SEEKING AFTER GOD
Eph.3:14-21
John 6:1-21
Psalm 14 includes this marvelous phrase. `The Lord looks down upon us to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God.' We are here because we want to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. We want to love and be loved. We want to act wisely. The Psalm says that to do all that requires of us that we seek after God.
But how do we go about doing that? Simon Dettleback was taking a piano lesson from Tom, he finished and came down stairs and we were winding up our Older Adult Ministries meeting. He wanted to play the sanctuary piano, but Tom thought maybe the meeting was still on so he told Simon to ask me if it was ok. But I see the piano as Tom's province, so when Simon asked me, I said he would have to ask Mr. Tom. With a sweet, puzzled look he said—Mr. Tom says to ask you and you say to ask him. I didn't have the heart to tell him that `Well, yes, that is just how we do things in the church.'
Isn't that sometimes just how it feels as we do indeed seek after God. Or in these great phrases from Ephesians that we enter into the mystery of Christ that we might be strengthened in our inner life. The particular mystery Paul is talking about is how the love of God, given in his theology first to the Jews, has now flowed out into all the peoples of the earth—so that there is finally no distinction. All are one in Christ Jesus our Lord—slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female. What are revolution—not only are the dividing walls of hostility broken down but the coming culture of radical equality in the Kingdom is proclaimed and embodied.
So this is part of the mystery of Christ. When Paul writes about the mystery of Christ he is not using the word mystery the way we commonly do.
Summertime—Jersey shore or our backyards or porches and people are reading murder mysteries by the millions. Something happens—through a variety of steamy and clever adventures the hero or heroine will assuredly figure it all out. In the end, problem solved. Case closed.
But this mystery of Christ is far different. Indeed, we are seeking after God—Christ, by the power of the spirit is rooting us in love and giving us power to understand that we may be filled. This mystery is to be embraced—it is not a problem to be solved.
Years ago there was a book about transactional analysis called Born to Win. The cover photo showed a little girl at the ocean with the waves washing over her feet and her arms outstretched like she was welcoming the ocean and all of life into her soul. Somehow that photo speaks to the power of embracing, welcoming and accepting the mystery of God in Christ flowing over us and around us and through us.
So again how do we embrace this mystery? How do we seek after God—knowing that this God is not a problem to be solved—but a transforming reality to be embraced?
One of the ways is traveling. Jesus feeds the 5000—withdraws to the mountain and then comes down to the Galilean Sea. The story says that in the night the disciples are crossing the sea when the wind comes up. Jesus miraculously comes to them. The Scripture often tells of journeys and encounters with the Holy.
We travel partly to see ourselves and to see others and to see the world with new eyes.
`Every journey has a purpose that the traveler is not aware of'. Put another way, God is working around the fringes of our journeys. I was born in the Latham Sanitarium in California Missouri in 1945. My father and 36 year old brother are buried there. We stopped there on the way to see my mother 3 weeks ago. While traveling I had a dream. (The Scripture says that one way we can seek God is to listen to our dreams and that at least some of them speak to us about the deep things of our spiritual journey.)
In this dream I am visiting a beloved professor. It is like he is retiring and this is the end of the school year. He is packing up books. I noticed one book which is about the theologian Paul Tillich and the noble prize winning author Albert Camus. I say how much they have stirred my soul, especially when I was young. He concurs. I am a Jungian Christian—I believe in the God of the soul, in the self not in the God who supposedly controls history, directing how nations shall rise and fall.
Another female faculty member asks me what I will do after graduation. At first I say I don't know then I realize that I want to go back to Mississippi and to live in a community where we were inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer and worked together sacrificially for justice and sang and lived together. Immediately, I feel overwhelmed by emotion, leave and walk down the stairs near tears.
How do we seek God? Tillich and Camus and Borg and Lamott and Mary Oliver and Wordsworth and Nouwen.
How do we seek God? Do justice—at least give it a shot. Equal Exchange. FISH. Casa Ezperanza, ASP. Erin, JPKang, Mike and Deanna Womack.
How do we seek God? We remember the saints, the old professors who taught us and touched us, who helped us embrace the mystery.
How do we seek God? We come into the sanctuary wanting to make music and we don't take no for an answer.
We do justice, love mercy and walk humbly—turn our face to the rising sun and sing joyously.
