Cricket (my almost 4 year old daughter) has been in this mood recently of asking me “Daddy, what is your favorite color?” I’ve told her that I’m really not very good at favorites. I have a hard time saying that one thing in particular is my favorite – so no favorite food really, no favorite movie, no favorite artist, no favorite candy. Instead I tend to have a pantheon that rotates according to the season. For instance, it is about to be candy corn season (haters gonna hate). So when I answer Cricket, I preface it by saying “Today, my favorite color is….” 
We’re going to start something new in the newsletter today. We’re going to call it, “Question of the Week”. This is a blatant rip off of something that FSU does on their my.fsu.edu site – but I thought it was worth stealing. So every week, we’re going to ask you a question. This week it is going to simply be, “what is your favorite color?” You can answer it for today, for all time, or just for how you’re feeling right now.
The reason I’m doing this is that it is good to “check the pulse” every now and then and get some feedback from University Lutheran members and friends. We see Jesus doing this from time to time, checking in with His disciples and just seeing what is important to them, what is meaningful to them, what they are arguing about, and what they are agreed upon.
If I wasn’t so sold on “A Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace,” as our identity statement here at University Lutheran, I would be tempted to make it “A Church of Questions” just because you get a lot of them. Sunday morning you get a question to talk with other people about and then one to talk with God about. Now you’re getting one during your week too. (I also want to open up the question of the week to you. Is there something that you want to ask the entire congregation? Your questions are as good as mine, and are perhaps better.)
I heard a great quote from a Lutheran science educator recently. In an interview to become the provost of Concordia College, New York, when they asked him what his faith had to do with his role as a science educator, he responded quickly with the story of Lutheran scientist Johannes Kepler. Kepler challenged the belief that the planets rotated around the Sun in perfect circles. The potential provost went on to explain that “Lutheran theology is not afraid to turn over the sacred rocks and see what is under them.” We turn over rocks by asking questions, and we ask questions out of a confidence that no matter what scary thing is living underneath the rock, Jesus is living there too.
There’s a strange irony about this for us. In some ways, the “Sunday School answer” that Jesus is the answer to every question is the complete and total truth for us. But because we have the solid faith in that answer, we’re not afraid to ask the tough questions, to wade into dangerous waters of science and culture and to know that Jesus has us by the hand. The Lord who went to hell and came back isn’t afraid of our questions, and is more than able to sustain us as we find answers. So let’s ask questions with confidence, let’s seek answers with confidence. And let’s do it knowing there is a God who gives us our confidence – literally, giving us our “con” (with) “fide” (faith) “ence” (ness) – our “withfaithness” that sustains us through all of our questions until the Resurrection comes.