Something everybody knows is that Socrates got people thinking by asking silly questions. I don’t mean absurd questions, like: can two plus two ever equal five? But silly questions that anybody could answer, even Socrates himself. He was of course feigning ignorance so as to invite what seemed like answers. Once he was given an answer he would then get a discussion going. We call it Socratic irony and it is an everyday trick of the trade for a writer. Playwrights are particularly fond of that version of it which has an actor ignorant of something that is perfectly apparent to the playgoers. Socrates started something. Subsequent generations have regularly found themselves indebted to him as a way of getting things started.
Jesus was similarly able to get under people’s skins. If he had done nothing but teach disciples (and he did much more by being obedient to death, even death on a cross) he would be remembered as was Socrates. We might allow ourselves to say he had a knack for getting people to think.
One of the most remarkable things about Jesus as a teacher is his appeal to common sense – to the common sense of his hearers, that is. He would put a question that seemed answerable from a person’s bank of experience – and it often was. For example, after telling the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus put a question to the lawyer who had been delving into who exactly was a neighbour. ‘Which of the three showed himself to be a neighbour?’ asked Jesus. A common sense answer led to Jesus taking the matter a stage further. ‘Go and do thou likewise,’ he added. He helped the lawyer to see that he already had the answer in his memory bank, and he left him to apply his common sense to the implications.
Talking about prayer shortly afterwards, Jesus gave them a script. We call it the Lord’s prayer. He told the story of the man at midnight and the triplet, ask, seek and knock. He knew people enjoyed having things in threes. Any stand-up knows the potency of this. This did not altogether satisfy the disciples. We can imagine frowns and puzzlement. The hiatus was overcome when Jesus threw a new idea into the pond. ‘Would any father among you offer his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or a scorpion when he asks for an egg?’ No puzzlement there. Jesus struck while the iron was hot and said, ‘If you, bad as you are, know how to give good things to your children, how much will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ Fathers generally have a great helping of common sense in their dealings with their sons and daughters and Jesus was appealing to that, to something they already had when he was introducing them to a new idea. All this is found in Luke 10 and 11.
You don’t have to renounce common sense to be a Christian.
CLERGY ADVOCATES
Writing in Psephizo’s blog, Peter Hobson puts the case for Church of England Clergy Advocates (of which he is chair). Changes in Ts and Cs are making substantial differences to incumbents and others and CECA is gathering support.
SINGULAR CHURCH
John Keble church, Mill Hill, London is the only church bearing the name of the 19th century theologian and hymn-writer. The church building was completed in 1936 and the Vicar is Simon Rowbory. The church sees itself as an ‘iconic modernist space’ and lists Alpha among its activities.
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