Most Sundays at nine o’clock, while the coffee is still brewing and the bell in the tower has not yet rung, a small congregation gathers downstairs in chairs built close to the floor. This is our Sunday School, and I visit whenever I can, partly because I love them and partly because, week after week, they ask better questions than anyone else in the building.
Here is a sampling from this spring, shared with permission and without names. Does God have a dog? Do the fish in the lake know about God, or will it be a surprise? Who rings the bell if the bell-ringer gets sick? Why are our doors red if God likes all the colors? And this one, which stopped me mid-sip of coffee: when my grandpa died, did he have to give his glasses back?
Then, a few Sundays after Easter, a seven-year-old raised her hand and asked the question of the year.
If Jesus is alive again, why is my mom still sad sometimes?
The room got quiet. Our teacher, God bless her, did not rush to fix it. She said, “That is a wonderful question. I wonder about that too.” And then they wondered together. Somebody offered that maybe being alive and being sad can happen at the same time. Somebody else said his dog had died and he was sad for a long while. The seven-year-old nodded, satisfied, and reached for a crayon. It was as fine a piece of theology as I heard all month.
In some churches, questions get treated like leaks in a boat, something to patch quickly before the water gets in. We try to treat them like windows. A question is how the light gets into a room. Earlier this month, Dr. Webb preached a sermon he called “Doubt Comes to Dinner,” about Thomas, the disciple who wanted proof before he could believe the Easter news. Dr. Webb pointed out that Jesus did not scold Thomas for asking. He came closer and let him look. That is the pattern we practice downstairs, where nobody gets shushed for wondering.
Church folk call this “formation,” which is simply the slow shaping of a soul. It is less like downloading answers and more like gardening, and as anyone who has seen my tomato beds knows, I trust gardening. You cannot yank a seedling taller. You water, you wait, you keep the ground soft. Questions keep the ground soft.
A word to the grown-ups
If your child asks you something at bedtime that would take a doctorate to answer well, take heart. You do not need perfect answers, because your child does not need a theologian. They need a companion. “I wonder about that too” is a complete sentence, and a holy one. So is “I don’t know; let’s think about it together.” What children remember is not whether we solved the mystery but whether we were willing to stand inside it with them. Faith, in my experience, is mostly a road walked alongside people who love you and your questions both.
So there is a place for your questioner here. Sunday School gathers at 9:00 a.m., and at 10:00 we all come upstairs for Holy Eucharist, the meal of bread and wine at the heart of our worship, where every wonderer is welcome at the table. If yours would like a whole week of wondering, Vacation Bible School arrives in July, and the Parish Office is happily taking registrations. Come through the red doors. Bring the dog question. As for the glasses, we are still wondering, and the wondering is good company.
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