July 26, 2009

“Hide and Seek”

Genesis 3:1-14

Luke 15:1-10

A while ago I was at a playground watching as a group of kids played a hybrid game of hide and seek and tag. At one point the boy who was “it” covered his eyes and counted: “One, two, ten.”

One of the kids quickly caught the error. “You left out all the numbers in between!” he yelled, while still looking for someplace to hide.

Hey, there are agreements, covenants if you will, in these kind of games—and we expect them to be honored.

Hide and seek.

The house in which I grew up had a fence enclosing its backyard. There was a gate on each end of the yard, however, and you could open them and run all the way around the house. This was not the case with most of the other lots in the neighborhood, which either had only one gate or yards enclosed by an immovable hedge.

So it was that, growing up in the sixties, most of the kids in my neighborhood would gather at my house on most summer evenings. In those after-dinner hours, when the temperature was cooler and the twilight provided some cover we would play hide-and-seek. The one chosen as “It” would count by fives to hundred, eyes closed, by the maple tree base. The rest of us would take off around the house and hide, waiting to hear “Ready or not, here I come.”

You can imagine that, night after night, summer after summer, the possible hiding places became familiar to all of us and the games took on an almost ritualistic character of a group of children hiding and then being chased around a house by one individual.

As in most children’s games there was an element of trust involved. That is to say, we depended on each other to play the assigned roles. The one who was “it” would not peek while counting—and he or she would count all the way to one hundred. The rest of us, well, we could be counted on to hide.

There was one time when we all just stood around the base while one person, eyes closed, counted. When she said “ready or not” and opened her eyes, we all yelled “Free” and touched the base. It was a great joke, but it quickly grows tired with repetition.

Hide and seek.

Elie Wiesel recounts the Hasidic tale of Rabbi Barukh’s grandson, Yehiel, who came running into his study in tears. “Yehiel, Yehiel, why are you crying?”

“My friend cheats!” he said. “It’s unfair; he left me all by myself, that’s why I am crying.”

“Would you like to tell me about it?”

“Certainly, Grandfather. We played hide-and-seek, and it was my turn to hide and his turn to look for me. He gave up; he stopped looking. And that’s unfair.”

Rabbi Barukh began to caress Yehiel’s face, and tears welled up in his eyes. “God too, Yehiel,” he whispered softly. “God too is unhappy; God is hiding and we are not looking. Do you understand, Yehiel? God is hiding and we are not even searching for God.”[i]

And yet—bookstores are filled with titles like The Loving Search for God, The Soul’s Search for Intimacy with God, The Expanded Search for God (Volumes One and Two) and even The Search for God at Harvard (which always comes as a surprise to some people). Does it ever occur to us that in all our searching, God might be looking for us?

The long history of humankind and God is a story of hide-and-seek.

The book of Genesis tells of the human inclination to hide from a strikingly human God.

Look at the Holy One, the Creator, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. At first this seems to be a childlike, if not naïve picture of God. We might even wonder if God’s arrival was announced by “Ready or not, here I come.”

Yet this simple picture presents a profound understanding of how God chooses to enter into the life of the world and relate to the creatures. The Creator is not distant and removed. The Creator is intimately involved with creation. The Gardener cares for the garden and for everything and everyone in it.

It has been another day in Paradise. But something is not right.

In all of creation, the crown of creation is missing. The man and the woman are nowhere to be seen. Like children whose summertime baseball game has resulted in a broken window, they have run and hidden.

Then we hear what Genesis presents as God’s first words spoken to the human race: “Where are you?”

What astonishing words! The All-knowing One asks a question. The Creator seeks the creature. It is the cry of the abandoned, the pleading of the lonely. It is the question of one who desires the presence of another.

“Where are you?”

When God asks questions, we do well to listen and consider them. “Where are you?” suggests a God who is not only puzzled but also loving, respecting us even in our fear and insecurity.

Knowing our sin, sensing our shame, for which nakedness is a symbol, we would hide from God. “But where,” the Psalmist asks of God, “Where shall I flee from your presence?” Still the One who created us for life does not push, does not rip away the pathetic leaves of self-righteousness with which we try to cover ourselves.

In the cool of the day, in the gathering darkness, the God who lovingingly seeks intimacy with us simply calls: “Where are you?”

When we hide—and we are good at hiding—God does not call off the game. God continues to seek.

Jesus, too, tells of a seeking God.

He invites us to imagine a typical house in first century Palestine. A dirt floor, a small door, no windows. A woman with a small savings or dowry cannot find one of her ten coins. Each of those coins represents about a day’s wage, so even ten of them don’t amount to very much money. Still, this lost coin is of great value.

This woman brings a lamp into the dark room. She sweeps the floor, and searches diligently. When that one coin is found it is time to celebrate. She calls her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me!”

Like that woman, God seeks and will not give up. Like her, also, God finds pleasure when the search is over, when what is lost is found.

The searching of God is good news. Because God seeks we are reminded that each life is of great value. If you are ready to give up on yourself, if it seems as though others have given up on you, remember that God has not given up—and God will not give up.

And what about us? Are we still looking—as the bookstore shelves would suggest? Or have we, like Yehiel’s friend, called off the search for God?

Let’s be honest. Sometimes that search is difficult.

No doubt you can recall times when God seemed very good at hiding and very silent as well. Maybe that is your experience today. The world can be cruel and seemingly devoid of compassion. We acknowledge with pain and puzzlement those points in our lives when we seek and do not find, when we listen but do not hear.

It’s easy to be discouraged.

We hope that if God cannot be found in the world, perhaps the hiding place is here in places like this. Still, many people open the doors of a church and, looking in, conclude, “Nope, God’s not here.” Occasionally those of us who keep coming back week after week wonder if they are right.

Some have taken their search for God to the internet, where virtual religious communities have sprung up, offering the spiritually curious the opportunity to meet, argue, pray, and commune with people around the world—with none of the messy differences and difficulties that we encounter when meeting, as we do, face to face with flesh and blood people. Tibetan Buddhists have blessed cyberspace. Will God be found there?

Some have just given up the search—called off the game and gone home.

There are several different places to begin, to restart, or to continue our search for God.

We might look in the well-known places. We can search for God in prayer and meditation, in worship.

The life of the spirit does not thrive on just one hour on Sunday morning—although this hour is certainly one of the most important of the week. Nor do we, by praying only occasionally discover the depths of our spirits and the God who waits to be found.

Venkayya, the first outcaste convert in the Church of South India prayed every day for three years: “O Great God, who art thou? Where art thou? Show thyself to me.” This prayer speaks the same words to God that God spoke in Eden: “Where are you?”

This is a beautiful prayer, a deep prayer. It is the prayer of a seeker who is willing to take time in the search. This kind of prayer does not promise instant success. We would learn, instead, as we sang in the hymn, “the patience of unanswered prayer.”

We might turn once more to seek God in the world—to face the hunger and loneliness, the cruelty and violence, the racism and poverty that surrounds us—in this city, this nation, this planet—and cry out “Where are you?” And in crying out maybe we will discover that it is the crucified God who is present in the suffering of the world. And somehow, seeking that God might lead us to renew our efforts to make the world hurt a little less, to bring healing to the broken places, to seek as well the restoration of our own broken lives.

We might ask at work, at home, even here at church, “Where are you, God?” Perhaps the answers will surprise us.

Searching for God calls us out beyond ourselves. For us as individuals and as a gathered congregation the search will involve us with great joy and great sorrow.

Can we find the faith to keep looking? Can we continue to ask: “Where are you?”

Can we trust the love that calls to us: “Where are you?

Remember the promise of Jesus, “Those who seek shall find.” Remember it with hope.

May we yet find the living God whom we seek.

May God continue to look for us in all our hiding.

And may there be great rejoicing when we all come in free.