Find and Seek

Christ the King 2008
(Ezek 34: 11-16, 20-24; Ps 100; Eph 1: 15-23; Mt 25: 31-46)


Butch the Lutheran is pastor of a church seven blocks from here. I asked him once, before entering his church to celebrate another great feast, what that feast meant. Butch the Lutheran gave me a long level look. He said, “To seek out the lost.”

Today is Christ the King, a different feast. But seeking out the lost is on the agenda again. Today we hear in the Hebrew Scripture that God will search for the lost, will seek them out, will find them wherever they have gone. I’m glad, because I get lost a lot. I get lost in my own fears, my own anger and impatience, my own lack of faith and trust. What should be most precious to me gets lost too—my call as a baptized Christian, my call as a priest, my flock, my family and friends. Above all my God gets lost. I get lost in my false self and lose sight of the God who is always before me, about me, within me.

Today, on the feast of Christ the King, we are all invited to approach the altar because we’re glad we’ve been found. We’re glad that there is a patient and passionate God who seeks us out in whatever blind alley we’ve run into, who reaches into every corner and dead-end we’re wandered into. We are the scattered who are gathered together. We are the lost who are found.

Ironically, we’re found first by the one for whom we were searching. Ephesians says “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”

We have been found by God, not just to stay quietly at home, but so we may exult, we may search further, we may grow and deepen. Another wise young friend of mine says that her call, and the call of her church, is “to love and explore Christ.”

We are those who have been found by God. We are those whose desire has been kindled to “love and explore Christ.” And I pray that we become more deeply just this sort of community—grateful that we have been found, eager to love and explore Jesus Christ, Christ whose feast proclaims him King.

But will we know this King when we meet him?

Today’s Gospel tells us that all people have one thing in common. None of us recognize the King when we meet him. This story tells of radical incarnation—the King whom we proclaim is truly within the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, those on the edge. The King of the Gospel is the hidden King—hidden within the flesh of those wounded and in greatest need.

Thank the hidden King that we have been found. Thank the hidden King that our desire and longing has been kindled to seek his face. And thank God that the hidden King has given us this clue, this tale of where he may be found. Know him who has first known us. Seek him who has searched for us in every corner in which we have hidden. See and welcome him within people whose pain and struggle are his throne and his crown.

Welcome today, as our pledges and offerings commit ourselves to seek and serve the hidden King who has first found us and gathered us here. Welcome, as each of us brings the unique gift of our lives to help us all, all Saints Peter and Paul, become more deeply who we truly are.