SEEK THE LORD

by Bishop David Chislett SSC

Now that we are one year old, it is interesting to look around at Mass on a good Sunday and consider the variety of people who call Patmos House Community their church. Of course, there are some who were regulars at All Saints' and who sought a new parish because of the crisis of conscience presented to them at that time. But there are others who have joined us since those days who speak of having "found God" for themselves in our fellowship and worship.

This should not surprise us, for, we are told in Ecclesiastes 3:11:

"God . . . has put eternity into man's mind."

It is in our nature to think deeply about ourselves, our relationships and our surroundings. And although a handful of stoic souls resist the temptation to look beyond the physical world for some wider sense of meaning, most of us - from our earliest days - ponder the mystery of life and end up believing that far from being just a mass of chemical compounds, we are "spiritual" as well.

We think, we reason, we love. We have an appreciation of beauty, art, poetry and music for their own worth. We compulsively try to work out the meaning of life.

Each one of us seems to have needs that are not just physical. Yet, in the interdependence of life in the evolutionary process, the development of a need always suggests that the need can be met.

And so, although it would be philosophically reckless to claim it as an absolute "proof," we can say that our ancient longing for the transcendent, our inner yearning for the spiritual, our deep-seated hunger for God, our instinct to worship, at least suggests that God exists.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis puts it rather more starkly:

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Back in the 4th century, Saint Augustine said to the Lord:

"You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you."

Our need for spiritual reality, however, does not of itself mean that we will find God.

There was once a young, well-dressed middle class Englishman travelling in India. He came to a guru sitting by a sacred river. Out of curiosity he said to the guru, "Can you help me find life's meaning?" The guru took him into the river. When they reached the point where the man was waste high in water, without a word of warning, the guru pounced, pushed the man under the water, and held him there. This lasted quite some time . . . in fact until the Englishman was about to drown. At that moment the guru let him go, and he sprang up out of the water, coughing and spluttering.

"Why did you do that?" demanded the Englishman.

The guru smiled and said, "When you are as desperate to know the meaning of life as you were to breathe just then, I promise you, you will find what you are looking for."

Two and a half thousand years ago God said to the exiles in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah:

"You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart."
(Jeremiah 29:3)

In the New Testament, we find St. James saying to the early Christians:

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." (James 4:8)

And let's not forget what Jesus himself said:

"Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you . . . for he who seeks finds." (Matthew 7:7)

I have quoted these passages in order to reassert the confidence at the heart of the Christian tradition that God not only CAN be found if we seek him "with all our hearts," but he WANTS to be found by us.

If you have been an unbeliever or if you lapsed for a time from the Christian faith, you will most likely recall that the hardest part of your journey (back) to Jesus was at the beginning when you were challenged to surrender yourself, not at that stage to God, but to the POSSIBILITY that there might be a God inviting you into a relationship with himself.

Once you managed that, however, things began to happen in your life. This is because the REAL seeker is, in fact, God. He had been seeking you long before you cared about him. YOUR seeking of HIM really resulted from a growing suspicion that he had already revealed himself.

Many different factors lie behind this suspicion - maybe for you it was contemplation of the big questions about the universe; maybe it was the way that one of your practising Christian friends unsettled your agnosticism; maybe you experienced a sense of the other in a service of worship, while reading the Bible, or being overwhelmed by the grandeur of creation or the beauty of a work of art.

Whatever it was, you came to the point of surrendering yourself to the POSSIBILITY of God. You decided to have an open mind. You gave God a chance to confront you with himself.

Sooner or later that led you to think about Jesus, and even to read one of the Gospels. You may have tried a number of churches and religious groups. However it happened for you, here you arE! Still learning, still seeking, still experiencing more of God's love, (and still learning to cope with the sorrows as well as the joys of life!) even while you can say with followers of Jesus down through the ages, "I know whom I have believed." (2 Timothy 1:12)

The reason I am reminding you of all this is that we sometimes forget what it was like before we discovered Jesus. And so we fail to be of much use in nurturing in the minds of our friends the suspicion that God has revealed himself. All of us have squandered opportunities to nudge our friends towards Jesus.

If you know someone who really wants to find "God" or "meaning" and they are not quite ready to be brought to church, encourage them to read through one of the Gospels in a modern translation (Mark is a good one to start with) and then to re-read it slowly, perhaps a chapter a day.

Suggest to them that before they read, they say a prayer like this:

God,
I don't know
whether you even exist
I think you may only be a myth.
But I am not certain
(at least when I am being
honest with myself).
I am a genuine seeker of the truth,
whatever it is
and wherever it is.
If you do exist,
you can hear me now.
Please help me to know the truth.

Praying this kind prayer doesn't commit anyone to anything that they don't believe. But it does test the Christian conviction that God really is there, and that he honours all who earnestly search for truth. Remember, Jesus said: "Seek and you will find."