A Liturgy of Searching (Week 31, Mar 26)
Introduction
Instead of the normal format of some remarks followed by a few questions for response and reflection, this week we are providing an entry to facilitate a time of prayer through responsive reading.
This week’s liturgy comprises two halves: our search for God, and God’s search for us. The first half begins by prayerfully acknowledging two difficult truths; namely, that at times our search for God ranges from being nonexistent to disingenuous, and that even when our search is in earnest, there are times when it still feels as though we haven’t found Him. It then moves to giving voice to the lifelong dance between God’s beckoning and our genuine desire to find Him, coming to rest with the promise that He will indeed be found when we seek with our whole heart.
The second half pulls from the story of the garden and the Text of Psalm 139 and focuses us on what, for me, is the bass note of all creation—that though we go to great lengths to run and hide (for many understandable reasons), God never stops searching for us. It ends with the celebrations from the threefold parable in Luke 15, calling us to remember once more that God is very good at finding what He looks for, and He always rejoices when He finds it.
This liturgy is intended to be read aloud, with one person taking the parts of the leader, and everyone else reading the “All” parts in unison. If you are reading this alone, you are still encouraged to go through it; feel free to read every part aloud to yourself.
Our Search for God
LEADER:
If God—such a God as any adult religion believes in—exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or any farther from Him than you are at this very moment. You can neither reach Him nor avoid Him by travelling to Alpha Centauri or even to other galaxies. A fish is no more, and no less, in the sea after it has swum a thousand miles than it was when it set out.
How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid Him?
The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation.
– C. S. Lewis, “The Seeing Eye,” Christian Reflections
ALL:
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
LEADER:
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.”
ALL:
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
LEADER:
I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded.
They will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
They shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
ALL:
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
LEADER:
“I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.
You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”
ALL:
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
LEADER:
Sometimes God hides. Sometimes what I might first name God’s absence
is in fact God’s hiding. In a sense, God hides amid all the many divine metaphors and similes that litter the scriptures. This is a God who conceals and reveals, who gives and takes away—for our edification? For our growth? For God’s own whimsical pleasure?
The self-hiding God is not one whose end is to stay hidden. The self-hiding God is also, at the same moment, the God who self-discloses, so that God might be found, by us.
God has a habit of hiding in the same places; thus, we know where to look, and indeed the Bible spells out where many of these places are: God hides in bread and wine, in silence, in gardens, in cities, in prisons, in hunger and privation and poverty, in song.
Says the prophet Jeremiah, “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”
– Lauren Winner, Wearing God
LEADER:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you, declares the Lord.
ALL:
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
LEADER:
Seek my face.
ALL:
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
LEADER:
Seek my face.
ALL:
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
LEADER:
Seek my face.
ALL:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
LEADER:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you, declares the Lord.
God’s Search for Us
LEADER:
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”
ALL:
I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I could count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
LEADER:
Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.
ALL:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
LEADER:
Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin I had lost.
ALL:
Where shall I flee from your presence?
LEADER:
Let us celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.
ALL:
I awake, and I am still with you.
LEADER:
Where are you?
ALL:
I awake, and I am still with you.