim his/her body is totally his/her own and may do whatever he/she wishes like the wokes who claim to be liberal and progressive. They insist “my body, my life”, that it is their right to abort a baby in the womb, that they can just have sex even without commitments and love by using contraceptives. Worst is their claim in the name of openness and freedom, they change everything like gender, looks, concepts and even grammar. What is insane is their insistence even on us on what they think are most important without truly looking deep in their hearts what every human person truly desires.

According to St. Ignatius of Loyola, once we are able to renounce our own will, God’s desire for us always coincides with whatever is really deep down in our hearts. That is because he made us, he knows what is best for us. That is why, we need to pray. And pray correctly not just have devotions and panata that are one-sided and personal without God in the equation, making us selfish and unmindful of others. Prayer is first of all a discipline that brings order in one’s life. The more we dive deeper into prayer and find God, the more we find him in our selves and him in others too.

Every day God is calling us, inviting us to enter into a dialogue, a conversation with him. It is a matter of being open to him like the child Samuel in our first reading, who “grew up, and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect” (1 Samuel 3:19). 

See again how the Lord stayed with Samuel who since childhood was answering God’s call, always following him, remaining in him that he became one of the great prophets of Israel.

Jesus welcomes whatever answer we give him, even if it is in a question form too because as we journey in life, his question with our questions eventually reveal the truth within each of us that God loves us so much, that he wants us to stay in him, remain in him. That is why Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, came – so that our joy may be complete and life be fulfilled in him. Amen.