What Do You Seek?: The Questions of Jesus as Challenge and Promise

by Michael J. Buckley

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asks a lot of questions—questions that challenge and unsettle. Questions that cut to the heart of human experience. Questions that—like a plow plunging deep into hard soil—split life open. In this book distinguished theologian Michael Buckley meditates on fourteen key personal questions that Jesus asks in the Gospel of John—such questions as "What do you seek?" "Do you know what I have done to you?" "How can you believe?" "Do you take offense at this?" "Do you love me?" Readers of Buckley's What Do You Seek? will be challenged anew by the searching, probing questions of Jesus.

Genres: Spirituality

158 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2016

About the author

Michael J. Buckley, SJ (1931–2019) was Bea Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University. Prior to holding this position, he taught philosophical theology at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame, and the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. His publications include Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism and What Do You Seek? The Questions of Jesus as Challenge and Promise.

Reviews

[Bruce Byrolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not yet for finished it.

It is marvelous, probing my soul.

Bruce Byrolly
Cambridge MD
June 6, 2020

[Tom Helmick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This certainly one of the best if not the best book in its genre that I have read. It is provocative and thoughtful and very well written.

[Frmichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful reflections

I love the idea of focusing on the questions of Jesus and found each to be profound. The prodigal father

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

We may have questions for Jesus, but Jesus has questions for us as well. In this book, Jesuit theologian Michael Buckley, SJ, invites us to attend to the questions Jesus asks of us. We are invited into the conversations Jesus instigates, for as Luke reports, at age twelve, Jesus entered into conversation in the Temple with religious scholars. Buckley notes that "these teachers would answer the child; the Sanhedrin, many years later, would not answer the man. But both groups had to contend with the unsettling questions that came to them from Jesus" (p. 4).

While it is true that the Gospels present Jesus as one who proclaims the Kingdom of God, we also see him, especially in the Gospel of John, proclaiming nothing, but instead framing "a question within which a personal disclosure can occur, a question within which an interchange will occur or not occur, a question that those who encounter him must live with in the hiddenness of their lives" (p. 5). In the course of this book, Buckley invites us to attend to the questions that Jesus asks, that we might encounter God in the questions that bring about divine self-disclosure.

Buckley lifts up fourteen questions, each drawn from the Gospel of John. Buckley notes that in the Gospel of John, Jesus asks important questions on thirty-five occasions, so he doesn't intend to cover them all. But he lifts enough questions to help us attend to the role that questions play in Jesus' ministry. He notes that the questions "gradually bring to the surface what meaning life has for those who would hear them, what is the spirit in which they live and which gives their lives meaning" (p. 11). The purpose of the questions is to encourage the reader/listener to ask what God is doing in one's midst.

He begins with the question that forms the title of the book: "What do you seek?" Taken from John 1:35-38, the question is posed to the disciples of John who had heard John point to Jesus, saying that he was the Lamb of God. Jesus wants them to express what it is they seek in him. Why do they follow? Why do we follow? This is, Buckley suggests, the foundational question.

From there we move through thirteen more questions that range from Jesus' question to the disciples after he had washed their feet: Do you know what Ihave to done to you?" to the final question to Peter, regarding the fate of John the Apostle: "What is that to You? Each of these questions are posed to us, so that we might open ourselves up to knowing the incomprehensible God. Commenting on the question posed to the disciples who are uncertain about his teachings in John 6, Jesus asks them "Do you take offense at this?" The chapter explores the question of belief and disbelief, the fact that despite what they had seen the disciples aren't sure what to make of Jesus. Buckley writes perceptively: "The mystery of God is not that he is unintelligible, but rather that he is so intelligible as to be incomprehensible" (p. 129). In other words, Jesus confronts us with our too small a vision of God. God is always greater than our ability to comprehend.

This is a book of spirituality deeply rooted in Catholic tradition and yet open to new insights. It is rooted in the Gospel of John, a Gospel that invites us to broaden our vision of God. I found it to be a good word for the moment. We want to hear God speak, but Buckley reminds us that sometimes God speaks in the form of questions, inviting us to discern the path of God. This should be a helpful spiritual companion for those ready to listen to the questions posed by Jesus!