“There is no such thing as a stupid question.”
You have probably heard that before right? I remember hearing it a lot from teachers in school. But is that really true? Are there really no stupid questions?
Of course there are.
Let’s face the facts. Some questions are not smart. Some are downright goofy. For example:
Is Spain really purple like it is on the map?
When the weight limit on an elevator is exceeded by having too many passengers, who is criminally responsible?
Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?
I think the reason that most teachers tell students there are no stupid questions is to try to dispel their fears of asking a question in front of a crowd. You need to be able to ask questions in a school environment without fear, because that is a great way to learn. Also, it is expected of you to not know about something in the classroom. Here is the real reason that a question can be scary. Asking a question reveals your ignorance. If you knew the answer then you wouldn’t ask. So when you ask the question you are telling everyone around you that you don’t know something.
It’s ok to reveal ignorance if ignorance is expected. But if you are supposed to know about a subject, revealing your ignorance may not be a good thing. And so we get afraid to ask questions. That’s too bad because questions are one of the best ways to learn.
What if we made it a point to ask questions about something, even if we thought we knew everything about a particular subject? As an example, let’s say you know all about making chocolate chip cookies. You have made them for decades and you don’t think there is anything new to be learned about the process. What if you challenged yourself to come up with a question to ask someone that might let you learn something new? It is an interesting exercise, and a worthwhile one at that. Maybe, after some thinking, you decided to ask one of these questions:
Can you make these cookies without an oven? Can you make them using a grill or a campfire?
What happens to the taste if you use melted butter instead of softened butter?
Can you use honey instead of sugar?
What would you have to do differently if you wanted to make one giant cookie instead of many small cookies?
Maybe you thought you knew all there was to know about chocolate chip cookies, but with this exercise you might come up with some ideas that you haven’t thought of before. Challenging yourself to come up with a new question about the process might lead to an even better understanding.
What about scripture? Can we apply this idea to the bible? Certainly we can. Let’s take this story as an example:
Mark 4:36-41
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
It is possible that you are very familiar with this story. That is one of the reasons I picked it. When we hear the same story over and over we tend to think we know all there is to know about it. We might be tempted to believe we can’t learn anything new from it. But let’s start asking questions and see where it leads.
First, pretend like you are teaching this story to a group of people, maybe in a Sunday School setting. What questions do you ask the group? Do your questions change with the age of the group? Are there different questions to ask children vs. adults? Is this ultimately a story about faith?
When you really look at it this story tells us a lot about Jesus’ humanity. Ask yourself this: Why was Jesus asleep? The answer may simply be because he was tired. The translation from him here comes from this: “See-oh-pa! Peh-fee-moh-soh!” This roughly means “You be still,” “Be silent!” or “shut up!” even. Why would he say it like that?
What do you do when you wake up with a “crisis” coming from your young child? What if your son or daughter came to you at 1:00 AM saying “Mom/Dad, don’t you care that my stuffed animal is missing?” What would you say to that, in your exhausted state?
The disciples (especially in Mark’s gospel) are clueless. Jesus has surrounded his ministry with people who do not understand him. How do you think he felt about that?
How do you think Jesus feels about us?
Did the disciples expect Jesus to calm the storm? That certainly would be a show of faith. And yet Jesus rebukes them for having no faith. Are there levels of faith? Were they faithful in Jesus’ teachings only?
Notice that it was Jesus’ idea to get in the boats. You might think that Jesus was aware of the coming storm. It’s certainly possible. Yet he decides to take his followers into the storm with him. What do you think this means? What does it mean for you? It seems that Jesus is making it clear that if you are going to follow Him, you are going to go into the storm. You are not going to stick it out on the shore. What storms do you think he is talking about?
See what happens when you start asking questions? You can turn a story you thought you understood well and find new avenues of spiritual growth.
Questions are fundamental to our faith. Let’s keep asking them. You’ll be amazed at what you can learn.
God Bless