Do you remember the childhood game of hide and seek. No, I am not asking you to play it now. I am not yet in my second childhood. Unknowingly, we do play a form of hide and seek in church. To be sure some are seeking God in the church and many more are ignoring God and hiding from the church. In the game, most of us prefer to hide and hope that the seeker will not find us. We try to avoid being found. We want to evade the responsibility to become the seeker (the IT) when we are found. We stay still and remain quiet in our places of hiding while the seeker moves around looking for us after the allotted time is given to us to find a safe haven. Eventually the seeker will discover one of us and the game continues on.

Another variation is when the parent plays with his or her young child. This time the parent hides and when the child is searching around the parent would make some noise to draw the child’s attention. God is like that and draws our attention. God speaks to us through prophetic voices and shouts at us during our personal crisis moments. God lures us. God persuades us. God seeks us in order that we may find God and be in relationship with Godself.

In our sermon series we have looked at some of the Biblical characters who were seekers. They come from the book which Susan secured with 50% off: “In Search of Faith.” It profiled the biblical characters who struggled to define their faith. We have met the Syro-Phonecian woman, Nicodemus, Pilate, the Eunuch, Moses, First Women Priests and Jonah. Each has his or her own personal quest in the historical situations that they were in. What do you in your present location seek for? As you seek God and you identify and join them in their search you will also discover that God is seeking you and that is the theme of this morning’s sermon: “The Seeker behind all Seekers.”

We are all seekers and hopefully we are able to encounter God who seeks us from the very beginning. God does not hide from us but pursues and reveals Godself to us. But we often hide from God and pursue our separate ways.

There is in English literature the classic Christian poem “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson which has immortalized this truth of the God the Seeker.

It is good for us to look first at the life of this poet and his struggles which led him to pen this classic poem.. In February 1887, a Catholic literary monthly magazine, received some dirty crumpled manuscripts, with the following covering letter: "In enclosing the accompanying article for your inspection, I must ask pardon for the soiled state of the manuscript. It is due, not to slovenliness, but to the strange places and circumstances under which it has been written". What are the strange places and circumstances that Francis Thompson found himself in?

Thompson was born in 1859 to a middle class family. Both his parents were strict, devout converts to Catholicism. Raised in an atmosphere of piety, Francis entered the Seminary in 1870 to be trained for the priesthood but left in 1877 It was found that he was not disposed for the ecclesiastical office He lacked the divine call to the ministry in the Church.

He then tried to follow his father's footsteps by studying medicine. His low grades compelled him to resist science-based courses and that will not do in a medical course. He withdrew from Medical College After an argument with his father Francis left home for London to fend for himself.

By this time, he had become a drug addict. He ran away from the real world and entered into the illusory world Opium was easily available to Thompson in his father's clinic and the medical college. It was also readily and legally obtainable from pharmacists in those days.

Soon he encountered poverty, despair and the realisation that he was a prisoner of his addiction. He had become a victim of drug abuse. He even attempted suicide in the depths of despair.

The meeting with his publisher proved providential and marked the beginning of some of the most creative periods in his life. It could also be argued that the friendship ensured his survival. Arrangements were made for him to spend extended periods in monasteries as a means of helping him overcome his opium addiction which he sadly relapsed into on more than one occasion.

It was in one of these extended retreats in a monastery that Thompson wrote his most famous poem, the autobiographical Hound of Heaven that tells of God, who does not abandon, but pursues even the most wayward soul.

Unfortunately, Thompson was to relapse into opium addiction again and had to spend some time in other monasteries. Thompson not only consumed large quantities of opium, but due to debilitating health contacted tuberculosis. He was to die of the latter, though his consumption of drugs over a number of years would have contributed to his death at 47, in 1907. This is how he describes during his lucid moments his flight from God.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

The meaning is clear. God like an old bloodhound sniffing our scent, always in the distance, occasionally letting out a howl to remind us that he is on our trail. Like the hound who follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying, uninterrupted, unperturbed and deliberate pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul with Divine love.

Thompson experienced the love and power of God; a God who seeks out his wandering children and will never abandon them, regardless of what they have done or how far they have fallen; a God whose power of love is immeasurable and inclusive.

Though in sin we try to flee away from God, God pursues relentlessly and unwearyingly follows after until the souls feel its pressure forcing us to stop running and turn to Him.

Remember Jeremiah's words: "Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the Lord. `Do not I fill both heaven and earth?' declares the Lord." (Jeremiah 23:24). Where in God’s created world, can we flee to.

Back again to my favorite Psalm 139:7-12
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; the darkness is as light with thee.

God is always there, always pursuing, always engaged in self-disclosure. God is the self-revealing God. God is in the business of revealing the Divine Self to us. We would know nothing about God if God did not choose to reveal to us.

We flee from God and finally am found by God. Then and only then we discover that it was God who was searching for us all along."

We can relate to this when we read about lost children and how the parents and friends will organize a search party and look high and low for the lost loved on. They will leave no stone unturned to find his child again, to have the child back in the warm loving embrace of the parents. If a child goes missing, the child may not miss his father; however, the father will certainly miss the child. The father of course will seek to have the child back. If this is what human parents do seeking for the lost child, how much more God our parent do for God’s children. We are the creation of God and God will seek those whom God has created and who are now lost.

Why is God seeking us?

You did not come willy nilly into the world. You are not an accident though some of us may look like one and has fallen to be a stretcher case. You were born with a purpose and a destiny for all eternity. God waits patiently down through the ages for you and me so that God can accomplish his creative work in fashioning a new humanity and a new community. There is a task to perform and a mission to fulfill when God seeks and finds us.

In one of his witty sermons Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has asked us to consider the challenge of feeding the hungry of this world, for example. God does not send hamburgers floating down from heaven (like the myth of manna from heaven); rather, the hungry are fed because we partner with God and begin to share the food with one another.
"There is injustice and oppression," Tutu continued. "Yet, God doesn't send lightning bolts to strike the perpetrators. God waits until a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Rosa Parks or others are available to become partners in the civil rights movement. God wanted to end apartheid in South Africa. He didn't shoot down those people who are responsible for the injustices. He waited for a Nelson Mandela to partner with God.

Recently when the Inter Religious Organisation issued a Call for Peace in the Israel-Labenon conflict one of the members said that we do not engage the governments involved in battle to resolve their differences but just address God and pray that God will intervene and bring peace. I was aghast at the remark. Fortunately the other Council members thought otherwise and issued the call urging Israel and Lebanon to stop the violence which destroys the lives of the innocents as well.

In a clear reference to the current situation in the Middle East, the archbishop said that "God looks down and sees our inhumanity to one another and God weeps - he weeps - to see us reigning bombs and rocking missiles on those who are precious in the sight of God. God weeps and waits for partners - you and me - to collaborate with God so that God's dream of peace – of the lion lying down with the lamb, God's dream of turning swords into plowshares and spearheads into pruning hooks - will come true."

As the gay community expressed its indignation to the government and community we cannot just ask God to correct the situation. We cannot just resort to anger and hate the authorities. We must engage to construct a transformed positive image of the gay community. Renewal movements need credible leadership. Where is the Troy Perry in our midst? I fear that the gay movement lacks the kind of leaders with vision and imagination who will put the cause of homosexuality in the forefront and able to work together to destruct the stereotypes and correct the perceptions of the homophobes within and without the community. It is heartening to see that the leaders are coming out more and more and FCC has an important role in this direction. God is seeking new leadership in the movement.

Who is the Moses in our midst. I read with great interest Gary’s recent sermon about Moses the seeker. In the burning bush Moses was confronted by God who was seeking him and revealing Godself to him. Then he laid upon him the charge to deliver God’s people from bondage in Egypt. How did Moses react initially. Predictably like us we begin to make excuses and even try to run away from God. But God said, Moses, you go. No more excuses. God is constantly calling us to respond to do God’s work of transformation of people and the world around us.

As Jean Lee in her sermon on Jonah has reminded us that we need to know ourselves and then to know what God wants us to do. I want to remind you that you individually unique and different and God created you. You are not created as a robot but endowed with freedom to choose what you do in life.

God seeks us and when God finds us, God will lead us to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be yours as well.” Matthew 6:33.

More importantly, we must recognize that God is the seeker of all seekers. This is the God revealed in Jesus Christ. God is the Seeking God

This is the truth today. You cannot be indifferent and ignore God’s presence in your life. You don’t need to rush frantically here and there to find God. Be still and know that God who seeks will find you no matter where you are and whatever condition you are in. In encountering God we respond to God’s call to go and free the people in all forms of captivity today. May God give you the grace to know the truth, live the truth and offer hope to all.

In Jesus Christ, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness, O Lord. Great is thy faithfulness!