The Man Who Asked the Wrong Question

I timidly stuck up my index finger a few inches above my head. The charming female presenter had prefaced her presentation with the assurance there were no silly questions, but I knew the question I was about to ask was an idiotic one.

?My mind had strayed into all kinds of flights of imaginary fancies. I do not know how long my attention had crept from the room, but it must have been more than a minute or two because I was lost when I refocused on the presentation and discussions. I kept hearing a two-letter acronym bandied about, and I did not know what it meant. I tried in vain to decipher its meaning from the context, but obviously, I had mentally blocked out so long that it was impossible to make heads or tails from anything that was said.

?I contemplated whether I should sit through another hour of the presentation a clueless mute and leave the seminar as ignorant as I came or risk asking a foolish question. I finally decided to bite the bullet and ask the question.

?The presenter acknowledged me by sweetly calling my name as if it were a question. "Pricely?"?

"What is the meaning of. . .." I inserted the two mysterious letters. You could have heard a feather (forget a pin) dropped. Time stood still in the entire room. A mask of disbelief and confusion slipped over the countenance of the presenter for a nanosecond. As suddenly it melted, I assumed, when she remembered her prefaced assurance, there was no such thing as a foolish question. Her charm and graciousness reappeared, and she answered my question as nonjudgmentally as possible. The frozen moment in the room melted, time resumed, and the flurry of erudite discussions and exchange of ideas continued.??

?The answer to my question was so simple that the stupidity of my question sprang up as huge as Mount Everest. (Note to self. Don't believe it when someone says there are no stupid questions.)?

?I want to tell you about a question that was not stupid as mine but was the wrong interrogative.?

One day a learned man asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him to venture his best guess. He, according to Jesus, summarized the law perfectly:

??Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.

?"Do this and you will live," Jesus replied. This was when the man asked the wrong question. "And who is my neighbour?"?

?Jesus, who never passed up a chance to tell a story, told one about a man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead by an isolated, dangerous, bandit-infested roadway. A clergyman and a deacon passed by without helping the unfortunate man. However, a Samaritan, generally despised and discounted by the beaten man, the clergy, and the deacon, came to the aid of the dying man. Jesus concluded his story with the question:

?Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?

??The learned man asked, "Who is my neighbour?" but Jesus did not answer that question. The question he answered was, "Whose neighbour are you?"

?This second question is the correct question we humans should ask. Interestingly, the learned Bible scholar did not ask, "Who is my God?" He was confident he worshipped the "true" God, but as for "those other people," he doubted they were his neighbours and did not see himself as a neighbour to them. Unfortunately, people who are confident they worship the "true" God or believe they are divinely unique, chosen or superior in some way (skin colour, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, wealth) often ask the wrong questions. They ask, "Who is my neighbour?" and "Am I my brother's keeper?" and "What's in it for me?" But Jesus comes right back at them and asks, "Which of you is a neighbour to the people beaten up and bloodied along life's highway?"?

?Perhaps we should feel more embarrassed to ask the wrong question than a silly one.?