Today's Gospel

Rethink Your Questions

What is it that jumps out at you today? It's a reading we've heard many times, appears in all of the gospels, in different forms. I think about the different characters. So first, we got Philip here today. We've got Jesus saying, "How are we going to buy food for all these people?" Phillip's like, "Jesus, come on, man. Get serious. It's impossible." And of course, part of the problem is Philip accepted the premise of the question, right? The premise of the question was that they were going to buy food for all the people. What was Jesus hoping for? In asking the question, what do you think Jesus was hoping for? I suspect, and it's only a guess, just a guess. Make your own guess. But I suspect he was hoping that Philip would say, "Jesus, you got this. We don't need to go off, and we don't need any money. We don't need to go off and buy food. We got you. We've seen you do this before. These people have need, and every time you encounter people who have need, you show up for them. I believe in you. I trust you. You've got this. I don't know, maybe Jesus was hoping for that. Because I think throughout the scriptures, and certainly throughout Jesus' public life, he's constantly trying to get a message across the disciples, which is, he's the one, but it's different than what people expect. He's the one. He's going to be sacrificed. He's the one, and they're going to have to suffer because of it. He's constantly trying to get this message across to them. And on a parallel sort of track, he keeps doing these miracles, which should do what? They should give the disciples faith in these other difficult things that he's trying to share with them.

And as we see along the way, Jesus was constantly or regularly disheartened because teaching them things, explaining things to them, and then he asks them a question, and they're not there. And so we see that here with Philip. He thinks immediately in worldly terms. It was set up a little bit by the question, but we do that too in our own lives. We accept the premise of a question. Someone asks us a question. We accept the premise of the question.

I remember the first time I went to—had a big book deal with Harper Collins, and the first thing they did was send me to media training. And the first thing the media trainers told me was do not accept the premise of the question. I said, "What do you mean?" They said, "Well, really, it doesn't matter what the question is. Just start talking about your book." Which I thought was interesting. But it stuck with me. Just because someone asked you a question doesn't mean you have to accept the premise of the question. The question sends you down sort of a narrow shoot very often. In this case, where are we going to buy the food? If Jesus would have said, where are we going to get food maybe Peter's mind would have been open more. But he accepted the premise of the question.

And I think the world proposes questions to us. The people around us propose questions to us. TV shows, movies, books we read propose questions to us. I don't think we should automatically accept the premise of these questions. I think we should be critical of the question itself and ask ourselves, is it the right question? Is it a question worth asking? Is this person asking something that is in line with the level of intimacy that I have with this person? Or is this person asking something that is outside the bounds of the intimacy that I have with this person?

And so that was the first thing that really jumped out at me in today's reading. But maybe there was something else for you. Remember, each day, we're just looking for a word, a phrase, or an idea that the Holy Spirit uses to intrigue us, to capture our attention, so that we can go out into the world and live the gospel more fully in our own place, in our own time, in our own situations, in our own circumstances. Have a great day, and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.