Have you come to this place seeking God?
I hope so.
In fact, I hope that seeking God is one of the great priorities of your existence.
And I hope that one of the great reasons why all of us continue to live and work in the church is with the desire to seek God, and to seek to better understand God’s call and purposes for our lives. So often, we can tend to overlook this, and fall into thinking that the life of faith is about trying to get the answers right, or trying to do the right things and avoid the wrong things, or trying to come to a deeper awareness of truth, or trying to learn enough so that we might believe the correct things…and all of those things are important.
But at the heart of faith, at the heart of spirituality, at the heart of the church, at the heart of our deepest longings as human beings, is the desire to seek and to experience the mystery and the presence of the living God.
Our journey in the church invites us to engage in that pursuit in many ways.
Our reading from Matthew’s Gospel offers us compelling insights into ways that we might encounter the divine presence in acts of servanthood – feeding the hungry and the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, reaching out to the imprisoned. Whether we see Christ in those situations is not entirely the point – in the story, even the righteous had not actually seen Christ when they served him – but I can attest to the fact that many if not most of our greatest insights into the presence of God, in this world, emerge out of those times and opportunities that we have to respond to the invitations to service that are described in this passage. Personally, I learned a lot in seminary, but some of the most intriguing insights into life and faith came during a year-long placement that I had with the chaplaincy department at the Don Jail, meeting with inmates, talking with prisoners, connecting with people both through and on the other side of those prison bars.
But that is only one of the many ways that we can respond to this passage. Right here at St. Andrew’s, we have opportunities, each and every week, to do exactly what this passage suggests. On Monday nights, the doors of the Great Hall are opened to welcome hundreds of guests and friends who are in need of a good meal and the warmth of human community and friendship. On Tuesday, the same doors open early in the morning to welcome another group of guests and friends to share together in a warm breakfast. Gently used clothing is shared and distributed with those in need, and in the coming weeks we will all have an opportunity to stock the Out of the Cold clothing boutique with warm winter wear, clean socks, underwear, and all of the necessary items to help a person to find comfort in the middle of a Canadian winter. I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was naked and you clothed me.
On Tuesday evenings, the very same doors are opened to welcome dozens of newcomers and immigrants to come into the church and practice their English in the Better English Café. People from all over the world, speaking a multitude of different languages have participated in that program – as guests, as coordinators, as volunteers, as friends. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.
As the Monday night Out of the Cold dinners begin again this month, and as ministries such as the Tuesday morning breakfast and the Tuesday evening Better English Café continue their work, I would strongly encourage each and every one of us to consider participating in these, or in the other ministries and services of this congregation. And I would encourage all of us to do so not simply as some form of voluntary or community service – which are noble and commendable motivations. But I would encourage all of of us to consider doing so as an act of the spirit, as an expression of Christian discipleship, as a way of seeking to experience the promised presence of the living Christ in our midst.
There are no guarantees that you will have some overwhelming transforming spiritual experience if you do so – but it might happen. Just as the act of worship does not always create a perfect and overwhelming experience of God, we are nonetheless called to make worship a priority in our lives. As today’s Psalm proclaims – “make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness, come into God’s presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” As the Psalm reminds us, it is in worship that we are reminded of who God is, and who we are, and who we are called to be in response to God; and it is in worship that we are reminded how the other allegiances and priorities and commitments that compete for our attention, on a daily and weekly basis, are ever and always trying to crowd out the centrality and primacy of God’s call upon our lives. Worship is meant to remind us of what life is supposed to be all about.
Of course, not every service of worship, nor every act of Christian servanthood, is guaranteed to open to us the full vision of heaven on earth — but that, too is fine. Not every meal is a gourmet feast, but we still must eat on a regular basis to stay healthy and alive. To skip meals unless they are a fantastic banquet soon leads us to become emaciated. It is the same with the worship of God.
So whether it is in worship, as the Psalmist commends; or in acts of servanthood, as the Gospel reading suggests, we are offered beautiful opportunities, wonderful guidance about how to open ourselves to the presence of God…and we do so because, well, that is what seekers do.
However, this desire to seek God is only one side of the story.
And the other side of the story – and in fact, the more important side of the story – is not found in our calling to seek God.
The other side of the story is this – that God is seeking us.
Today’s suggested reading from Ezekiel articulates this with a beautiful metaphor that Jesus himself later used.
“Thus says the LORD God,” declared the prophet Ezekiel, “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep.”
It is such an intriguing idea – that it is not simply we who seek God; but it is God who seeks us. “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”
Which leaves us, as seekers, in a rather intriguing place.
That is, the biblical vision – in its entirety – suggests that we are seeking the One who is seeking us.
Such an idea challenges many of our assumptions about the spiritual life, about the experience of worship and about the dynamics of service. Because if it is God who is seeking us, perhaps our experience of worship is not so much about us trying to reach out to God, but rather it is about opening ourselves, presenting ourselves to the One who is seeking to reach out to us. Maybe worship is about what God is longing to do in us and for us and through us – and not quite as much about what we are trying to do for God when we gather as the Church.
In a similar way, perhaps our acts of service are not so much about all the good things that we are trying to do for others, but rather about opening ourselves to the presence of the One who promised to be among us – amongst the hungry and the thirsty, the naked and the sick the prisoner and the stranger. Maybe our call to service is simply a call to go to the very places where God promised to be found – so that we can find God and God can find us.
Such is the mystery, such is the paradox, such is the wonder of our human existence – that the One who we are most deeply and desperately seeking is the One who is seeking us.
And the good news is this — when the divine and human find each other – a new life begins. As Jesus himself suggested, when we find each other, it is as if we are born anew. When we find God and God finds us, we experience the grace, the peace, the joy, the love, the life that we were always intended to have.
So seek God. Go to the places where God has promised to be found. Make seeking God the very reason for your existence.
And yet, do not forget, all the while, that the greater story – the greater good news – is this.
You are not the seeker. You are the sought.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
