Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, October 30, 2022 / Categories: Blog, Homilies Seek-and-Seek A Homily for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C It wasn’t until I became a parent that I realized that parents are really bad a playing hide-and-seek. When we’re “it,” we parents start counting on the couch, sipping our beverage of choice and eating our children’s Goldfish Crackers (the one’s the kids haven’t touched yet). Sometimes we don’t even bother to close our eyes when we’re counting. After yelling, “Ready or not, here I come,” we usually stay seated on the couch, loudly saying things like, “Where could she be?” “He’s such a good hider.” “I don’t know if I’ll ever find my child.” Somehow, not even the tell-tale signs of uncontainable giggles help us find our children. After a long, long time sitting on the couch, we finally get up to look for our children. It seems fair to say that we could be better seekers, which sounds a lot like the message of today’s readings. Our Gospel is perfectly clear: Jesus came to seek and save the lost. While today’s passage certainly speaks of Zacchaeus seeking Jesus, and we’ll come to that in a minute, the reality is that Jesus had come to seek and save Zacchaeus. Jesus’ request to stay in Zacchaeus’ house wasn’t a delay or detour from his journey to Jerusalem; it was and is the very purpose of his trip to Jericho.[1] God’s a great seeker. As our first reading tells us, God loves all things that exist, including us. So much so that like the hound of heaven in Francis Thompson’s poem of the same name, God relentlessly searches after us so we can share in the divine Trinity’s eternal love and happiness. No one is beyond God’s reach. Just look at Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a crooked tax collector who was hated by his community, but Jesus sought him out anyway with a fervent desire to stay with him, “to dwell within him, [and] to shape [Zacchaeus’] mind according to his own.”[2] Remember, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him . . . might have eternal life” (John 3:16), even the most despised among us. Okay, if God’s such a great seeker, where is he? Is God hiding from us? The short answer’s no—God doesn’t hide from us because God wants nothing more than to be found by us. God’s everywhere, but we don’t find God with our physical eyes. We find God with the eyes of faith. You see, God is present to us sacramentally. That means that the visible, material, and historical world reveal the invisible, immaterial, and eternal presence of God. Of course, we Catholics find God in the person of Jesus Christ really present in Scripture and the Eucharist, and we’re here at Mass to do just that. But God’s also really present in all of creation. As Pope Francis explains, “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal . . . is to discover God in all things.”[3] So the divine human interplay isn’t so much a game of hide-and-seek as it is a quest of seek-and-seek. God persistently seeks us, but never forces himself on us. We have to seek God, too. As I’ve said, God’s a great seeker, so if we’re having trouble finding God, we’re the ones who need to up our game. How do we do that? We need to be more child-like. We need to be like Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus “heard and believe[d] that Jesus really is ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”[4] He actively sought Jesus out and was willing to make a fool out of himself by climbing a tree like a child to get a glimpse of him. He searched earnestly for Jesus with the eyes of faith, and he found, in the end, that Jesus had been looking for him, too. They found each other, which is what relationships are all about. If we want a relationship with God, if we want to find God in our lives, we need to risk playing the fool. We need to search actively, enthusiastically, and with child-like wonder and innocence for the One who never stops searching for us. Now, we probably all know that God is everywhere and want to find God, so how come we’re not better seekers? I can think of a few reasons. Sometimes, we spend too much time on the couch and not enough time seeking. As I’ve said in past homilies, Christianity’s not made for couch potatoes—it’s an active, demanding faith that requires effort. Sometimes, we fail to notice the tell-tale signs of God’s presence in our midst. We see a gorgeous sunset prepared by God for our wonder and enjoyment, and we don our darkest pair of sunglasses to shade our eyes from the glare. Sometimes, we fight an urge to pray or read Scripture and turn to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram instead. And sometimes, we judge others and ourselves to be unworthy of God’s steadfast love, ignoring the fact that God is lovingly present in every person’s life, especially when we’re not very lovable, and our lives are riddled with bad behavior and bad choices. Unfortunately, we’re not given step-by-step instructions detailing how and where we’ll find God at every twist and turn of our lives. But God is with us nonetheless, always at our side, and always seeking an everlasting relationship with us. It’s up to us, then, to embark with child-like wonder and enthusiasm on the great adventure of finding God in our here and now. It’s up to us to become better seekers, like the little boy in this poem I found: He was just a little boy on a week's first day. He was wandering home from Sunday School and dawdling on the way. He scuffed his shoes into the grass, he found a caterpillar, He found a fluffy milkweed pod, and blew out all the "filler". A bird's nest in a tree o'er head, so wisely placed on high, was just another wonder that caught his eager eye. A neighbor watched his zig-zag course and hailed him from the lawn Asked him where he'd been that day and what was going on. "I've been to Bible school" he said, and turned a piece of sod, He picked up a wiggly worm, replying "I've learned a lot of God." "A very fine way" the neighbor said, "for a boy to spend his time, If you'll tell me where God is, I'll give you a brand-new dime." Quick as a flash the answer came, nor were his accents faint, "I'll give you a dollar, Mister if you can tell me where God ain't."[5] Readings: Wisdom 11:22-12:2; Psalm 145; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10 [1] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 220. [2] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers, Year C: The Relentless Widow ( Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006), 302. [3] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ (24 May, 2015), https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html 233. [4] Craddock, 219. [5] Author unknown. Seek-and-Seek Seek-and-Seek Print 321 Please login or register to post comments.